18- https://doi.org/10.5325/complitstudies.50.3.0430
Césaire at the Crossroads in Haiti: Correspondence with Henri Seyrig
Translate Article 
Take Notes When Aimé Césaire returned to Fort-de-France in August 1939, after having finished his studies at the Ecole normale supérieure on the rue d'Ulm in Paris, one of the most prestigious institutions of higher learning in France, he was not entirely unknown—he had published poems in several journals. Two years after his return, he encountered the leader of the surrealist movement, André Breton, who was forced to stop for three weeks in Martinique from 24 April to 16 May during his circuitous voyage from Nazi-controlled Paris to New York via Marseilles and Fort-de-France.1 He found Césaire thanks to the discovery of a copy of the first issue of Tropiques, the just-launched cultural journal edited by the young lycée teacher, his wife Suzanne, and a small group of friends—Georges Gratiant, Aristide Maugée, René Ménil, and Lucie Thésée. The encounter with Breton and his fellow traveler, the Cuban artist Wifredo Lam, expanded the publishing horizon of the Martinican poet. Poems from Tropiques, as well as others not published in the journal, now began to appear in New York in the journals VVV and Hémisphères; in Havana, with the Spanish translation of Cahier d'un retour au pays natal; in Santiago in Leitmotiv; in Buenos Aires in Lettres françaises; and in Algiers in Fontaine, before the collection Les armes miraculeuses was published by Gallimard in Paris in 1946.2 Breton's discovery of Césaire, whom he praised in an article titled "Martinique, charmeuse de serpents," published in Hémisphères in 1943, gave an enormous boost to the career of the young poet. It is generally assumed, then, that it was Breton who launched Césaire onto the global literary scene.3 But as I show, new evidence reveals that Césaire's development as a writer and his increasing visibility come from a far more complex confluence of events and people during this turbulent period. In addition to Breton, who maintained his network of surrealists from his apartment in New York, two other networks contributed to Césaire's higher profile in the world of letters. The first was based on his ties with alumni from the Ecole normale supérieure. The second was his involvement in strengthening the links of the Free French with other countries. In the course of research on Césaire at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, I came across the collection of correspondence between Césaire and Henri Seyrig, the cultural attaché at the Free French consulate in New York.4 In those letters emerges a Césaire in flux, concerned about his own development as a writer. Information about the three interrelated networks contributes to a far more nuanced portrait of Césaire in the 1940s. It allows one to understand how, beginning with the appearance of Tropiques in an international context that led to the isolation of Martinique, Césaire was able, paradoxically, to develop a much higher profile in the world before major presses in Paris published his work.The key to understanding that picture is Seyrig. The crossroads is Haiti, where Césaire spent seven months, from 17 May to 15 December 1944, accompanied by his wife Suzanne, who remained with him until 27 October.In an article titled "Henri Seyrig (10 novembre 1895–21 janvier 1973): Nécrologie" that appeared in the journal Syria, Ernest Will offers insights into the life of the man who played such a key role in Césaire's life during the war.5 From Will we learn that Seyrig was a brilliant archaeologist. He was also a very generous and open-minded man. Born in 1895 into a cultivated and well-off family, he studied at Oxford, served in World War I, and then enrolled at the Sorbonne, where he earned the coveted agrégation de grammaire in 1922. He was admitted the same year to the Ecole française d'Athènes, where he remained for seven years. Named director general of antiquities in Syria and in Lebanon, two states under French control, he married Hermine de Saussure, the niece of Ferdinand de Saussure, in 1930. The actress Delphine Seyrig was born from this union. When his work in the Levant was interrupted by the war, he quickly sided with Charles de Gaulle and undertook several missions to London, South America, and New York, where he was named cultural attaché and assigned to the Free French consulate. Seyrig finished his career in 1967 as the director of the Institut français in Beirut.An examination of the letters in chronological order reveals the nature and evolution of the relationship between Seyrig and Césaire.There are two important pieces of information conveyed in this letter. First, it confirms that an edition of Cahier d'un retour au pays natal (Notebook of a Return to the Native Land) was scheduled for publication at the beginning of 1944 by Hémisphères. Seyrig, who had visited Martinique in November 1943 while on a mission to examine the situation of instruction in the French Caribbean, met Breton in New York and notes that Breton is "ravi" ("delighted") to receive "la nouvelle version corrigée du Cahier" ("the new, corrected version of the Notebook").6 Seyrig adds that it "est venue à point" ("arrived at just the right time") because a new version, printed by Yvan Goll (born Isaac Lang), founder of the journal and the publisher of Hémisphères, "est très avancée" ("is far along"). We know that the long poem was first published in issue number 20 of the journal Volontés in Paris in August 1939, just before the departure of Aimé and Suzanne Césaire for Fort-de-France. It appeared thanks to a network of alumni of the Ecole normale supérieure where Césaire had been admitted in July 1935.It is in large part thanks to that alumni network, and in particular to a tutor named Pierre Petibon, whose task was to help students preparing to take the difficult examination for the agrégation, that Césaire was able to find an outlet for his explosive poem. Petibon encouraged Césaire to submit the manuscript to Georges Pelorson, a former student at the Ecole normale supérieure who had quit school in an untimely manner and then