PAUL ELUARD by Carolyn Cotchett Submitted as an ..., Lectures de Culture allemande

Télécharge PAUL ELUARD by Carolyn Cotchett Submitted as an ... et plus Lectures au format PDF de Culture allemande sur Docsity uniquement! PAUL ELUARD by Carolyn Cotchett Submitted as an Honors Paper in the Department of Romance Languages Woman's College of the University of Worth Carolina Greensboro 1957-1958 Apprroved by dos " Director : Kandre Examining Committee RE Tati Mate br. LAS É WU & son TABL3 OF CONTENTS I Biography 1 II Intellectual and Historical Background 11 III A-The Critics Evaluate Bluard as a Surrealist 20 B-Resistance and "Litterature 3ngagee" 2h IV Subject "atter in Bluard's Poetry 2? V Appendix A-Ircagery 36 B-Yersification ^° VI Bibliography ^5 BIOGRAPHY 1 Paul Eluard, or to call him by his rightful nane, Eugene Grindel, was born in Saint-Denis (a suburb of Paris) on December 1!^, 1895.1 Both of his parents were of the working class: his mother was a seamstress, and his Father, an accountant.2 lie spent his first years at Saint-Denis and at Aulnay-sous-Bois; then his family roved into Paris, to a house on rue Louis-Blanc, situated in a working-class district in the dixieme arrondissement near the Gare de l'Est and Gare du TTord. TTe lived there between the ages of twelve and sixteen. He attended an ccole la?que3 and then the 3cole Colbert, a technical college (high school level). His studies there were interrupted by tuberculosis in 1912. The nature of his illness required that he move to the mountains, so he went to Switzerland and spent a year and a half there in a sanatorium at Davos. T!e spent the time reading widely of many poets: Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Lautreamont, the "poetes maudits", and the new poets, Apollinaire and Vildrac.1*- -^Pierre Brodin, Presences conterrooraines (vol.1. Paris: Houvelles Editions Debresse, 19r>5)> p. 105. °Ibid. 3The "ecoles lalques" are the uublic schools of the State. Reorganized by the Third Republic in 1883, they are neutral in the matter of religion. In fact, the teachers are as a whole, intellectual heirs of the Trench Revolution (neriod of the Convention). They have been, since the end of the nineteenth century, "leftists", unionized, and stauncn enenies of the Roman Catholic Church. !'Dictionna.ire blflgrapMflfla francals contemporain. (Paris: Edition Pharos, 1950), p.207. While he was in Switzerland, he met Gala, his first love, whom he was to marry in 1917. He returned, cured, to Paris In 191^, only to leave again, for the war front. He served in the army as a hospital attendant, then as an infantryman. He was badly gassed in 1917> and developed gangrene of the lungs. After the war, he returned to Paris. There, he met Andre" Breton, Louis Aragon, Philippe Soupault, Tristan Tzara, and Picabia, some of the future Surrealists. (He became friendly with Jean Paulhan in 1918; his friend v;rote the preface to Guard's Exemples in 1921.5) With these men, he participated in the Dadaist movement.° "luard had been writing poetry before the war, memories for the most part of his stay in Switzerland and accounts of his love for Gala; but his first volume, Le Devoir et 1»Inquietude, was published in 1917. "With his friends, he signed the first Surrealist tracts and manifestos...."7 In 1920, his Les Animaux et leurs Hommes was published. Several poems in the volume are dedicated to painters he met ^Brodin, joe, cit. 6Dictlonna1re bloe^nblnue franca is nont,eprooraln« P»207. 7Ibid. About the year 1931, the name of ITusch, his new love, began to appear In his poetry. She inspired many of his poer.s. (She died in 19li-6; they had known a very happy married life. When they were married has not been ascertained. )lS La Vie immediate, which appeared in 1932, spoke of solitude as a "cruel enemy".19 Cries of despair appear at times in his 1936 publication, Les Yeiix fertiles: but several poems in it are dedicated to Husch and to love.20 Guard's political sentiments are clearly affirned in the last poem of this volume, "Critique de la poesie".21 £a ?,OSG nublicme. published in 193^? contains "the most surrealistic of his poems".22 31uard was quite affected by the Spanish Civil War, which began in July 1936. fie had visited Madrid earlier that year, had made many friends, and had composed there sore of the poems for Les Yeux fertiles.23 He was very lSvery little is known of the personal life of Paul lluard. Even his good friend and biographer, the communist Louis Parrot, warns the reader of that. ^Brodin, loc. cit. 20Brodin, o£. cit.. p.110. 21lbid. 22Louis Parrot, Pa^ Bluard (Paris: ISditions Pierre Seghers, 19W, p.?3. 23Brodin, op. cit., p.111. 6 conscious of, and sympathetic towards, the plight of the Spanish people." Prom that year on, "without abandoning his personal vein and the surrealist forms, he engaged himself in writing la po^sie militante".25 Cours naturel, in 193% was "witness of the poet's political occupations".26 1938 is very significant, for it was the year Eluard broke with Breton and the Surrealist influence.27 Chanson complete, in 1939» "accentuates the passing from the dream to reality".28 Also published that year was Dormer a voir. which "contains some of the most dense, the most significant of Sluard's prose poems".29 World War II broke out, and Sluard was mobilized for the second time. After the Armistice of June, 19^0, he gave everything he could to the Resistance movement.30 He undertook with Jean de Lescure the publication of j'Honneur 2^IIe had written in L*Evidence noetiaue that same year that "the time has come for poets to proclaim their right and duty to maintain that they are deeply involved in the life of other men in communal life". 25Dictlonnaire bingranhiaue.... p.207. 26Brodin, ££. c^t., p.111. 27cecil Arthur TIackett, Anthology of Modern EkiBfifa Poetry (New York: The MacMillan Co.), p.277. 28Brodin,o_p.. £ifc.» p.112. 2?Ibid. 30lbid. dfts Poetes31 and Surone32 an(j helped with the edition arid in the distribution of clandestine papers, and put brochures of propaganda into shape.33 "What Eluard wrote during the trying years could...fall into two groups: the directly circumstantial verse representing the basic color of events and his subtler interpretations of disaster. "31*- In 19^2, Eluard became a member of the underground Communist party.35 "His was an idealistic communism, as unpolitical as possible, which developed late...."36 His becoming a member of the Communist party was A move which seemed a natural corollary to resistance, and to which he was drawn by his intensely human feeling for the solidarity of mankind....What 31"A collection of poems by unknown or anonymous authors brought together" under this title. This little anthology ourports to participate, in the name of all French poets, in the "struggle for national liberation and international freedom". Edouard Roditi, "Poetry is News," Poetry. 6*+: 53, April, 19Mf. 32Louis Parrot, "The Poet and the War," Selected Writings of Paul Sluard Clew York: New Directions, 1951)» pp.xxiii-xxiv. 33Brodin, e&. cit.« p.113- 3^Anna Balakian, "The Post-Surrealism of Aragon and Sluard," Yale French Studies. 1(2):93, Fall-Winter, 19^8. 3^Brodin, loc. cit. 36Geoffrey Brereton, A Short History of French Literature (London: Pelican Books, 195^)» P»31*» 10 affairs, mainly from the aspect of cultural relations. He was ambassador of the new poetry and travelled extensively... From 191+8 to 1950, he Took part in various congres de la paix. At the Congres de Mexico, in 19*+9> he met Dominique. This is the companion of his last days, the one who is celebrated in Le Phenix (1951)1 the last work of the poet published during his lifetime.. ..