Maxime Alexandre (poet)

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Maxime Alexandre (born January 24, 1899 in Wolfisheim , Alsace , German Reich ; died September 12, 1976 in Strasbourg ) was a Franco-German poet and author.

Life

Maxime Moïse (Moses) Alexandre was born into a Jewish family in the Upper Alsatian village of Wolfisheim in what was then the realm of Alsace-Lorraine . The family was German-speaking, but like many Alsatians of the time, Francophile and politically liberal. Alexandre wrote his first poems in German when he was twelve. Shortly before the start of the First World War, the family moved to Lausanne, Switzerland . There Alexandre acquired a good knowledge of French and came into contact with René Schickele , who in turn introduced him to Romain Rolland . In Zurich he also made the acquaintance of Hans Arp and the Dadaism movement he initiated . After the war, Alexandre returned to Strasbourg in Alsace. In the early 1920s he moved to Paris at the invitation of Louis Aragon .

From then on, Alexandre wrote his writings in French. In the 1920s and early 1930s, Alexandre belonged to the circle of Parisian Surrealists around André Breton , Robert Desnos and Benjamin Péret and took part in their activities. In 1932, however, a conflict arose, which sparked mainly over the question of the attitude to the French Communist Party (PCF). The Surrealists had always been socialist and pro-communist. Breton in particular refused to have too close ties to the Communist Party. Thereupon Louis Aragon and later Maxime Alexandre left the surrealist group or were excluded from it. From 1932 until the beginning of the war in 1939, Alexandre was very productive as an author of poems and prose works and received corresponding recognition. When war broke out, he was drafted into the French army as a soldier , but as a “potential revolutionary” ( PR = présumé révolutionnaire ) he was exposed to some harassment from his military superiors. In 1940 he was taken prisoner by Germany , but was able to achieve his release and then went underground in the Midi in the unoccupied part of France , where he met Aragon and Jacques Prévert as well as André Gide .

Alexandre tried to process the traumatic experiences of the war in many works in the post-war period. The death of his mother in 1949 hit Alexandre hard. Under the influence of Paul Claudel , he turned to Catholicism and was baptized on December 8, 1949. He later distanced himself from this step. In the 1950s he began to write in German again and remained literarily productive into old age. According to his will, he is buried in the cemetery in Rosheim .

Works (selection)

As an author

Poetry
  • Love . Leipzig: Sphinx, 1913
  • Signs on the horizon. 16 prose and free verse poems . Paris: hors commerce, 1924 (private print)
  • Mes respects . HC, Parmain 1931.
  • Le corsage . Corti, Paris 1931.
  • Le Mal de Nuit . Corrêa, Paris 1935.
  • Sujet à l'amour (Habitude de la Poésie; Vol. 9). Gallimard, Paris 1937.
  • La loi mortelle (Les feuillets de Sagesse; vol. 81). La Sagesse, Paris 1939.
  • Les yeux pour pleurer . Le Sagittaire, Paris 1945.
  • Thirst and spring . Bodensee, Amriswil 1952.
  • La Peau et les Os. Poemes . Gallimard, Paris 1956.
  • L'Oiseau de paper . Rougerie, Paris 1972.
  • Circonstances de la Poésie . Rougerie, Paris 1976.
  • Portrait de l'auteur . Rougerie, Paris 1978.
  • The sea sang far from us. Poems (Textura; Vol. 26). Henssel, Berlin 1984, ISBN 3-87329-526-1 .
prose
  • Les desseins de la liberté . Self-published, Paris 1927.
  • Secrets . Ducros & Colas, Paris 1932.
  • Cassandre de Bourgogne . Corrêa, Paris 1939.
  • PR (Présumé Révolutionnaire) . Le Sagittaire, Paris 1945.
  • L'Amour Image . Le Sagittaire, Paris 1946.
  • Sagesse de la Folie . Editions de la “Revue des Jeunes”, Paris 1952.
  • Memoirs of a surrealist (“Mémoires d'un Surréaliste”, 1968). Translation Kay Borowsky . Heliopolis-Verlag, Tübingen 1987, ISBN 3-87324-061-0 .
  • Journal (1951-1975) . Corti, Paris 1976.
  • Mythology personal . Denoël, Paris 2002 (reprint of the Paris 1923 edition).
Non-fiction
  • Holderlin le Poète. Étude critique suivi d'un choix de poèmes . Laffont, Paris 1942.
  • Juif catholique . Éditions du Cerf, Paris 1965.
Plays
  • Théâtre. Le juif errant . Le diable et sa grand-mère . Rougerie, Paris 1979.

As editor

literature

  • Bernard Bach: Maxime Alexandre. Dossier (Langue et Culture Régionales; 12). CRDP, Strasbourg 1989.
  • Aimée lead case: Maxime Alexandre. Un surréaliste sans feu ni lieu (Mélusine; vol. 18). L'Age d'Homme, Lausanne 1998, ISBN 2-8251-1148-1 .
  • Adrien Finck : “Can I still speak German?” The German-language work of the Alsatian poet Maxime Alexandre . In: Spiritual Alsatianism. Contributions to Franco-German culture (Dialoge; Vol. 2). Pfälzische VA, Landau 1992, ISBN 3-87629-227-1 , pp. 35-47.
  • Jean-Paul Klée (Ed.): Maxime Alexandre vu par ses amis . Éditions Fagne, Brussels 1975.
  • Christian Pierret (arrangement): Un poète au carrefour de l'Europe. Maxime Alexandre (1899-1976) . Le Livre & La Lecture, Paris 1998, ISBN 2-907420-58-5 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Selection from the works Portrait de l'auteur , L'oiseau de papier and Circonstances de la poèsie .
  2. ↑ Attached are excerpts from the diary “Chronicle of French Surrealism”.
personal data
SURNAME Alexandre, Maxime
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Alsatian poet and author
DATE OF BIRTH January 24, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Wolfisheim , Alsace
DATE OF DEATH September 12, 1976
Place of death Strasbourg