founded Volontés. Compromised by his support for the Vichy regime of Marshall Pétain during the war, he would later take the name of Georges Belmont.7 We know from Breton's article "Martinique, charmeuse de serpents" that Césaire had offered him an offprint of the Volontés version of Cahier d'un retour au pays natal during his stay in Fort-de-France. Breton would write in his article that "ce poème n'était rien de moins que le plus grand monument lyrique de ce temps" ("this poem was nothing less than the greatest lyrical monument of this time").8The article by Breton was accompanied by a note indicating that "cette étude constitue la Préface, qu'André Breton vient d'écrire pour l'édition bilingue du Cahier du Retour au Pays Natal [sic] d'Aimé Césaire, à paraître prochainement aux Editions Hémisphères" ("this study constitutes the preface that André Breton has just written for the bilingual edition of Cahier du retour au pays natal [sic] by Aimé Césaire, forthcoming from Hémisphère Editions").9 The note raises a fundamental question. Why was this edition abandoned? We do know from correspondence between Breton and Goll that there were translation problems and that there was a rift between the two men that went back to the prewar period. But above all, we learn that Goll doesn't have any more paper.10 For this reason, Brentano's proposes to take over the editorial activities of Hémisphères. The sending of a second manuscript of the volume to Breton confirms moreover that Césaire continued to rewrite the poem. This work leads to two different editions published in 1947. The first is the bilingual edition published by Brentano's on 7 January; the second one is the first French edition in book format published by Bordas on 25 March.11The second interesting bit of information in the letter is that Seyrig was making arrangements for the poet to go to Haiti, where the cultural attaché had stopped on his return to New York."Cette île brûle de vous voir" ("This island is burning to see you"). He adds, "Le gouvernement haïtien a décidé d'organiser un congrès de philosophie et invite des personnalités des pays voisins" ("The Haitian government has decided to organize a philosophy conference and has invited important people from neighboring countries").12 Seyrig indicates that the Haitian president and his son, minister of foreign affairs, had read and appreciated Cahier d'un retour au pays natal.He also comments that "M. Lhérisson, qui est chargé d'organiser cela, m'a prié officiellement de demander qu'on vous délègue. J'ai écrit à Alger et j'écris par ce courrier à M. Ponton. J'espère donc que ça s'arrangera, car je pense que la France ne doit pas seulement être représentée là par notre Ecole libre de New York, mais par ses Antilles" ("M. Lhérisson, who has been asked to organize everything, has requested officially that I ask that you be sent as a delegate. I have written to Algiers and I am writing a letter to M. Ponton. I hope that that can be arranged, because I think that France must not be represented there only by the Ecole libre of New York, but also by its Caribbean").13The conference, however important, was only a pretext. Césaire would be sent to Haiti on a mission of cultural diplomacy aimed at restoring French influence in the world. Seyrig explains the nature of the mission in the following way. "Les Haïtiens se regardent à bon droit comme les représentants de la civilisation française dans leur région; ils souhaitent que nous les soutenions dans ce rôle, non pas en créant chez eux des institutions françaises, mais en les aidant eux-mêmes. Cela me semble juste, et je m'y emploierai tant que je pourrai" ("The Haitiens see themselves with good reason as representatives of French civilization in their region; they want us to support them in this role, not by creating French institutions, but by helping them to help themselves. This seems right and I will work toward this goal as much as I am able").Césaire expresses his gratitude to Seyrig: Tout d'abord merci pour mon "voyage haïtien" décidé maintenant. Il ne reste plus qu'à en fixer la date (je la souhaite proche). Merci de m'avoir choisi. Pour la cure d'évasion, merci. Et pour la bouffée d'air que nous a apportée votre venue parmi nous. Une des rares bonnes choses que cette visite aient occasionnée: que certains hommes, qu'une certaine espèce d'hommes, qu'une certaine catégorie d'esprits, ait pu faire trou dans le vieux mur colonial. Je tiens pour très précieux (pour nous) que des hommes tels que Breton, Mabille, vous, aient connu nos Antilles, nos hommes, nos choses, nos espoirs, nos désespoirs.(First of all thanks for my "Haitian voyage" that is now set. All that remains is to choose the date (I hope soon). Thanks for having chosen me. For this getaway cure, thanks. And for the breath of fresh air that your stay here has brought to us. One of the rare positive things that your visit has produced: certain men, a certain kind of men, a certain category of minds, have been able to break open a hole in the old colonial wall. It is a precious thing for us that men such as Breton, Mabille, and you have learned about our Caribbean, our men, our things, our hopes, our despairs.)He reports that he is working very much. He is teaching courses every day at the University of Haiti and gives weekly lectures on "poésie moderne" ("modern poetry"). He meets often with Haitian intellectuals and the French ambassador, known as the "ministre de France" ("minister of France").14 The stay is going well and the Haitians want him to extend his visit.But his wife Suzanne is ill and he would like her to have some medical tests done in the United States.He sends news of René Etiemble, a student who was three years ahead of Césaire at the Lycée Louis-Le-Grand and who then enrolled at the Ecole normale supérieure in 1929. It is probable that he met Césaire before the war. In any case, their paths had crossed a few months prior to this letter. Etiemble was serving with the Free French Office of War Information in New York. En route from New York to Alexandria in Egypt, where he was assigned to teach at a new university, Etiemble gave a talk