Paul Claudel | |
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| Born | (1868-08-06)6 August 1868 Villeneuve-sur-Fère, France |
| Died | 23 February 1955(1955-02-23) (aged 86) Paris, France |
| Language | French |
| Education | Lycée Louis-le-Grand |
| Alma mater | Paris Institute of Political Studies |
| Genre | Verse drama |
| Spouse | Reine Sainte-Marie Perrin |
| Relatives | Camille Claudel (sister) |
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Paul Claudel (French:[pɔlklodɛl]; 6 August 1868 – 23 February 1955) was a French poet, dramatist and diplomat, and the younger brother of the sculptorCamille Claudel. He was most famous for hisverse dramas, which often convey his devoutCatholicism.
He was born inVilleneuve-sur-Fère (Aisne), into a family of farmers and government officials.[1] His father, Louis-Prosper, dealt in mortgages and bank transactions. His mother, the former Louise Cerveaux, came from a Champagne family of Catholic farmers and priests. Having spent his first years inChampagne, he studied at thelycée ofBar-le-Duc and at theLycée Louis-le-Grand in 1881, when his parents moved to Paris.
An unbeliever in his teenage years, Claudel experienced a conversion at age 18 on Christmas Day 1886 while listening to a choir singVespers in the cathedral ofNotre-Dame de Paris: "In an instant, my heart was touched, and I believed." He remained an active Catholic for the rest of his life. In addition, he discoveredArthur Rimbaud's book of poetryIlluminations. He worked towards "the revelation through poetry, both lyrical and dramatic, of the grand design of creation".[2]
Claudel studied at theParis Institute of Political Studies.
The young Claudel considered entering a monastery, but instead had a career in the French diplomatic service, in which he served from 1893 to 1936.
Claudel was first vice-consul in New York (April 1893),[1] and later inBoston (December 1893). He was Frenchconsul in China during the period 1895 to 1909, with time inShanghai (June 1895). On a break in 1900, he spent time atLigugé Abbey, but his proposed entry to theBenedictine Order was postponed.[3]
Claudel returned to China as vice-consul inFuzhou (October 1900). He had a further break in France in 1905–6, when he married. He was one of a group of writers enjoying the support and patronage ofPhilippe Berthelot of the Foreign Ministry, who became a close friend; others wereJean Giraudoux,Paul Morand andSaint-John Perse.[4][5] Because of his position in the Diplomatic Service, at the beginning of his career Claudel published either anonymously or under a pseudonym, "since permission to publish was needed from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs".[6]:11
For that reason, Claudel remained rather obscure as an author to 1909, unwilling to ask permission to publish under his own name because the permission might not be granted.[6]:11 In that year, the founding group of theNouvelle Revue Française (NRF), and in particular his friendAndré Gide, were keen to recognise his work. Claudel sent them, for the first issue, the poemHymne du Sacre-Sacrement, to fulsome praise from Gide, and it was published under his name. He had not sought permission to publish, and there was a furore in which he was criticised. Attacks based on his religious views were in February also affecting the production of one of his plays.[6]:15–17 Berthelot's advice was to ignore the critics.[6]:18 note 42 The affair began a long collaboration of the NRF with Claudel.[6]:12
Claudel also wrote extensively about China, with a definitive version of hisConnaissance de l'Est published in 1914 byGeorges Crès andVictor Segalen.[7] In his final posting to China, he was consul inTianjin (1906–1909).
In a series of European postings to the outbreak ofWorld War I, Claudel was inPrague (December 1909),Frankfurt am Main (October 1911), andHamburg (October 1913). At this period he was interested in the theatre festival atHellerau, which put on one of his plays, and the ideas ofJacques Copeau.[8]
Claudel was in Rome (1915–1916),ministre plénipotentiaire inRio de Janeiro (1917–1918),Copenhagen (1920), ambassador in Tokyo (1921–1927),[1] Washington, D.C. (1928–1933, Dean of the Diplomatic Corps in 1933)[9] andBrussels (1933–1936).[1] While he served in Brazil duringWorld War I he supervised the continued provision of food supplies from South America to France. His secretaries during the Brazil mission includedDarius Milhaud, who wroteincidental music to a number of Claudel's plays.
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In 1935 Claudel retired toBrangues inDauphiné, where he had bought thechâteau in 1927. He still spent winters in Paris.[10][11]
DuringWorld War II Claudel made his way toAlgeria in 1940, after theBattle of France, and offered to serveFree France.[12] Not having a response to the offer, he returned to Brangues. He supported theVichy regime, but disagreed with CardinalAlfred Baudrillart's policy of collaboration withNazi Germany.[13]
Close to home,Paul-Louis Weiller, married to Claudel's daughter-in-law's sister, was arrested by the Vichy government in October 1940. Claudel went to Vichy to intercede for him, to no avail; Weiller escaped (with Claudel's assistance, the authorities suspected) and fled to New York. Claudel wrote in December 1941 toIsaïe Schwartz, expressing his opposition to theStatut des Juifs enacted by the regime.[14] The Vichy authorities responded by having Claudel's house searched and keeping him under observation.
