Предназначение поэта и смысл искусства в мировоззрении Поля Клоделя

Abstract

The article is an attempt to reconstruct Paul Claudel's views on the tasks of art and the role of a poet. We find a connection between his thoughts and the philosophy of Thomism, and consider the problem of the world order, presented in his work "Poetic Art" (1907) and we show its connection with the question of the aims of poetry. The article explains the meaning of the specific Claudelian term co-naissance, simultaneously translated as "cognition" and "shared birth", "coexistence". This notion is important for understanding Claudel's model of the universe. The basic theoretical intuition that underlies his cosmism is clearly formulated in the mentioned text and developed both in Claudel's literary work and in his articles "Religion and Poetry", "Poetry is Art", "Art and Faith" and others. The notion of the reciprocal relationship of all that exists implies a view of the world as a harmonious divine creation in which man and the artist are directly involved. The duty of the artist is close to that of the Christian and the saint, but it also includes very special tasks. Poetry can even be considered as a priority type of creativity, but Claudel's interest in other arts, in particular painting. The genuine artist and, more specific, the poet are charged with both the knowledge of divine truths and the instruction of the public. In this connection, the conclusions also include an analysis of the question of the artist's moral responsibility, to which Claudel provides an answer that assumes the primacy of ethics over aesthetics. In the historical and cultural context, this answer itself may hardly seem original, unlike the way of justifying it — that was revealed by the author of the article.