^"7 Eluard died of pneumonia at Charenton, near Paris, on November 18, 1952, at the age of fifty-six.W -if 6 WT %unitz, op.. £it., P«306. ^Brodin, oj£. all-» P»ll6. ^"Obituaries," Wilson Libr^v Bulletin (No.5), 27:3^, January, 1953. 11 INTELLECTUAL AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND The Dreyfus Affair, which extended over the years from lSffr to 1906, had shaken France to her roots, and had sharply divided public opinion into two violently opposing camps. The Church and the Army were both involved because of the nature of the dispute. Dreyfus, an army officer who happened to be Jewish in religion and republican in politics, was found guilty of treason by a military court and deported to Devil's Island. Evidence accumulated showing his innocence, and indicating that another officer, an aristocrat, a Catholic and Royalist, was the true traitor. The Army and the "best" people refused to reopen the Dreyfus case because they wished to disgrace the whole republican regime. The partisans of Dreyfus stubbornly upheld him, both because they believed in justice and because they wished to discredit their adversaries. Dreyfus was finally exonerated in 1906.1 The two opposing camps in politics were the Republicans, which included all liberals, socialists, and leftists in general; and the Conservatives, which included the Royalists and the Clericals. The Republicans finally won a signal victory over the "Reaction", to get the upper hand, with Dreyfus' acquittal and rehabilitation in 1906. As a result of the Affair, the role of the Army in relationship to the nation was reconsidered. A strong feeling of anti-militarism, its strength indicated by the Affair2, developed before World War I was even declared. 1R. R. Palmer, A History flOjl Modern World (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953) > p.5»7. 2EncvcloperH fl TVMtannica. IX, 635. 12 Anti-clericalism was evolved by atheists and agnostics, "here was a thorough dissatisfaction with capitalism. Liberalism was the cult of the Revolution. The Socialists, evoking the Declaration de l'TIomme et du Citoyen from revolutionary days, demanded social reforms for the working class. This lutte sociale continued strongly up until 191k» In fact, from 1900 on, the direction of the Partie Socialiste imifiee in Trance had passed from the hands of the Reformists into the hands of the Karxists. Anti-militarism was greatly increased by the horror at the manslaughter of the 191')- War, which eventually took from France at least one future generation of promising young men, and with them, a certain amount of hope for France herself. The war was a surprise to the French.3 It evoked indignation at first; then anger, disgust and horror. It was a "spontaneous, sudden and strongly emotional reaction, following immediately the first bewildering shock "* To many, it was just not "their" war. The Russian Revolution of 1917 naturally caused a great amount of attention, but especially did it interest the men who had lodged the social protests. Here was a new way to get action—open, violent revolution. Of course, the Conservative element remained obdurate in their 3Albert Schinz, SEiaftb literature of the Great War New York: D. Apple ton & Company, 1920), pO. k l Ibid., p.l. 1? There came for those surviving intellectuals a Period of calm philosophical consideration of all that was involved in the gigantic struggle characterized hy a reconsideration of the past, a weighing of the present, and especially an effort to prepare for the future.13 There were reasons for World War I coming as a shock to the French. Various philosophies prevailed which were Severally and jointly responsible for...serious apathy in France.... Sentimental socialism based on a naive belief in the brotherhood of nations... Utopian socialism which appealed more especially to the masses, assumed among the middle classes, who claim to stand on a somewhat higher intellectual level, the form of moralism...based on the assumption that there exists in all men an identical moral conscience, which...does not, and cannot vary from one man to another....Most beautiful of all... but philosophically unsound...Intuitionism Eergsonisfl ...anti-intellectualism...subjectivism.P+Jx* To do nothing, to know nothing, to think nothing, to doubt everything, which led to a denial of God, was the thesis of Dadaism, l'anarchie pure, the creation of Tristan Tzara, a transplanted pacifist Rumanian writer. The Dadaist movement reached its heights in 1919; but internal disagree- ment hastened its decline, and it disappeared about 1921.1? This was to "a cult of sensation"l6—that is, a domination of thought by sensation and instinct, where memory is dis- 13Schinz, oji. cit.» p.l. ^IMd., p.2*f2. i^Carrouges, ££. cit.* p.10. 16Anna Balakian, U fcarjjffl BElllM of ^ Clew York: King's Crown Press, 19^/)j p.!3°» 16 claimed. The ideal of Dada "poetry" was "the absurd as manifested by the use of the wrong word".17 Its motto was "comais pas".l°' By denying logic to his mind, and by making it follow its sudden and unreasonable impulses, the "poet" arrives at "automatic writing".19 This was taken over by the Surrealists, for their work was "the expression of unconscious reactions...a spontaneous reaction, instinctive ...the only one...which is able to perceive the true truth, since it is natural, and not deformed by habit or by artificial conventions".20 L'e"criture automatique joue un role capital dans le surrealisme. Ce role est si essentiol que c'est la decowverte de l'e'criture automatique qui a constitue l'acte de la naissance du surrealisme. 311e est iTlbid., p.133. iSpierre-Kenri Simon, Histoire d* la littorature grangal&g &jj SCe si'cle (Paris: Librairie *-rmand Colin, 1957), vol.1, p.138. 19"Faites-vous armorter de quoi ecrire, apres vous etre etabli en un lieu aussi favorable que possible a la concentration de votre esorit sur lui-meme. Placez-vous dans l'etat le TDIUS t>assif, ou receptif, que vous pourrez... 3crivez vite sans sujet preconcu, assez vite pour ne pas retenir et ne pas etre tente de vous relire. La premiere phrase viendra toute seule, tant il est vrai qu'a chaoue secorfie il est une ohrase etrangere a notre pensee consciente qui ne demande qu'a*s'exterioriser...." Andre Breton, Premier i:anifeste du Surrealisme. ^Le*on Verriest, T,'»™'"*1on de la 11 ttdrafrge francalse (New York: Harper & Bros. Publishers, 195^, 17 1'axe central de 1'experience surrealiste.2! The Surrealist looks With contempt upon the exterior world... regards the Christian concept of the infinite and that of the Pantheist as a complete failure. According to him Christianity and pantheistic philosophy keep humanity as fully imprisoned in the external world as naturalism or realism....22 Surrealism.is not a philosophy in the academic sense of the word, Since it matters little to it to demonstrate arguments in building up series of abstract reason- ings. It is immersed right in life and not in the zone of abstractions. Yet it is a philosophy in the greatest sense of the word, for it explains a new conception of the world and it searches for possession of the universe.23 Surrealism (known as Superrealisme before 1911*-) was not designed to appeal to a very wide audience, because it was "too dependent on its power to shock the bourgeoisie".2^ The Surrealists "attempted to loosen the gates of the subconscious in the hope that pure poetry would issue forth".2? Surrealism...widened the boundaries of associations and made all types of material available, restricting the poet to no one type of reality.... 21Carrouges, £&* cit.« p.l26. 22Balakian, £Q,. £it., p.10. 23carrouges, 22.. cit»« p.9» *H. R. Hays, "Surrealist Influence J^^^S English and American Poetry," UM&L, ^:202, July, 1939. 25'lbid., p.203. 