A Poetics of Universal Unity in the Drama and Poetry of Paul Claudel

Abstract

The creative works of Paul Claudel stand apart from other French-literature writings of the 20th century. He is called a cosmological poet who felt the vibration of the cosmos and sought to use the verset to ‘translate’ and broadcast this mysterious rhythm. Claudel created a new type of tragic, desacralizing tragedy, making a person the master of his own destiny. Claudelʼs poetics reaches beyond the national tradition. His language lacks the clarity and transparency of Voltaire’s language; in his dramas, there are no depictions of tempers and characters. Claudel’s theatre is an antipode to French traditional dramaturgy from Racine and Marivaux to the present day. Claudel, much like his idol Artur Rimbaud, was destroying national and cultural borders by creating a new artistic language and new forms of expression. He is considered a ‘lonely star’ with no predecessors, followers or disciples, as a poet-cosmopolite who absorbed the great art of Aeschylus, Dante, Calderon, Shakespeare. Claudel, with his sense of universal unity, cosmism, combined with the ideas of Thomas Aquinas, marked new ways of developing modern theater and poetry.