in Fort-de-France on 6 March 1944. Titled "L'idéologie de Vichy contre la pensée française" ("Vichy Ideology Against French Thought"), his presentation generated a sharp response from the bishop of Martinique who had had good relations with the Vichy regime. Césaire published both a summary of the talk and his own response to Bishop Varin de la Brunelière.15 During his stay in Martinique, Etiemble became a close friend of Césaire and of his relatives. When he arrived in Alexandria, he reported on Tropiques in his own journal, Valeurs.16Etiemble reported to Seyrig that Césaire was much appreciated by the Commissariat aux colonies et à l'instruction publique (Commission for Colonies and Public Instruction) in Algiers, then the seat of the Free French government. Another supporter of Césaire was George Gorse, a classmate at both Louis-le-Grand and at the Ecole normale supérieure. He had become a member of the cabinet of General de Gaulle in Algiers. Given the growing interest in the poet on the part of the Free French government, and at the suggestion of Etiemble, Seyrig proposed to Césaire that he make a trip to Africa.The most surprising news conveyed by Seyrig was that, according to Etiemble, André Gide wanted to publish a text by Césaire titled Toussaint Louverture in L'Arche. It was a monthly journal founded under the aegis of Gide in February 1944 in Algiers. The editor-in-chief was the Algerian writer Jean Amrouche. His editorial board included Maurice Blanchot, Albert Camus, and Jacques Lassaigne. It was in this journal that Etiemble published another article on Tropiques shortly after his stop in Martinique. From the evidence, it is clear that Gide was not referring to Césaire's detailed historical study of Toussaint Louverture, the hero of Haitian independence, titled Toussaint Louverture: La révolution française et le problème colonial, that appeared in 1960.17 Gide was doubtless referring to the play on which Césaire was working at the time. After many changes, it was published in 1947 as Et les chiens se taisaient, a work to which I return.Césaire raises the matter of the proposed trip to North Africa. He reports that his wife is still ill, that he would like to send her to Algiers for treatment, in spite of the difficulty of such a trip (and how expensive it would be). She is suffering, writes Césaire, from a case of "pneumothorax qui ne marche plus" ("a pneumothorax that no longer works"), an expression that, in medical terms, means almost nothing. He adds that she is also bothered by a "coeur dévié" ("deflected heart"). With a pulmonary lesion and the marital problems that she and Césaire were experiencing, she was in fragile condition. Suzanne had written to Breton on 20 May 1944, three days after the arrival of the couple in Haiti: Jamais vous n'avez été si présent que ces deux derniers mois où nous avons joué—vous ne le savez pas encore—la plus terrible partie de notre vie. Et comme il faut que les signes les plus éclatants viennent de vous, au moment où dans l'angoisse nous cherchions à voir le nouveau visage de l'amour, vous avez écrit en parlant du prochain numéro de VVV: "l'amour, la liberté."18(You have never been so present as during these last two months we have know about it most terrible of our And it is that the most come from at a in our we for a new of you of the issue of VVV: trip to Haiti, then, at a of a marital in the course of which Césaire was by a "coeur in several of this for the of to Algiers by Césaire was not de dans cette partie du of which the me in this part of the would have dans la des kind of cultural in the He with the of to the Lycée "ce qui un des que vous avez pu would a with the with whom you had the of then reports on his literary in particular on his que je le d'un très Il que vous en avez Il me pas Je ne pas le J'ai les reste Et mon ne être que si je la le du J'ai de vous le je pas à mais je ne pas en En must that I it with a First, it a bit you the last it still me me a much. I think that it will see the of the In spite of my remains And In my it be I it in the context of to have to you my in not to but I to talk about it for several years. a few know that this had been Césaire for months because he had written several letters about it to In one April 1944, he écrit contre au plus du et du au plus de la cette pas la des under written at the of and at the of the this work the of the The sent to Breton donc être et dans le plus En la part de de doit être à be and in the of In the historical the must be was still with the version of the play he had to Seyrig during the cultural stop in Martinique months He reports that the stay in Haiti is now going for all has The Haitian are his The French has in a to have Césaire named cultural attaché in Césaire's would in Martinique. But he was The Free French government in Algiers had the for his mission to Haiti, and he would have to return to Martinique in the philosophy un a cette de car le de mon voyage à ce have a bit the that Algiers no longer has this in because the for my trip here is my in the He Seyrig to in order to the thanks him for his The mission of the Martinican has been until 15 Suzanne had returned to Martinique the day before in order to take of the Césaire also gives news of Et les chiens se pas mon du en la me a bit of on the of more work to But the thing seems to me that the of his stay in Haiti have been He from his with "la de ("the whom he as and to for the Césaire et en de la des des des Tout de nature à Je a un un Pour fixer à ce il me de de de la Pour le moment Martinique, the good and on the of of of of All this to my I that there is a a my on this I to learn about the Spanish the Caribbean, For the Martinique, was writing un que à Paris la des et je la au am preparing a collection that I would like to publish in Paris as as French publishing and the on the explains that during a trip to France he undertook a at the of Colonies to have Césaire and his brought to He also that he has sent of Tropiques to the journal Lettres his last letter to Seyrig, Césaire with a note of that he has become in the life of Martinique. The he led the in Fort-de-France