20 THE CRITICS EVALUATE ELUARD AS A SURREALIST Eluard is considered of great significance in relation- ship to Surrealism, which he himself considered as a "state of ir.ind".! K. D. Zabel refers to him as "a Surrealist master"2 and "one of the fundamentalists of Surrealist doctrine"3 in connection with Eluard's Thorns of Thunder. Zabel claims that Eluard's images attain "a level not commonly reached by members of the Surrealist school".1* Wallace Powlie considers him to be "the greatest poet from Surrealism".5 Henri Clouard calls him "the master of Surrealistic poetry".6 Geoffrey Brereton says that, "as a poet, Paul Eluard was born with surrealism," and that the poet found his "true affinities" in that movement.7 Eluard and Jean Cocteau are considered to be lPaul Eluard, L'Evidence poetiaue. 2K. D. Zabel, "A Surrealist Master," Poetry. 131+:31+7, September, 1936. 3lbid. h. Ibid., p.3^9. Wallace Fowlie, A Guide to Contemporary French Literature (New York: Meridian Books, 1957)» p.24-1. Sllenri Clouard, Histoire do la litterature francais. ■-■ ■ Michel, 19*9)> PP-±56-157. (vol.11. Paris: Editions Albin B ^Geoffrey Brereton, Introduction to the tLSOUfr BMJft (Fairlawn, New Jersey: Essential Books, Inc., 1957;» P-^/5. 21 "the best products of Surrealism".8 Simon refers to him as "le plus humain et le plus valable des poetes surrealistes".9 Hackett sends, at first, a note of query among all t>.ese affirmations. Eluard is a natural poet, and it may he only a coincidence that his best poems belong to the time when he was a Surrealist. It is certain, however, that his technique was refined and sharpened and his development accelerated under this influence, and he remains their most important poet.l° According to Kackett, Eluard's "best poetry" was that written between 1918 and 191k, the period of early surrealism.1]- "He simplified Surrealism but never abandoned it," asserts Geoffrey Brereton. In Introduction to the French Poeis12 Brereton says that "Surrealism merely brought an increased mystery and depth to his fundamentally simple songs inspired by emotional depth". Wallace Fowlie says of nnT.1i-.ale de Ta douleuj., published in 1926, %. R. Hays, "Surrealist Trrfluence in Con-bempox-ary English and American Poetry," Poetry, 5^:208, July, 1939- 9pierre-Henri Simon. TT1st.o1re fcLJJ Ugjjgffigft- iqw francos* ailJg siecle fParis: Librairie Armand Colin, 1957* pp.lOH-109. (vol.11) lOcecil Arthur Hackett, ^ ^ntnnlof^ of ^«rn y«Rffh Poetry (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1952), p.<V/. 1]-Ibid.. p.278. 12Brereton,loc. cit. 22 Even in this work, composed when Eluard was closest to the doctrines of Breton, there are very few traces of Surrealist exaggerations. The freedom with which he used words may have been encouraged by Surrealist teaching, however.*3 "He generally retained the basic surrealist tendency, to disregard arbitrary divisions between the concrete and abstract worlds," according to Anna Balakian.llf L'evolution d'Eluard est analogue a celle d'Aragonl? mais tardive. Les poemes de sa premiere maniere, recueillis dans Cagitale de la douleur (1926), L*Amour la Poesie (1929). La Vie iir.rr.ddiate (1932), La Rose oubliaue (193*0, Les Yeux fertiles (1936), illustrent par des populaires chevauchements entre le monde reel et le monde du reve, 1'attitude surrealiste. II renonce a une inspiration uniquement subjective....I" Andre" Rousseaux was a good friend of Eluard for some years, and is very favorable toward his work; he devotes an entire chapter to him in his Litterature du IC'Ze siecle. Rousseaux says that "Eluard est 1'un des surrealistes qui ont conduit le plus loin 1'exploration lucide de l'inconscient onirique".17 In his opinion, "il n'y a guere ^Wallace Fowlie, Mid-Century French Poets (Hew York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1955), p.172. llfAnna Balakian, "The Post-Surrealism of Aragon and Eluard," Yale French Studies. 1(2): 98-99, Fall-Winter, 19^. ^"...from Surrealism to Resistance and thence to Communism. But the order, like the emphasis, was difxerent. Geoffrey Brereton, A Short HJstory of French Literature (London: Pelican Books, 195*0, p.311)-. l6Pierre-Georges Castex, l-ianuel des Etudes litteraires. francalses (Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1953), p./0. 17Andre Rousseaux, Litterature djj :cce sifecle (Paris: Editions Albin Michel, 1955), p.61. 25 movement.^" Poetry was no longer considered as a means of pure aesthetic delight or of private evasion; it became a weapon against despair, as Eluard called it, "les armes de la douleur".5 Sdouard Roditi, commenting on wartime writing at the height of the war, says, Poetry apparently packs a wallop, and the French underground knows that poetry can strike deeply and leave a more lasting mark than many other propaganda forms." As for Eluard, During the four years of German occupation... his writing became the poetic chronicle of the new terrorism. It was used as propaganda throughout the maquis. But for Eluard these poems were not purely oropagandistic or circumstantial. They are on themes he has sung since his earliest poetry of 1918./ He achieves the "heights of simple eloquence" with his poem "Liberte" ("Une Seule PenseV').8 Cyril Connolly thinks that this poem exemplifies the refusal of the French ll"Don Louis Demorest.ed., French Civilization through riction (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1956)> p.112. 5 John L. Brown, "Poets of the Resistance," Commonweal, ^2:1(51, August 21)-, 19^5. 6Edouard Roditi, "Poetry is Hews," Poetry., 6*t:?5, April, 19I&. 7Wallace Fowlie, wrt-ftent.urv French Poets (Hew York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1955)» P»172. Sjustin O'Brien, oji. £i£., wJM, PAUL ELUARD by Carolyn Cotchett Submitted as an Honors Paper in the Department of Romance Languages Woman's College of the University of Worth Carolina Greensboro 1957-1958 Apprroved by dos " Director : Kandre Examining Committee RE Tati Mate br. LAS É WU & son TABL3 OF CONTENTS I Biography 1 II Intellectual and Historical Background 11 III A-The Critics Evaluate Bluard as a Surrealist 20 B-Resistance and "Litterature 3ngagee" 2h IV Subject "atter in Bluard's Poetry 2? V Appendix A-Ircagery 36 B-Yersification ^° VI Bibliography ^5 BIOGRAPHY 1 Paul Eluard, or to call him by his rightful nane, Eugene Grindel, was born in Saint-Denis (a suburb of Paris) on December 1!^, 1895.1 Both of his parents were of the working class: his mother was a seamstress, and his Father, an accountant.2 lie spent his first years at Saint-Denis and at Aulnay-sous-Bois; then his family roved into Paris, to a house on rue Louis-Blanc, situated in a working-class district in the dixieme arrondissement near the Gare de l'Est and Gare du TTord. TTe lived there between the ages of twelve and sixteen. He attended an ccole la?que3 and then the 3cole Colbert, a technical college (high school level). His studies there were interrupted by tuberculosis in 1912. The nature of his illness required that he move to the mountains, so he went to Switzerland and spent a year and a half there in a sanatorium at Davos. T!e spent the time reading widely of many poets: Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Lautreamont, the "poetes maudits", and the new poets, Apollinaire and Vildrac.1*- -^Pierre Brodin, Presences conterrooraines (vol.1. Paris: Houvelles Editions Debresse, 19r>5)> p. 105. °Ibid. 3The "ecoles lalques" are the uublic schools of the State. Reorganized by the Third Republic in 1883, they are neutral in the matter of religion. In fact, the teachers are as a whole, intellectual heirs of the Trench Revolution (neriod of the Convention). They have been, since the end of the nineteenth century, "leftists", unionized, and stauncn enenies of the Roman Catholic Church. !'Dictionna.ire blflgrapMflfla francals contemporain. (Paris: Edition Pharos, 1950), p.207. While he was in Switzerland, he met Gala, his first love, whom he was to marry in 1917. He returned, cured, to Paris In 191^, only to leave again, for the war front. He served in the army as a hospital attendant, then as an infantryman. He was badly gassed in 1917> and developed gangrene of the lungs. After the war, he returned to Paris. There, he met Andre" Breton, Louis Aragon, Philippe Soupault, Tristan Tzara, and Picabia, some of the future Surrealists. (He became friendly with Jean Paulhan in 1918; his friend v;rote the preface to Guard's Exemples in 1921.5) With these men, he participated in the Dadaist movement.