Claudel was elected to theAcadémie française on 4 April 1946, replacingLouis Gillet. It followed a rejection in 1935, considered somewhat scandalous, whenClaude Farrère was preferred.[15] He was nominated for theNobel Prize in Literature in six different years.[16]
Claudel often referred toStéphane Mallarmé as his teacher.[17] His poetic has been seen as Mallarmé's, with the addition of the idea of the world as a revelatoryreligious text.[18] He rejected traditionalprosody, developing theverset claudelien, his own form offree verse. It was within the orbit of experimentation by followers ofWalt Whitman, impressive for Claudel, of whomCharles Péguy andAndré Spire were two others working on a form ofverset.[19] The influence of the LatinVulgate has been disputed byJean Grosjean.[20]
The best known of his plays areLe Partage de Midi ("The Break of Noon", 1906),L'Annonce faite à Marie ("The Tidings Brought to Mary", 1910) focusing on the themes of sacrifice, oblation and sanctification through the tale of a young medieval French peasant woman who contractsleprosy, andLe Soulier de Satin ("The Satin Slipper", 1931). The last is an exploration of human and divine love and longing, set in theSpanish Empire of thesiglo de oro. It was staged at theComédie-Française in 1943.Jeanne d'Arc au Bûcher ("Joan of Arc at the Stake", 1939) was anoratorio with music byArthur Honegger.[21] The settings of his plays tended to be romantically distant, medieval France or sixteenth-century Spanish South America. He used scenes of passionate, obsessive human love. The complexity, structure and scale of the plays meant that a positive reception of Claudel's drama by audiences was long delayed.[22] His final dramatic work,L'Histoire de Tobie et de Sara, was first produced byJean Vilar for theFestival d'Avignon in 1947.[23]
As well as his verse dramas, Claudel also wrotelyric poetry. A major example is theCinq Grandes Odes (Five Great Odes, 1907).[24]Boštjan Marko Turk's doctoral thesis examined the influence of medieval philosophy on Paul Claudel's poetic work, particularlyLes Cinq Grandes Odes. He summarized his findings in the monographPaul Claudel et l'Actualité de l'être (2011),[25] which wasrecognized byDominique Millet-Gérard [fr], his doctoral advisor, for its contribution to understanding Claudel's work in the French-speaking world.
Claudel was a conservative of the old school, sharing theantisemitism of conservative France. He addressed a poem ("Paroles au Maréchal," "Words to the Marshal") after the defeat of France in 1940, commendingMarshal Pétain for picking up and salvaging France's broken, wounded body. As a Catholic, he could not avoid a sense of satisfaction at the fall of theanti-clericalFrench Third Republic.
His diaries make clear his consistent contempt for Nazism (condemning it as early as 1930 as "demonic" and "wedded to Satan," and referring tocommunism andNazism as "Gog and Magog"). He wrote an open letter to the World Jewish Conference in 1935, condemning theNuremberg Laws as "abominable and stupid." His support forCharles de Gaulle and the Free French forces culminated in his victory ode addressed to de Gaulle when Paris was liberated in 1944.
The British poetW. H. Auden acknowledged the importance of Paul Claudel in his poem "In Memory of W. B. Yeats" (1939). Writing about Yeats, Auden says in lines 52–55 (from the originally published version, then excised by Auden in a later revision):
Time that with this strange excuse
Pardoned Kipling and his views,
And will pardon Paul Claudel,
Pardons him for writing well
George Steiner, inThe Death of Tragedy, called Claudel one of the three "masters of drama" in the 20th century, withHenry de Montherlant andBertolt Brecht.[26]
While in China, Claudel had a long affair with Rosalie Vetch née Ścibor-Rylska (1871–1951), wife of Francis Vetch (1862–1944) and granddaughter ofHamilton Vetch. Claudel knew Francis Vetch through his diplomatic work, and had met Rosalie on a sea voyage out fromMarseille toHong Kong in 1900. She had four children, and was pregnant with Claudel's child when the affair ended in February 1905. Francis Vetch and Claudel had caught up with Rosalie at a railway station on the German border in 1905, a meeting at which Rosalie signalled that her relationship with Claudel was over.[27] She married in 1907 Jan Willem Lintner.[28][29][30][31] Louise Marie Agnes Vetch (1905–1996), born in Brussels, was Claudel's daughter by Rosalie.[32]
Claudel married on 15 March 1906 Reine Sainte-Marie Perrin (1880–1973). She was the daughter ofLouis Sainte-Marie Perrin [fr] (1835–1917), an architect fromLyon known for completing theBasilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière.[33][34] They had two sons and three daughters.[35]
Claudel committed his sisterCamille to a psychiatric hospital in March 1913, where she remained for the last 30 years of her life, visiting her seven times in those 30 years.[36] Records show that while she did have mental lapses, she was clear-headed while working on her art. Doctors tried to convince the family that she need not be in the institution, but still they kept her there.
The story forms the subject of a 2004 novel byMichèle Desbordes,La Robe bleue,The Blue Dress.[37]Jean-Charles de Castelbajac wrote a song "La soeur de Paul" forMareva Galanter, 2010.
Quotations related toPaul Claudel at Wikiquote
Works by or aboutPaul Claudel atWikisource
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