on 27 May He of his trip to Haiti, et interesting and Et ça a été de nouveau 6 mois à à dans la de Fort-de-France. retour des vieux Une qui se contre le du au en de le la pour cela, de faire aux me de Fort-de-France. il le de me ce que je de je pas pour la then there were months of in the of Fort-de-France. The return on the of the old that the Martinican from Vichy to small the the In to that, I to become one with the here I am of Fort-de-France. In the I had to do I was to of the to break with I never stopped for that I have not not that it was at the of the Martinican of the French that he became in He gives some news of his new Il plus grand de ce que vous avez de et pas la le non pas les mais des d'un doesn't have much in with so and not before the but the of a by a still to Martinique and has an from the of un mais pas de by an but no news so He le moment je de mon horizon de les car il me the going to to clear my horizon of done so far because it is for Césaire was as one of to the first in Paris, whose was to write a new for by his Suzanne, he for Paris on November in and New York where the couple was by Breton and the of French armes the play Et les chiens se taisaient, and a titled is the first collection of Césaire's work to appear as a book in It was published on April by We know thanks to and that it was not Breton who the to have the collection but a friend of Georges before the and a member of the Volontés He to la pu ce qui de pu voir que vous les que votre et le dans et dans Je de à de the I was able to with was published of I was able to see that you were the by our first and I read with the same interest your Poems published in and I would be to be able to to an edition of your correspondence between Césaire and Seyrig, as as it a of with a long and Haitian for In his as a cultural attaché and his with Césaire and his family, Seyrig to the influence of Free France by sending the young of the Ecole normale of a journal, and poet by his with his to an island that was still from a Haiti, Césaire encountered a people he a that and Haitian some of whom remained by his teaching about He was to his island in a that would his about cultural and his own literary for a long time. The stay there was by a of in both and letters also us rare information about the of the different of Cahier d'un retour au pays natal and above all the that would to Et les chiens se in The correspondence reveals a writing that is in The poet his to his then the editorial by He and marital as he before and as he would do in the are that not only his but more his can also read in those letters about the ties those in who were part of the to the Ecole normale supérieure of the rue others who were in the to and those who found themselves in a surrealist in New York both the and Seyrig, a that launched Césaire into the des thanks to for his work and their with the man and his into the life of Martinique came as a for a man who in May to the as a of the the of and who then, in of the same to present as a for the on the Césaire wanted to his as in his correspondence with Seyrig. He to do paradoxically, by the of the first of Martinique, a that until he in would him to most of his in Paris so that he be present during is that the of cultural beginning with his first in the student in paradoxically, the for of the known also as the a of that would the old colonies of Martinique, and into of All of this a few weeks before the publication in Paris of Les armes
- Research Article
- 3
- 10.2113/gssgfbull.183.6.491
- Dec 1, 2012
- Bulletin de la Société Géologique de France
Research Article| December 01, 2012 Dr. Jean-Claude RAGE – an appreciation J. Sébastien Steyer; J. Sébastien Steyer 1 CNRS UMR 7207, Centre de Recherches en Paléobiodiversité et Paléoenvironnements, Département Histoire de la Terre Museum national d'Histoire naturelle, CP38, 8 rue Buffon, 75005 Paris, France. Email: steyer@mnhn.fr Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Eric Buffetaut Eric Buffetaut 2 CNRS, UMR 8538, Laboratoire de Géologie, Ecole Normale Supérieure, 24 rue Lhomond, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Author and Article Information J. Sébastien Steyer 1 CNRS UMR 7207, Centre de Recherches en Paléobiodiversité et Paléoenvironnements, Département Histoire de la Terre Museum national d'Histoire naturelle, CP38, 8 rue Buffon, 75005 Paris, France. Email: steyer@mnhn.fr Eric Buffetaut 2 CNRS, UMR 8538, Laboratoire de Géologie, Ecole Normale Supérieure, 24 rue Lhomond, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France Publisher: Société Géologique de France First Online: 14 Jul 2017 Online ISSN: 1777-5817 Print ISSN: 0037-9409 © 2012 Societe Geologique de France Bulletin de la Société Géologique de France (2012) 183 (6): 491–494. https://doi.org/10.2113/gssgfbull.183.6.491 Article history First Online: 14 Jul 2017 Cite View This Citation Add to Citation Manager Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Search Site Citation J. Sébastien Steyer, Eric Buffetaut; Dr. Jean-Claude RAGE – an appreciation. Bulletin de la Société Géologique de France 2012;; 183 (6): 491–494. doi: https://doi.org/10.2113/gssgfbull.183.6.491 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Refmanager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentBy SocietyBulletin de la Société Géologique de France Search Advanced Search Jean-Claude Rage has been recognized for several decades as one of the leading and international experts in the field of palaeontology, which he largely contributed to develop and which could be called “micro-palaeoherpetology”. As an introduction to a collection of papers in his honour, this short biographical sketch, authored by two colleagues of Jean-Claude (one of whom also is a former PhD student of his) is meant to convey our appreciation of his remarkable scientific and personal achievements. Jean-Claude Rage is currently Emeritus Research Director at the CNRS (National Centre of Scientific Research) and is based at the Muséum National... You do not have access to this content, please speak to your institutional administrator if you feel you should have access.