° "luard had been writing poetry before the war, memories for the most part of his stay in Switzerland and accounts of his love for Gala; but his first volume, Le Devoir et 1»Inquietude, was published in 1917. "With his friends, he signed the first Surrealist tracts and manifestos...."7 In 1920, his Les Animaux et leurs Hommes was published. Several poems in the volume are dedicated to painters he met ^Brodin, joe, cit. 6Dictlonna1re bloe^nblnue franca is nont,eprooraln« P»207. 7Ibid. About the year 1931, the name of ITusch, his new love, began to appear In his poetry. She inspired many of his poer.s. (She died in 19li-6; they had known a very happy married life. When they were married has not been ascertained. )lS La Vie immediate, which appeared in 1932, spoke of solitude as a "cruel enemy".19 Cries of despair appear at times in his 1936 publication, Les Yeiix fertiles: but several poems in it are dedicated to Husch and to love.20 Guard's political sentiments are clearly affirned in the last poem of this volume, "Critique de la poesie".21 £a ?,OSG nublicme. published in 193^? contains "the most surrealistic of his poems".22 31uard was quite affected by the Spanish Civil War, which began in July 1936. fie had visited Madrid earlier that year, had made many friends, and had composed there sore of the poems for Les Yeux fertiles.23 He was very lSvery little is known of the personal life of Paul lluard. Even his good friend and biographer, the communist Louis Parrot, warns the reader of that. ^Brodin, loc. cit. 20Brodin, o£. cit.. p.110. 21lbid. 22Louis Parrot, Pa^ Bluard (Paris: ISditions Pierre Seghers, 19W, p.?3. 23Brodin, op. cit., p.111. 6 conscious of, and sympathetic towards, the plight of the Spanish people." Prom that year on, "without abandoning his personal vein and the surrealist forms, he engaged himself in writing la po^sie militante".25 Cours naturel, in 193% was "witness of the poet's political occupations".26 1938 is very significant, for it was the year Eluard broke with Breton and the Surrealist influence.27 Chanson complete, in 1939» "accentuates the passing from the dream to reality".28 Also published that year was Dormer a voir. which "contains some of the most dense, the most significant of Sluard's prose poems".29 World War II broke out, and Sluard was mobilized for the second time. After the Armistice of June, 19^0, he gave everything he could to the Resistance movement.30 He undertook with Jean de Lescure the publication of j'Honneur 2^IIe had written in L*Evidence noetiaue that same year that "the time has come for poets to proclaim their right and duty to maintain that they are deeply involved in the life of other men in communal life". 25Dictlonnaire bingranhiaue.... p.207. 26Brodin, ££. c^t., p.111. 27cecil Arthur TIackett, Anthology of Modern EkiBfifa Poetry (New York: The MacMillan Co.), p.277. 28Brodin,o_p.. £ifc.» p.112. 2?Ibid. 30lbid. dfts Poetes31 and Surone32 an(j helped with the edition arid in the distribution of clandestine papers, and put brochures of propaganda into shape.33 "What Eluard wrote during the trying years could...fall into two groups: the directly circumstantial verse representing the basic color of events and his subtler interpretations of disaster. "31*- In 19^2, Eluard became a member of the underground Communist party.35 "His was an idealistic communism, as unpolitical as possible, which developed late...."36 His becoming a member of the Communist party was A move which seemed a natural corollary to resistance, and to which he was drawn by his intensely human feeling for the solidarity of mankind....What 31"A collection of poems by unknown or anonymous authors brought together" under this title. This little anthology ourports to participate, in the name of all French poets, in the "struggle for national liberation and international freedom". Edouard Roditi, "Poetry is News," Poetry. 6*+: 53, April, 19Mf. 32Louis Parrot, "The Poet and the War," Selected Writings of Paul Sluard Clew York: New Directions, 1951)» pp.xxiii-xxiv. 33Brodin, e&. cit.« p.113- 3^Anna Balakian, "The Post-Surrealism of Aragon and Sluard," Yale French Studies. 1(2):93, Fall-Winter, 19^8. 3^Brodin, loc. cit. 36Geoffrey Brereton, A Short History of French Literature (London: Pelican Books, 195^)» P»31*» 10 affairs, mainly from the aspect of cultural relations. He was ambassador of the new poetry and travelled extensively... From 191+8 to 1950, he Took part in various congres de la paix. At the Congres de Mexico, in 19*+9> he met Dominique. This is the companion of his last days, the one who is celebrated in Le Phenix (1951)1 the last work of the poet published during his lifetime.. ..^"7 Eluard died of pneumonia at Charenton, near Paris, on November 18, 1952, at the age of fifty-six.W -if 6 WT %unitz, op.. £it., P«306. ^Brodin, oj£. all-» P»ll6. ^"Obituaries," Wilson Libr^v Bulletin (No.5), 27:3^, January, 1953. 11 INTELLECTUAL AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND The Dreyfus Affair, which extended over the years from lSffr to 1906, had shaken France to her roots, and had sharply divided public opinion into two violently opposing camps. The Church and the Army were both involved because of the nature of the dispute. Dreyfus, an army officer who happened to be Jewish in religion and republican in politics, was found guilty of treason by a military court and deported to Devil's Island. Evidence accumulated showing his innocence, and indicating that another officer, an aristocrat, a Catholic and Royalist, was the true traitor. The Army and the "best" people refused to reopen the Dreyfus case because they wished to disgrace the whole republican regime. The partisans of Dreyfus stubbornly upheld him, both because they believed in justice and because they wished to discredit their adversaries. Dreyfus was finally exonerated in 1906.1 The two opposing camps in politics were the Republicans, which included all liberals, socialists, and leftists in general; and the Conservatives, which included the Royalists and the Clericals. The Republicans finally won a signal victory over the "Reaction", to get the upper hand, with Dreyfus' acquittal and rehabilitation in 1906. As a result of the Affair, the role of the Army in relationship to the nation was reconsidered. A strong feeling of anti-militarism, its strength indicated by the Affair2, developed before World War I was even declared. 1R. R. Palmer, A History flOjl Modern World (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953) > p.5»7. 2EncvcloperH fl TVMtannica. IX, 635. 