Jules Supervielle
Jules Supervielle (* 16 January 1884 in Montevideo ; † 17th May 1960 in Paris ) was a poet , writer of stage works and short stories , in French , but language simultaneously in Spanish wrote tradition. Topics Supervial are the longing for a happy childhood, for the spatial expanse of his South American homeland as well as questions of the deeper identity of all living beings and our human harmony with the world.
Life
Great Basque parents had emigrated to Uruguay to set up a bank there. Eight months after his birth, both of them die of poisoning while visiting their native Béarn . Young Jules unwittingly grows up in Montevideo until he is nine years old as an orphan with his uncle and aunt - both siblings of his real parents. At the age of ten he traveled to Paris to teach in French schools. The later revelation of the death of his true parents shaped his view of reality for a lifetime. In addition, the very tall man has a life-threatening heart and lung weakness.
At the age of 23 he married his wife Pilar Saavedra in Uruguay. Although free from financial worries, Supervielle late (~ 1920) found his own tone as a poet "between the worlds". Thanks to good friends (including Jean Paulhan , Henri Michaux , the literary scholar René Étiemble) and due to frequent stays in Uruguay , he quickly advanced to the mediator between South American and French literature.
Shortly after the publication of his volume of poetry "Comme des voiliers" (1910) he was drafted into the war. His poetry is very kindly received by André Gide and Paul Valéry . Jacques Rivière helped him to publish in the Nouvelle Revue Française . He translates García Lorca and Jorge Guillén into French.
Because of his language skills used in the French counterintelligence during the First World War, Supervielle helps to expose the spy Mata Hari : On a letter behind the words "Aqui pongo un beso" (= I press a kiss here) he deciphered a message in invisible ink .
Supervielle was surprised by the outbreak of World War II in Uruguay in 1939 and waited in South America for the war to end; there he maintains connections with French writers in exile. As a citizen of both countries, he was appointed Uruguayan cultural attaché in Paris in 1946. That saves him from surprising destitution after the family bank collapsed.
At the end of his life, the father of six children was a member of numerous literary juries. In 1960 contemporaries voted him "Prince des poètes". Incidentally, his daughter Denise was married to the famous Germanist and Hölderlin translator Pierre Bertaux and reports on a visit by his future translator Paul Celan in April 1960.
At the age of 76, Supervielle in Paris succumbed to his lifelong heart and lung weakness.
plant
As the only notable German translator, Paul Celan has dealt with 36 of his poems. Although there is an extensive correspondence with Rainer Maria Rilke , who describes him as a "great bridge builder of the spirit", and although Pierre Bertaux introduced him to the Mann brothers and other writers in Berlin, Supervielle is little known in German-speaking countries. The own imagery with deliberate ambiguities and the demanding external form in Supervielles verse may make a translation difficult.
Verse forms
Classic forms of French poetry are renewed in many poems. Sometimes the author uses modern, free rhythms in the style of Paul Claudel and Walt Whitman - but also the lively " Vers commun " and various mixed forms. Supervielle renews the narrow schema of the French Alexandrian by including 14 syllables in it, for example, according to the Spanish model, or by including toneless syllables. The caesura in half of this verse is occasionally omitted; it is played around by dividing it into three or by placing it in the middle of a word.
This open play with classical forms is also successful in the sonnet , which he divides into three quartets and a double final line according to Shakespeare's model, as well as with two terzets at the end. The poet also orientates himself on Spanish punches and finds new short forms similar to the decime . What is important in Supervielles poems is not the perfect form, the complete whole, but beginnings, transitions, underlying dissonances and nuances.
Rhymes
In his rhyming technique in particular, Supervielle deliberately violates the classic rules: the poet adds lines that are usually irregularly rhymed with male or female cadence ; he also loves assonances and internal rhymes .
Imagery
The imagery of many poems only appears encrypted at first glance . Compared to the French Surrealists , Supervielle always differs through its high level of comprehensibility, through logically connected metaphors and a coherent sentence structure. Much of the content is related to the world of travel, water and the human body. Geology and astronomy also inspire him to create impressive images, which he combines into little fables in verse form:
“ La poésie, pour moi, c'est le concrete. L'abstraction, à moins qu'elle ne soit singulièrement exaltée par le concret qui la précède et qui la suit,
l'abstraction glace la poésie et la fait fuir. "
(For me poetry is something concrete. If an abstraction is not triggered or replaced by something concrete, it only solidifies and scares off poetry.)
Major works
Poems
- Les poèmes de l'humour triste (1919)
- Débarcadères (1922)
- Gravitational (1925)
- Oublieuse mémoire (1949)
- L'escalier (1956)
- Le corps tragique (1959)
Novels and short stories
- L'homme de la pampa (1923)
- Le voleur d'enfants, novel (1926)
- Le Survivant, Roman (1928)
- L'enfant de la haute mer, short stories (1931)
- L'arche de Noé (1938)
- Premier pas de l'univers (1950)
theatre
- La belle au bois, comedy (1932; German knight Bluebeard's last love, 1951)
- Libretto for Bolívar . Opera (together with Madeleine Milhaud ). Music (1943): Darius Milhaud . Premiere 1950.
- Shéhérazade (1949)
Translations
- The ox and the donkey in the stable at Bethlehem (1951; latest edition 1998, ISBN 3-85717-116-2 )
- The Child from the High Seas and Other Stories (1980)
- Poems and Legends (1961)
- Poems (German selection, translated by Paul Celan ; Insel-Bücherei 932, 1968)
- Noah's Ark. Stories (1951)
- The child thief. Roman (1949; 1961)
Secondary literature
- Lotte Specker: Jules Supervielle. A style study . Emil Ruegg, Zurich 1942 (additional dissertation phil. University of Zurich )
- Claude Roy : Supervielle . Poésies P., NRF , Paris 1970
- Sabine Dewulf: Jules Supervielle ou la connaissance poétique - Sous le soleil d'oubli , coll. Critiques Littéraires. 2 vols., L'Harmattan, Paris 2001
- Tatiana W. Greene: Supervielle . Droz, Geneva and Minard, Paris, both 1958
- James A. Hiddleston: L'Univers de Jules Supervielle . José Corti, 1965 (Additional dissertation phil. University of Edinburgh )
- Ricardo Paseyro: Jules Supervielle - Le forçat volontaire . Mesnil-sur-l'Estrée 2002
- Henri Michaux : Jules Supervielle. Translated by Kristian Wachinger, in Verena von der Heyden-Rynsch Ed .: Vive la littérature! Contemporary French literature. Hanser, Munich 1989, p 181f. (with photo) (first NRF, August 1954)
- Detailed references, including further dissertations, in the corresponding lemma in Richard A. Brooks & Douglas W. Alden eds .: A critical Bibliography of French literature. Volume 6, Part 3. The 20th Century Syracuse University Press, 1980 ISBN 0815622074
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ignacio Bajter: Supervielle en el punto de partida ( es ) August 13, 2015.
Web links
- Literature by and about Jules Supervielle in the catalog of the German National Library
- Reading samples on a German-Romanian portal
- Biographical and reading samples on a French website
- Reading samples on a Dutch website
- Introduction to literary criticism (French)
- Association of "Friends of Jules Supervielle" (French association, but open to all nationalities)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Supervielle, Jules |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Franco-Uruguayan writer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 16, 1884 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Montevideo |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 17, 1960 |
| Place of death | Paris |