- Research Article
- 10.1017/s0003445267006269
- Jan 1, 1967
- International Annals of Criminology
Je crois que la bonne humeur du docteur Fully a des rapports très étroits avec ce que j’appelle « mon français », c’est-à-dire un français que i’utilise comme un instrument de travail, mais naturellement ce n’est pas un français que vous êtes habitués à entendre à cette chaire. C’est pourquoi je voudrais d’abord vous présenter mes excuses, parce que parfois, peut-être, vous comprendrez difficilement ce que je veux vous dire. Mais, avec un peu de bonne volonté, je crois que vous y parviendrez quand même.
- Research Article
- 1
- 10.1002/syst.201800001
- Dec 13, 2018
- ChemSystemsChem
<i>ChemSystemsChem</i> : All Systems Go!
- Research Article
- 10.1017/s0165115300005969
- Jul 1, 1984
- Itinerario
When the Belgian Government was setting up the Archives Générales du Royaume, those papers held by three departments escaped centralisation, because they had already set up their own archival sections. These were the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Defence and the Colonies. In the meantime the Ministry of Colonies has gone out of business, so that the papers it held came under the control of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. For a long time, the archives were kept in the magnificent eighteenth century building of the old Ministry of Colonies, 7 Place Royale. This was most convenient for researchers, since that building also contains the library of the Ministry, now renamed the Bibliothèque Africaine and kept well up to date, and the Centre d'Étude et de Documentation Africaine (CEDAF). Unfortunately, about a year ago, in the interests of bureaucratic tidyness the Archives Africaines, as they are now known, were moved into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2 Rue Quatre Bras. There they share a small but comfortable and quiet reading room with the archives of the host ministry itself. Facilities for photocopying and microfilming are available.
- Research Article
- 10.1353/lan.1981.0032
- Mar 1, 1981
- Language
BOOK NOTICES 237 Recherches sur les constructions imbriqu ées relatives et interrogatives en français. By Juhani Härmä. (Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae , Dissertationes humanarum litterarum, 20.) Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1979. Pp. 303. FM 60.00. This book deals, first synchronically, then diachronically, with cases of double embeddings in French, where the first level is a relative clause or a question, and the second level an object clause. Examples are la maison que je crois que Marie habite 'the house I think Mary lives in' ; Quepenses-tu que nous devrionsfaire? 'What do you think we should do?'; Dis-moi ce que tu veux que nous fassions 'Tell me what you want us to do.' These constructions appear only with verbs of 'propositional attitude' (croire, penser), declaration (dire), perception (voir, sentir), wish (vouloir), or appreciation (regretter , être content). In these constructions, the first connector's function is not in the clause it directly introduces, but in the second embedded clause; the second connector is merely a 'void' complementizer. H first reviews the position of traditional grammarians on this question, then accounts for the phenomenon in terms of WH-movement. Then he introduces a set of constraints on that transformation (he examines works by Ross, Chomsky, Cattell, and Horn), more or less covering most of the unacceptable sentences. But H's main concern is the related 'construction subjective', apparently composed of a relative clause embedded in another relative clause: L'homme que je vois qui vient est mon voisin 'The man I see coming is my neighbor.' However , by analogy to the preceding structures, one would expect "L'homme qui je vois que vient, if it is true that the first connector bears the grammatical function and the second connector is only a link. This relative clause is in fact an object clause. The surface form qui may be explained by a generalization of a rather adhoc transformation originally proposed by Gross and Kayne for attributive relative clauses; qui appears instead of que by a rule which seems specific to French, stating that a finite clause must have an expressed subject. In fact, the transformation has a diachronic background. Using an enormous corpus of Old and Middle French, H shows that, from the 12th century on, wavering occurred among three constructions, que ... que, que ... qu'il, and que . . . qui. The first disappeared in the 16th century, because of the need for a clause to have a subject . The que . .. qui construction has also tended to disappear or become marginal since the 17th century—probably because of the strange plurality of the functions ofqui, concurrently complementizer and surface subject. This syntactic monster has now been replaced by looser constructions : the infinitive with verbs of perception (l'homme queje vois venir), the parenthetical construction (l'homme qui, je crois, vient), or the dont ... que construction for the other verbs (un homme dontje sais qu'il est capable de tout). H's book is remarkable because of his comprehensive knowledge of synchronic and diachronic syntax. He is completely at ease among the dustiest German dissertations from the end of the 19th century, as well as the most recent and technical works. Although at first sight one may suspect a discrepancy here between syntax and philology, H's book is one of the most successful endeavors to bridge the gap. I can think ofno better example ofa work treating a specific syntactic problem in depth. [Jacques M. Julien , University of Texas, Austin.] L'inversion dans la subordonnée en français contemporain. By Kerstin Wall. (Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis , Studia Románica Upsaliensia , 30.) Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1980. Pp. 179. Kr. 66.50. Dealing with verb-subject inversion in subordinate clauses, this book is essentially a statistical confirmation of Le Bidois's L'inversion du sujet dans laprose contemporaine (1952) and Blinkenberg's L'ordre des mots en français moderne (1969). Starting from a corpus based on 30 novels and 30 newspapers from the 60's and 70's, Wall draws the following conclusions: (1)Inversion is favored when the subject is longer than the verb, and when the verb itself is semantically 'weak'. Blinkenberg is criticized for neglecting the former parameter, Le Bidois for neglecting...
- Research Article
- 2
- 10.3406/lfr.2008.6725
- Jan 1, 2008
- Langue française
In this paper, a unified description of the introducers of ‘completive subordinate clauses’ in French (as in Je crois qu’il va pleuvoir ‘I think that it is going to rain’) is given, taking into account the que P / ce que P variation (as in Je suis heureux que P / Je suis heureux de ce que P ‘I am happy that S’ / literally ‘I am happy of this that S’), and linking the ‘completive’ que to other uses of que (interrogative, relative, ...), within an overall theory of Qu-words (described in other papers). The basic hypothesis is that ‘Qu- words’ in French, like their English counterparts ‘Wh- words’, build a word class whose main characteristics is to introduce variables, in various manners corresponding to their different uses (interrogative, indefinite, subordinative, ...). No ‘complementizer’ is considered : que, in its function of introducing ‘completive subordinate clauses’, is a full-fledged ‘Qu- word’, namely a pronoun used in a highly abstract way.
- Research Article
- 14
- 10.1086/448763
- Apr 1, 1995
- Critical Inquiry
to be a painter, said Gustave Moreau, the symbolist painter and Matisse's professor at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, not long before his death. There is always a price to pay for attempting to break through disciplinary and generic divisions. Perhaps I will be considered too philosophical to take on the world of aesthetics with all its affective nuances and subtleties. But without concluding exactly this, the American reader may well wonder what a former revolutionary can possibly have to do with the philosophy of art. Such are the inertia of reputations, the compartmentalization of cultures, and the vicissitudes of translation. Following Moreau's example from the last century, I must put up with the unjust and absurd opinion, at least outside of France, that a man who at age twentyfive followed Che Guevara and stood for his cause in Latin America is once and forever too political to be a connoisseur of art, a historian, or a novelist. This is by no means to renounce my youth. Allow me simply to remind the campus veterans and New Leftists of the 1960s that there is a life before and after causes cdl6bres. A philosopher I was before leaving for Bolivia in 1966, having studied with Althusser and Derrida at the Ecole Normale; a philosopher I became again after getting out of prison in Camari in 1970. I am therefore all the more grateful to Tom Mitchell for making available to Critical Inquiry's readership chapter 8 of my book, Vie et mort de l'image: Une Histoire du regard en Occident (Paris, 1992). This work further advances a long-term project whose aim is to circumscribe a new disciplinary field that I have called mediology. Its premises were outlined in the form of a thesis that I presented
- Research Article
- 10.1353/rmr.1979.a459719
- Dec 1, 1979
- Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature
Thematic Development in Jodelle's Conti*'Amours by Gale Crouse# When Etienne Jodelle's works were first published in 1574, just over a year after the poet's death, his editor and lifetime friend, Charles de La Mothe, grouped seven sonnets under the heading "Contr'Amours." In his introduction to this first edition, La Mothe commented that he could include only seven sonnets "par ce que l'on n'en a encore peu recouvrer le reste,"1 and he went on to explain that the "Contr'Amours" should contain over three hundred works. Balmas has recently uncovered two additional sonnets and two longer poems which he convincingly attributes to Jodelle (pp. 529-30), but the total number remains far short of the three hundred attested to by La Mothe. The few poems which are known, however, offer valuable insight into Jodelle's work as a poet, especially in terms of poetic structure and thematic development. The "Contr'Amours" present a bold and original poetic statement of the anti-Petrarchan sentiment which was common in the midsixteenth century, especially among the Pléiade poets. Both Du Bellay, in his "Contre les Pétrarquistes,"2 