12 Anti-clericalism was evolved by atheists and agnostics, "here was a thorough dissatisfaction with capitalism. Liberalism was the cult of the Revolution. The Socialists, evoking the Declaration de l'TIomme et du Citoyen from revolutionary days, demanded social reforms for the working class. This lutte sociale continued strongly up until 191k» In fact, from 1900 on, the direction of the Partie Socialiste imifiee in Trance had passed from the hands of the Reformists into the hands of the Karxists. Anti-militarism was greatly increased by the horror at the manslaughter of the 191')- War, which eventually took from France at least one future generation of promising young men, and with them, a certain amount of hope for France herself. The war was a surprise to the French.3 It evoked indignation at first; then anger, disgust and horror. It was a "spontaneous, sudden and strongly emotional reaction, following immediately the first bewildering shock "* To many, it was just not "their" war. The Russian Revolution of 1917 naturally caused a great amount of attention, but especially did it interest the men who had lodged the social protests. Here was a new way to get action—open, violent revolution. Of course, the Conservative element remained obdurate in their 3Albert Schinz, SEiaftb literature of the Great War New York: D. Apple ton & Company, 1920), pO. k l Ibid., p.l. 1? There came for those surviving intellectuals a Period of calm philosophical consideration of all that was involved in the gigantic struggle characterized hy a reconsideration of the past, a weighing of the present, and especially an effort to prepare for the future.13 There were reasons for World War I coming as a shock to the French. Various philosophies prevailed which were Severally and jointly responsible for...serious apathy in France.... Sentimental socialism based on a naive belief in the brotherhood of nations... Utopian socialism which appealed more especially to the masses, assumed among the middle classes, who claim to stand on a somewhat higher intellectual level, the form of moralism...based on the assumption that there exists in all men an identical moral conscience, which...does not, and cannot vary from one man to another....Most beautiful of all... but philosophically unsound...Intuitionism Eergsonisfl ...anti-intellectualism...subjectivism.P+Jx* To do nothing, to know nothing, to think nothing, to doubt everything, which led to a denial of God, was the thesis of Dadaism, l'anarchie pure, the creation of Tristan Tzara, a transplanted pacifist Rumanian writer. The Dadaist movement reached its heights in 1919; but internal disagree- ment hastened its decline, and it disappeared about 1921.1? This was to "a cult of sensation"l6—that is, a domination of thought by sensation and instinct, where memory is dis- 13Schinz, oji. cit.» p.l. ^IMd., p.2*f2. i^Carrouges, ££. cit.* p.10. 16Anna Balakian, U fcarjjffl BElllM of ^ Clew York: King's Crown Press, 19^/)j p.!3°» 16 claimed. The ideal of Dada "poetry" was "the absurd as manifested by the use of the wrong word".17 Its motto was "comais pas".l°' By denying logic to his mind, and by making it follow its sudden and unreasonable impulses, the "poet" arrives at "automatic writing".19 This was taken over by the Surrealists, for their work was "the expression of unconscious reactions...a spontaneous reaction, instinctive ...the only one...which is able to perceive the true truth, since it is natural, and not deformed by habit or by artificial conventions".20 L'e"criture automatique joue un role capital dans le surrealisme. Ce role est si essentiol que c'est la decowverte de l'e'criture automatique qui a constitue l'acte de la naissance du surrealisme. 311e est iTlbid., p.133. iSpierre-Kenri Simon, Histoire d* la littorature grangal&g &jj SCe si'cle (Paris: Librairie *-rmand Colin, 1957), vol.1, p.138. 19"Faites-vous armorter de quoi ecrire, apres vous etre etabli en un lieu aussi favorable que possible a la concentration de votre esorit sur lui-meme. Placez-vous dans l'etat le TDIUS t>assif, ou receptif, que vous pourrez... 3crivez vite sans sujet preconcu, assez vite pour ne pas retenir et ne pas etre tente de vous relire. La premiere phrase viendra toute seule, tant il est vrai qu'a chaoue secorfie il est une ohrase etrangere a notre pensee consciente qui ne demande qu'a*s'exterioriser...." Andre Breton, Premier i:anifeste du Surrealisme. ^Le*on Verriest, T,'»™'"*1on de la 11 ttdrafrge francalse (New York: Harper & Bros. Publishers, 195^, 17 1'axe central de 1'experience surrealiste.2! The Surrealist looks With contempt upon the exterior world... regards the Christian concept of the infinite and that of the Pantheist as a complete failure. According to him Christianity and pantheistic philosophy keep humanity as fully imprisoned in the external world as naturalism or realism....22 Surrealism.is not a philosophy in the academic sense of the word, Since it matters little to it to demonstrate arguments in building up series of abstract reason- ings. It is immersed right in life and not in the zone of abstractions. Yet it is a philosophy in the greatest sense of the word, for it explains a new conception of the world and it searches for possession of the universe.23 Surrealism (known as Superrealisme before 1911*-) was not designed to appeal to a very wide audience, because it was "too dependent on its power to shock the bourgeoisie".2^ The Surrealists "attempted to loosen the gates of the subconscious in the hope that pure poetry would issue forth".2? Surrealism...widened the boundaries of associations and made all types of material available, restricting the poet to no one type of reality.... 21Carrouges, £&* cit.« p.l26. 22Balakian, £Q,. £it., p.10. 23carrouges, 22.. cit»« p.9» *H. R. Hays, "Surrealist Influence J^^^S English and American Poetry," UM&L, ^:202, July, 1939. 25'lbid., p.203. 20 THE CRITICS EVALUATE ELUARD AS A SURREALIST Eluard is considered of great significance in relation- ship to Surrealism, which he himself considered as a "state of ir.ind".! K. D. Zabel refers to him as "a Surrealist master"2 and "one of the fundamentalists of Surrealist doctrine"3 in connection with Eluard's Thorns of Thunder. Zabel claims that Eluard's images attain "a level not commonly reached by members of the Surrealist school".1* Wallace Powlie considers him to be "the greatest poet from Surrealism".5 Henri Clouard calls him "the master of Surrealistic poetry".6 Geoffrey Brereton says that, "as a poet, Paul Eluard was born with surrealism," and that the poet found his "true affinities" in that movement.7 Eluard and Jean Cocteau are considered to be lPaul Eluard, L'Evidence poetiaue. 2K. D. Zabel, "A Surrealist Master," Poetry. 131+:31+7, September, 1936. 3lbid. h. Ibid., p.3^9. Wallace Fowlie, A Guide to Contemporary French Literature (New York: Meridian Books, 1957)» p.24-1. Sllenri Clouard, Histoire do la litterature francais. ■-■ ■ Michel, 19*9)> PP-±56-157. (vol.11. Paris: Editions Albin B ^Geoffrey Brereton, Introduction to the tLSOUfr BMJft (Fairlawn, New Jersey: Essential Books, Inc., 1957;» P-^/5. 21 "the best products of Surrealism".8 Simon refers to him as "le plus humain et le plus valable des poetes surrealistes".9 Hackett sends, at first, a note of query among all t>.ese affirmations. Eluard is a natural poet, and it may he only a coincidence that his best poems belong to the time when he was a Surrealist. It is certain, however, that his technique was refined and sharpened and his development accelerated under this influence, and he remains their most important poet.l° According to Kackett, Eluard's "best poetry" was that written between 1918 and 191k, the period of early surrealism.1]- "He simplified Surrealism but never abandoned it," asserts Geoffrey Brereton. In Introduction to the French Poeis12 Brereton says that "Surrealism merely brought an increased mystery and depth to his fundamentally simple songs inspired by emotional depth". Wallace Fowlie says of nnT.1i-.ale de Ta douleuj., published in 1926, %. R. Hays, "Surrealist Trrfluence in Con-bempox-ary English and American Poetry," Poetry, 5^:208, July, 1939- 9pierre-Henri Simon. TT1st.o1re fcLJJ Ugjjgffigft- iqw francos* ailJg siecle fParis: Librairie Armand Colin, 1957* pp.lOH-109. (vol.11) lOcecil Arthur Hackett, ^ ^ntnnlof^ of ^«rn y«Rffh Poetry (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1952), p.<V/. 1]-Ibid.. p.278. 12Brereton,loc. cit. 22 Even in this work, composed when Eluard was closest to the doctrines of Breton, there are very few traces of Surrealist exaggerations. The freedom with which he used words may have been encouraged by Surrealist teaching, however.*3 "He generally retained the basic surrealist tendency, to disregard arbitrary divisions between the concrete and abstract worlds," according to Anna Balakian.llf L'evolution d'Eluard est analogue a celle d'Aragonl? mais tardive. Les poemes de sa premiere maniere, recueillis dans Cagitale de la douleur (1926), L*Amour la Poesie (1929). La Vie iir.rr.ddiate (1932), La Rose oubliaue (193*0, Les Yeux fertiles (1936), illustrent par des populaires chevauchements entre le monde reel et le monde du reve, 1'attitude surrealiste. II renonce a une inspiration uniquement subjective....I" Andre" Rousseaux was a good friend of Eluard for some years, and is very favorable toward his work; he devotes an entire chapter to him in his Litterature du IC'Ze siecle. Rousseaux says that "Eluard est 1'un des surrealistes qui ont conduit le plus loin 1'exploration lucide de l'inconscient onirique".17 In his opinion, "il n'y a guere ^Wallace Fowlie, Mid-Century French Poets (Hew York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1955), p.172. llfAnna Balakian, "The Post-Surrealism of Aragon and Eluard," Yale French Studies. 1(2): 98-99, Fall-Winter, 19^. ^"...from Surrealism to Resistance and thence to Communism. But the order, like the emphasis, was difxerent. Geoffrey Brereton, A Short HJstory of French Literature (London: Pelican Books, 195*0, p.311)-. l6Pierre-Georges Castex, l-ianuel des Etudes litteraires. francalses (Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1953), p./0. 17Andre Rousseaux, Litterature djj :cce sifecle (Paris: Editions Albin Michel, 1955), p.61. 25 movement.^" Poetry was no longer considered as a means of pure aesthetic delight or of private evasion; it became a weapon against despair, as Eluard called it, "les armes de la douleur".5 Sdouard Roditi, commenting on wartime writing at the height of the war, says, Poetry apparently packs a wallop, and the French underground knows that poetry can strike deeply and leave a more lasting mark than many other propaganda forms." As for Eluard, During the four years of German occupation... his writing became the poetic chronicle of the new terrorism. It was used as propaganda throughout the maquis. But for Eluard these poems were not purely oropagandistic or circumstantial. They are on themes he has sung since his earliest poetry of 1918./ He achieves the "heights of simple eloquence" with his poem "Liberte" ("Une Seule PenseV').8 Cyril Connolly thinks that this poem exemplifies the refusal of the French ll"Don Louis Demorest.ed., French Civilization through riction (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1956)> p.112. 5 John L. Brown, "Poets of the Resistance," Commonweal, ^2:1(51, August 21)-, 19^5. 6Edouard Roditi, "Poetry is Hews," Poetry., 6*t:?5, April, 19I&. 7Wallace Fowlie, wrt-ftent.urv French Poets (Hew York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1955)» P»172. Sjustin O'Brien, oji. £i£., wJM, 26 Resistance to hate.9 "One might say that Aragon and Eluard remain "resist- ance" writers, and continue to fight the battle—which for them has become the policy of the communist party."10 Les poetes "de la resistance" que Benjamin Peret, au nom du surrealisme orthodoxe, n'a pas craint d>accuser de "deshonneur" parce qu'ils avaient mis la la nolsie au service de leur foi patriotique, ne sont pas" en raeine r>our trouver, dans l'histoire de la poesie,"des "precedents" qui les justifient.. .la liste est longue des pobtes qui ont tire de la fibre civiqtie des accents reellement poetiques.H In a review of Une Leonn, de morale, there was this to be said: In this collection, "comrunism" although ostensibly invoked, is never mentioned. However, its doctrines are shared by Eluard. And "fascism", which represents for the poet the curse of all humanity, is mentioned in several places in his volume. For Paul Eluard then, the lesson in morality resolves itself into the triumph of "ideal and benevolent" communistic principles over nefarious Fascism.12 9cyril Connolly, "Paris Regained (II)," MAW* l'0:65l-6?2, June 9, 19^5. l°Cyril Connolly, "Paris Regained (I)," fiftftttl 160:626-627, June 2, 19k5. 12Leroy J. Benoit, "Paul guard: Trench Review. 2l+:?05", Hay, 1951. Une Lecon de morale," 27 SUBJECT MATTER IN ELUARD'S POETRY Eluard is essentially a lyric poet, dealing with lyric their.es. His love, his essential lyric theme, plays the biggest part in his subject r.atter. This love is one of complete knowledge of the loved one, who yet remains a mystery. Eluard knew complete happiness as far as marital love was concerned. True, his marria-e to Gala did not succeed. But his marriage to ITusch for seventeen years inspired some of the most exquisite, sensual, erotic yet innocent and not distasteful, love poetry. There is a maturity in his poetry about Tlusch,which seems lacking in his earlier work, and the greatest poignancy of feoling at his loss in her death. His love is essentially a physical one.. He alludes to every aspect of the body: the hands, as a form of expression; the eyelids, a delicate, tender place; the eyes, which see, and which reflect; the breasts, a refuge, and a source of delight; the mouth, which speaks, kisses, and receives kisses. There is a hunger and a thirst in his love. This seems to be illustrated best in gfiEM memorable, published two years after his wife's death, in which the pent-up longing and bitter ache of his loss are made public. Wallace Fowlie offers the following, concerning the last eight lines of the final poem in "nr— fil U lfl» "Celle de t0^°^ toute" m tta nnpt's song is that mystery in T?e "yS*f*LfnKlioerated Itself. Creation which love created 28 is freedom. By the fact of his existing, he knows that woman exists and surrounds him at all moments. His principle is defined by his freedom to move within woman.1 On the death of Husch, Eluard acknowledges this, and accepts the collapse of that freedom in her passing, MaiS la mort a rompu l'equilibre du temps La mort qui vient la mort qui ya la mort vecue La mort visible bolt et mange a mes depens...^ 'ioman in his earlier poetry, whether he actually specifies her presence and addresses her directly, or just alludes to her by the agreement of his adjectives and past participles, is the material object through which he expresses every emotion, every sensation. Elle est debout sur mes paupieres... Bile a la forme de mes mains...3 Sainte ma femme, tu es a moi Men mieux qu'au temps... lWallace Towlie, ^rUf^nturv Trench Poets (Hew York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1955)> p.172. 2paul Eluard, "Notre Vie," frj Tftnms deborde (19^7). 3Paul Eluard, "L»Amoureuse," ^rjr de r\e T^S mourjr (192'0. ^Paul Sluard, P^mas nour jfl ^aix (juillet 1918). 29 JU-fc parce que nous nous aimons Nous voulons liberer les autres...? Tu m'as ouvert un jour de plus est-ce aujourd'hui 3st-ce dernain Toujours est nul Jamais n'est pas , ICt tu risques de vivre aux depens de toi-meme...