and Ronsard, in the "Elegie à son livre"' and in an "Odelette à sa maistresse,"4 had criticized the excesses and the effusiveness of the traditional expressions of love. In a "Chanson" (pp. 320-335) Jodelle himself had made a similar criticism.5 Jodelle's "Contr'Amours" are unique, however, in that they constitute an illustration rather than merely a statement of anti-Petrarchism. •GAI.E CROUSE (Ph.D.. University of Wisconsin-- Madison) teaches French and integrated humanities courses at the University of South Dakota where he is chairman of the Department of Modern Languages. He has taught at San Diego State College and at the Ecole Normale d'instituteurs in Chateauroux. France. He is editor of the Language Rt>und Table Bulletin of South Dakota and a member of the Advisory Council of the Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. His affiliations include AATE. ACTKI.. RMMl. A. and SDKI. A. 1 Etienne Jodelle. Oeuvres completes. cá. Enea Balmas (Paris: Gallimard. 1965), I, 72. Kurt her references to this edition will he given in the text of the study. ; Oeuvres françaises de Jitachim du Bel/ai . ed. Charles Marty-I.aveaux (Paris: Lemerre. 1867). II. .'3.1-3.18. 'Oeuvres comp/eres. ed. Gustave Cohen (Paris: Gallimard. 1950), I. 112. 'Ibid. II. 798 ^ Balmas suggests that Du Bellay's anti-Petrarchism may have been inspired by Jodelle. See his Cn poeta del Rinasfimento francese: Flienne Jodelle. La sua vna. 11 suo lempo ( Klorence: I.. S. Olschki. 1962), p. 445. ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW7 Contr'Amours Unrequited or even rejected love is Jodelle's alleged reason for the creation of the "Contr'Amours," an interpretation supported by the poet's contemporary, Etienne Pasquier, who writes that Jodelle "estoit d'un esprit sourcilleux, et voyant que tous les autres poetes s'adonnoient à la célébration de leurs dames, luy, par un privilege spécial, voulut faire un livre qu'il intitula Contr'Amours, en haine d'une dame qu'il avoit autresfois affectionnée___6 There is no real evidence to substantiate the notion that Jodelle's poems were actually inspired by an unfortunate love affair, however, nor should this be a major consideration since the question of sincerity is often meaningless in a sixteenth-century context.7 As Piéri points out in his study of the style of the Petrarchists, "Leurs développements enthousiastes sont un procédé de rhétorique. Jodelle, dépité contre l'amour, explique comment il savait embellir l'objet de sa passion, transformer ses défauts mêmes en qualités."8 What the "Contr'Amours" present most notably is a vivid example of Jodelle's verve for writing. In these works he finds the perfect occasion to parody the traditional themes oflove poetry, especially the much-used and much-abused Petrarchan mode. Thematic modification allows him a new vocabulary and opens the possibility for unusual poetic effects. Into the sonnets of the "Contr'Amours" Jodelle pours his love for language and rhetorical innovation. The poet's creative enthusiasm is manifest...
- Research Article
- 2
- 10.1086/675317
- Apr 1, 2013
- Metropolitan Museum Journal
Sin and Redemption in the <i>Hours of François I</i> (1539–40) by the Master of François de Rohan
- Research Article
- 10.1097/wco.0b013e3283508139
- Feb 1, 2012
- Current Opinion in Neurology
Editorial introductions
- Research Article
- 1
- 10.1353/frf.2013.0013
- Mar 1, 2013
- French Forum
Et tous ces problemes d'identite, comme on dit si betement aujourd'hui. --Derrida, Le Monolinguisme de l'autre In essays, novels, and poems Albert Memmi describes a world where boundaries are disappearing, assimilation is an incontrovertible fact, and hospitality is the question of the moment. More ambitiously, his work describes an endgame where the very notion of identity as a central organizing structure must be devalorized to make coexistence possible. Without dismissing the veritable appeal strong centers of consciousness enjoy in our culture, his work destabilizes singularity and demystifies the drama of personal history. Unquestionably, Memmi's work acknowledges that the personal dimension, that identity, that the sense of belonging to families of individuals, count in the lives of communities. However, his work allows us to contemplate what communities gain when they take the spotlight off of identity. Identities are built around perceived opposition and difference. Memmi's work problematizes the notion of a fixed identity and maps out a relational model to dethrone the self, to decenter it and neutralize it, as it were. I will argue here that both his polemic and novelistic works advance the notion that non-oppositional structures constitute the best terrain for promoting coexistence, mutuality, and nonviolent exchange, all of which comprise the principal focus of his work. Admittedly, there is a difference between what Memmi describes as social reality and what he imagines to be the best solutions for societies. His work focuses on both how things are and what is desirable. He acknowledges this in La Liberation du Juif: Ainsi tous mes textes sur les hommes domines, colonises, juifs, noirs, sont essentiellement des descriptions, dont le merite a mes yeux reside surtout dans leur fidelite aux modeles, et dans leur coherence, qui revele les mecanismes de L'oppression. Les solutions a ces differents malheurs, que je finis certes par suggerer, viennent toujours en plus; comme des chapitres supplementaires, necessaires pour moi il est vrai, mais que l'on peut refuser, me semble-t-il, sans que cela contre-dise a l'inventaire lui-meme.