° 31uard expresses in his poetry a sympathy and love for the masses and the down-trodden, which evolves from the different aspects of his love for "woman". He loves the humble people, animals, nature in general. In addition to these, he has a great love for his country. Surrealism is "before everything a movement of revolt" ,7 according to Hichel Carrouges in his study of Andre" Breton. Certainly, Paul Eluard showed in his life that he took an active part in revolt, in the form of either complete nihilism or of constructive, patriotic work. He followed surrealism in its "immense despair at the condition man is reduced to on earth",8 but he did not participate in its violence, nor in the violence of communism. A call to arms is not the message of his surrealistic poetry. He bears out 5Paul 31uard, "Sept pobmes d'amour en guerre," (Ho.5) Au Rendez-^nng ail.omancU 19^5• Spaul KLuard, "Grain de sable de men salut," Corj^s. memorable. 19^3. 7Kichel Carrouges, |BflE*-fa|flB f^^L^fgimard, fondariontales fly flm-r^Usine (Paris: Librairie .allxmara, 1950), p.9. Slbid., p.10. 30 in his poetry Surrealism's affirmation of the Superior power of poetry capable of polarizing at one and the same time the course of interior necessity in nature in order to unveil, through the toughened bark of appearances, the appearance of a new world, a hemisphere of wonders.9 Surrealism is "an exploration of delight",10 and Eluard certainly employs his verses to this end. Carrouges says that the essentials of Surrealist ooetry are embodied in that which is strange, quaint, marvellous, absurd, horrible, unrecognizable, disordered.H Surrealism has a tendency to "operate in the domain of language and images".12 Peut-etre est-ce par la perfection atone de sa beauts' que la poesie d'Zluard parfois s'ecartait du surrealisme, car celui-ci refuse aisoment toute plenitude et toute beaute des qu'elles lui paraissent de fallacieux achevements...II arrive cependant que nar un autre exces 1'esprit surrealiste se satisfasse de sa ^roore insatisfaction et en vienne a se repaltre voluptueusement des fruits verts de 1'humour noir, comme d'autres savourent les guimauves de l'acader^.-"o 31uard pushes ideas against ideas, very often compares the abstract with the concrete, and the result gives the reader a shock-mentally, for it would never have occurred to him to off-set one with the other. This is especially 9ibid.. p.17. (translation mine) 10Ibid.« p.96. ^Ibid.. p. 118. 12Ibid.. p.123. ^ibid. 33 Avilit un peuple La douce chatte installee dans la vie Comme une perle dans sa coquille La douce chatte a mange" ses petits.21 An Rendez-vous allercand contains poems written between 19^2 and 19^5* It provides a chronicle of France under occunation, describing man's emotions as he prepares for certain death, Paris trapped and held, feelings aroused by atrocities committed by the Nazis. "A Celle dont ils revent" is almost a prayer for relief from the horror. TLuard recorded some of the poems from this collection for the (record) album "L'Honneur des poetes" as part of his resistance efforts. His joy at the liberation of Paris is voiced in "Sn avril 19^: Paris respirait encoreI". Linares legeres takes him out of his preoccupation and back to his love. These lines from "Anneau de paix" are an example. J'ai passe1 les portes du froid Les portes de mbn amertume^ Pour venir embrasser tes levres...»*f After the war, in 19^>, he wrote his longest poem,"Poesie ininterrompue", the pages of which are dedicated to "those who read them badly and to those who will not love them".23 SIPaul Sluard, BJftji it &Mi &* ^h2' (Cho1y de **& 22Paui Eluard, MMteM &*** >** (Hholr de poemeg) 23paul Sluard, Pn4«ift ininterrompue, 19^6. 3^ Brereton calls this "his greatest and longest single poem, which testifies to his delight in the physical life of the individual, and to its validity as the only true basis of society". 2>+ As to his subject matter of "litterature engagee",2? even after Nusch died Sluard found Certitude in that which his whole existence and his work lighted up in a single fire: love, the poetry of a couple, opens in the present and in the future, on the life of everyone....26 Je n'ai rien separe" rr.ais j'ai double mon coeur. D'aimer, j'ai tout cree: reel, imaginaire, J'ai donni sa raison, sa forme, sa chaleur St son role immortel a celle qui rr.'eclaire.27 Pierre de Boisdeffre has summed up Sluard's worth as a poot in a most complete manner. Sluard reste un des grands lyriques de notre temps—le plus intime et sans doute le plus vrai—le chantre inoubliable des joies familieres, de l'humble amitis" des choses, des heures monotones: -''Geoffrey Brereton, Introduction to the French Poets (?airlawn, Rftf Jersey: Essential Books, Inc., 1957)? p.'-//. 2?As can be seen from the bibliography, very little of Sluard's most recent ooetry has been read by the writer because of the library's limited selection of Sluard's work. 26Georges-Emmanuel Clancier, Tte Rimbaud an Surrealism? (Paris: Pierre Seghers, Editeur, 1953)» p.W. 27paul Sluard, "Sn vertu de 1'amour (27 novembre 19*6)»" Le Tenros deborde. 19^7• 35 Jours de lenteur, jours de pluie, Jours de miroirs brises et d'aiguilles perdues, Jours de paupieres closes a 1'horizon des rcers D'heures tou'tes ser.blables, jours de captivite. Des jardins: f-roseille de mendicite Dahlia rcoulin foyer du vent Quetsche taill£e dans une valse Tulip* meurtrie par la lune... Pavot tralne par des infirmes... Noisette aux ciseaux enfantins... D'un fol espoir: • II fallait y croire il fallait Croire que 1'honre a le pouvoir D'etre libre d'etre meilleur_ Qiie le destin qui lui est fait... 28 rnort Eluard etait, on s'en apercut au moment de sa , la poesie mime pour toute une generation.^ l'heure allemande," MlEfilgf Qe aoftt 1957. 29lbid., p. 6ft. 37 Eluard claimed that, "if the senses approve an image even in the slightest degree, they kill it".3 That is to say, if the image is too closely a sensorial one, vulgar- ization of the image deprives it of evocative poetic value. Pierre-Henri Simon says of Sluard that, "militante ou intimiste, sa poesie tend a l'expression d'une 'Vdrite' qui se dit tres vite, sans se reflechir, tout uniment"»r According to Eluard, The poet's images grow out of something to be forgotten and something to be remembered. Everything he created vanishes with the man he was yesterday. Tomorrow holds out the promise of novelty. But there is no today in his present.5 Louis Parrot, in the epilogue to his biography of Eluard, says that La Rose nubliaue contains "images chatoyantes d'un dialogue amoureux qui se mele aux images d'un poeme comme un lumineux filigrane"." 3Marcel Raymond, From Baudelaire to Surrealism (Hew York: Wittenborn, Schultz, Inc., 1950), p.288. IfPierre-IIenri Simon. Histoire de la litterature franca Is** an fifr siecle (Paris: Librairie Armand Colin, 1957), p.109. ^Paul Eluard, "Poetic Evidence" translated by George Reavey, 1936. 6Louis Parrot, Pain Sluard (Paris: Editions Pierre Seghers, 19^5), p.210. Eluard's imagery evokes enough mystery to avoid question as to whether his lines are actually poetry. This is typically Surrealistic$ for to a Surrealist, obliged to follow and adapt to—however faintly—the existing forms, the difference between prose and poetry is barely established. The reader frequently finds him- self up against a blank as far as a certain reference of this poet is concerned. Eluard usually resorts to comparison for his imagery, a comparison between something abstract and a concrete object. He jumps from one idea, through a process of association, to another distant one. The intermediate stage or steps of the thought are omitted. One is made to wonder by what thought processes 31uard arrives, by association even, at this distant idea. He achieves the ideal of Surrealism apparently, for the subconscious must direct his thought processes in these instances. The idea is to discover the meaning of the first part of the comparison, but this is often impossible, too. Ve attains, it would seem, the Surrealistically- desirable somnambulistic effect in his poetry. He apparently follows F-allarme-'s bidding in"Tombeau d'Edgar Poe", "Dormez un sens plus pur...." Synesthesie, the "amalgame de sensations disparates, dont l'audition coloree n'est que le type le plus repandu»,7 is the important characteristic of Eluard's imagery. Some good examples to illustrate this are "Le parfum noir 7^.nn?a^ aaUcnft, P.277, October, 1951. 39 rayonne" ("Comme une image", L'Amour la Poesie^i ";!es images sont sourdes", "cris de neige" ("Amoureuses"), "les feuilles a l'ombre des parfurcs" (La Vie immediate); "les herbes de ton rire" (L>Amour la Poesie). C'est toujours vers plus de simplicitc que tendra la poesie d'^luard. Les mots et les images de tons les jours, de tons les homres prenant de plus en plus de place dans les pobmes mais gardant 1'intensite de 1'imagination et du langage surrealistes. Cette accose colncidera avec le nouvel amour qui redonne au poote un monde lui atissi decants, La Vie immediate contenait bien doja des poemos boulevcrsants do presence purifice, directe, seulement l'agonie de 1'amour siraplifiait le poete en appauvrissant son univers, tandis que la naissance d'un autre amour continuera a affirmer ce choix de l'elementaire en ramenant la vie a. sa plenitude. Les objets, les etres cessent alors d'etre separds, ils recommencent a signifier plus qu'eux-memes, a etre porteurs d'avenir, a redevenir fertiles comme les regards que posent sur eux le iDoste et sa fern- e et que chantent Les "enx "ertile; '8 'Georges (Paris: Pj.err -Emmanuel Clancier, Tte nimbaud au ^rrealisme e Seghers, 3diteur, 1953), p^ll. h2 of rhyme: Souviens-toi des chansons que chantait pour nous Claire La negresse au teint clair ce minuit qu'on poudra... ELuard'8 poems are not at all long, with the one exception of "Poesie ininterrompue". He employs the form of the sonnet often and effectively. A good example of this is "Poomes", written in 191^: "Le coeur sur l'arbre vous n'aviez qu'a le cueillir..." Ten of the poem's fourteen lines are alexandrines, the last lines of the first two quatrains are each eight-syllable, line five contains eleven syllables, and line thirteen,...nine. One of the first poems in Les :feux fertiles, "On ne peut me conr.altre...", is a sonnet, with lines of mostly six or eight syllables. ITis prose poems have, of course, no rhythmic scheme, but are in regular paragraph form. There are some extremely fine, word-packed, forceful examples of this type of writing in 'Les Desserts d'une vie. These are somewhat longer than the prose paragraphs in Donner a voir (which are also excellent), but their poetic nature is undeniable. La Vie immediate should also be cited for its prose poems, especially for ""Tuits partagees". 31uard's punctuation, or rather, lack of punctuation, should be noted. It would seem sensible to assume that a Dadaist and even a Surrealist would revolt—as had Mallarme* and Apollinaire-against the bothersome logic of punctuation. *-3 Yet Eluard does not discard it completely until Defense de savoir in 1928. Up to this point, he employs commas, exclamation points and question marks in most of his poems. (In the prose poems, the expected punctuation for prose is used.) Starting with Donner a vniT, he limits his punctuation to periods. Occasionally, the cesura is marked in a line by a oeriod, even in this work. One of Eluard's chief characteristics is his use of repetition, usually of about three words at the beginning of a line. Take, for example, his celebrated "Liberte" ("Une Seule pensee": Poesie et vorite 19*f2). There, each lino begins "Sur..." for three lines in each stanza, and the fourth line always says, "J'ecris ton nom". Another example of this repetition is the seventh poem of "Sept Poer.es d'amour en guerre" (Au Hendez-vous allemand). with the use of the phrase "au nom de". The repetition would seem to be part of his revolt and defiance, to be another r.anifestation of that feeling. It adds to the poignancy of the poet's message. Its incantatory nature is insistent. It builds, and leads up to the climax for which the reader is waitin?. Pierre de Boisdeffrel likens this incantatory ^Pierre de T.oisdeffre, "Quatre Poetes francais a l'heure allemande," I-'ercure de France, numero 1128j65J<-> aont 1957. quality (by repeated nouns with different adjectives and other modifiers) to that of Peguy, citing this example: ...Yille entre nos poignets comme un lien romnu, entre nos yeux comme un oeil deja vu, ville repe'tee comme un pocme. Ville ressemblante Ville de la transparence, ville innocente... Ville durable ou j'ai vecu notre victoire sur la mort. besides affecting the rhythmic value of the lines, the use of repetition in this way causes the mind of the reader to be hypnotized almost by the chant-like character of the language. Sluard does not overuse the technique: he seems to judge its effectiveness best accomplished by fairly infrequent usage. Litterature presente. Paris: Correa, 1952. Palmer, R. R« A History of the Modern World. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953. Parrot, Louis. L'Intelligence en Guerre. Paris: La Jeune Parque, 19J<-5. . Paul Eluard. Paris: Editions Pierre Seghers, 19^5. . "The Poet and the War," Selected Writings of Paul lluard. New York: New Directions, 1951. Raymond, Karcel. From Baudelaire to Surrealism. Wittenborn, Schultz, Inc., New York, 1950. Rousseaux, Andre\ Litterature flu XXe Siecle. Paris: Editions Albin Michel, 1955. Rousselot, Jean. Panorama Critique des nouveaux ppetes francais. Paris: Editions Pierre Seghers, 1952. Roy, Claude. "Paul Eluard," Selected Writings of Paul Eluard. New York: New Directions, 1951. Schinz, Albert. French Literature of the Great War. New York: D, Appleton S Company, 1920. Simon, Pierre-Henri, fflstolre de la Litterature CglBfljJLM an XNe siecle. Paris: Librairie Armand Colin, 1957- Verriest, L<§on. T.» Aroint ion de "M Uttdrature franchise. New York: Harper & Nros. Publishers, 1?5*« PERIODICALS Adam, George. "Temoignage de la nuit," French Review, 19: 357-369, May, 19*6. Allamand, Jacques. "The Genealogy of Lettrism," Poetry., 71: lUl-lWi December, 19^7. Balakian, Anna. "The Post-Surrealism of Aragon and Eluard," Xal&l&fflMa Studies. 1(2): 93-102, Fall-Winter, 19^. Benoit, Leroy J. "Paul Eluard: Une Lecon de morale." jftjBfifc Review. 2^+: 5W-5©5> "ay, 1951. Brown, John L. "Poets of the Resistance," Commonweal. kh ^50-^53, August 2fc, 19^5. Carre, Jean-Marie. "Litterature et Actuality," French Review. 19: 206-211, February, 19lf6. Catel, Jean. "The Poetry Paris is Reading," Poetry. 67: 39-^9, October, 1*5. Connolly, Cyril. "Paris Regained (II)," Nation. 160: 651-652, June 9, 19k5. Delattre, Andre. "Personal Notes on Paul Eluard," Ya^e EcflPfltl Studies. 1(2): 103-105, Fall-Winter, 19>+S. Dillon, George. "Translations of Liberte and Understand " Who Will," Poetrv. 67: 5-9, October, 19*5. ^itzmorris, Thomas J. "Mindless Marxism," QaJftfiJAfl World. 150: ^20-!'-30, January, 19^0. Genet. "Letter from Paris," New Trorker. 2 : 133-139, November 29, 1952. George, Waldemar. "New Art in France and Germany," Living Age. IZhx 73-73, January 1, 1928. Hays, K. R. "Surrealist Influence in Contemporary English and American Poetry," Poetry. 5^: 202-209, July, 1939. Lesage, Laurence. "Literature in France, 1950," French Review. 2\% 281-293, February, 1951. "Hotes on Contributors," Poetry. 67: 55, October, 1*5. "Obituaries," Wilson Lib™™ bulletin (No.5), 27:3^, January, 1953• "Obituary Notes," ^^^' Weekly. 162: 2328, December 13, 1952. O'Brien, Justin. "ClandestineFrench Literature> during the Occupation," te&aEU TynaCTP iMBElilt yo- •*"■ wo» November, 19l*-6. Roditi, Edouard. "Poetry is News," PojLixy., 0H 51-55, April, 19w, Rosenfield, Paul. "Conversation with a Surrealist," 'Tation. 13lf: 236-237, February 2h, 1932. Zabel, M. D. "A Surrealist Master," Poetry. ^8: 3*f7-3EL, September, 1936.