(1) Memmi's novelistic and autobiographical works push further and more productively than his essays in exposing the problems and unfortunate consequences of hardened identity. He writes tellingly in Ce que je crois: Je sais depuis longtemps que l'identite n'est jamais identique, ni dans le temps ni dans l'espace, ni chez un individu ni dans un groupe, que toute cette affaire est largement imaginaire. ... Allons, personne n'est jamais sur de ses racines, personne ni moi. (2) Roots are tangled and there is nothing we can do about it. We have no choice but to invent ways to deal with the fact of our multiple attachments. Assimilation and the notion of hospitality run through Memmi's work and challenge us to rethink society's fascination with identity. In his work, assimilation is both a plea and a fact. It is a plea to communities and individuals to recognize that assimilation is a fundamental fact of modern societies and that it is desirable. Memmi, like Jacques Derrida and Edmond Jabes, envisages hospitality as the moment when identities are set aside--if not nullified--in the encounter between host and guest. Memmi's work encourages us to recognize, as Leo Bersani and Adam Phillips advance in Intimacies, that there are other satisfactions than the satisfactions of personal history. (3) There are other and more salutary ways to be present to another person than through personal histories. Personal histories, they argue, are histories of difference, opposition, and violence. Memmi's essays and most strikingly his novels dramatize the misery that ensues when personal history overwhelms the fabric of everyday life. Novels like La Statue de sel, Agar, and Le Scorpion, suggest that nothing is more tediously commonplace than the fact of being born a Jew, a Tunisian, or a Frenchman, for example. …
- Conference Article
- 10.15405/epsbs.2020.11.03.25
- Nov 20, 2020
The article focuses on the problem of critical reception of the works by and the personality of Francois Mauriac (1885-1970), a French author and Nobel prize winner, in the Soviet Union. The relevance of the research stems from its belonging to the domain of the theory of “active” reception and perception by the reader (a translator, or a literary critic) conducting a dialogue with the author, who, in his turn, steps into the dialogue with the reader through his fiction. Firstly, the article touches upon the problem of translating the French author’s oeuvres into Russian by the top translators of their time; it was also noted that some of the translations shortly followed Mauriac’s novels publication in France, which points at his popularity among the Soviet readers since the beginning of his career. Secondly, we studied the opinions of Soviet critics who recognized Mauriac as a master of social critique, but at the same time overlooked or wholly ignored the foundation of his art, namely its spiritual dimension. We used the essay “Ce que je crois” as an example, since it is Mauriac’s quintessential work which represents his spirituality and the unique autobiographical style. Through study of the making of the essay and its publication in the USSR, it has become possible to track down the gradual discovery of Mauriac’s legacy in its entirety and full complexity, which culminated by the end of the XXth century.
- Research Article
- 10.1002/celc.202100866
- Jul 14, 2021
- ChemElectroChem
In Memoriam of Jean‐Michel Savéant (1933–2020)
- Book Chapter
- 10.1007/978-94-015-1001-1_13
- Jan 1, 1959
News that Canrobert was replaced by Pelissier was favorably received in London. There was even some enthusiasm; for now, perhaps, the war would be more effectively prosecuted. Almost at the same time, however, another French change occasioned some British regrets as Walewski was recalled from London, where he had been the French ambassador, to replace Drouyn de l’Huys in Paris as the Minister of Foreign Affairs.1
- Book Chapter
- 10.1057/9781137448682_6
- Jan 1, 2015
On 30 April 1957, the French Ambassador in Madrid, Guy Le Roy de la Tournelle, sent a report to his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Christian Pineau, analysing the status of Spanish-Italian relations. In it, the French diplomat argued that, in spite of the ideological differences, there had been, ‘une resserrement des liens entre le Pardo et le Quirinal’.2 Three days later, the US counsellor at the Embassy in Madrid, Richard Johnson, sent a letter to the State Department which went along the same lines. According to Johnson, during the past months there had been intense activity (militarily, cultural, commercial and informational), ‘and an impressive degree of public cordiality’ between the two governments.3 Finally, on 31 May, it was the turn of the British Ambassador in Madrid to write a similar report. In it, Sir William Ivo Mallet explained that Italy had recently made a considerable effort to promote better relations with Spain.4
- Ask R Discovery
- Chat PDF
AI summaries and top papers from 250M+ research sources.
