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Portrait de Jules Supervielle

Jules Supervielle

Even when Supervielle wants to run at ground level, we can see that he has big wings. The wings didn't fold the first time. Of course, one cannot ask his tragedies to be as tragic as his poems. But whoever sees them advance, at guinea fowl steps, quickly realizes that they are returning from the homeland of shadow and whirlwind, from the country of Laforgue and Marie de France and the great wounds of the heart, healed by a hitch, healed all the same, never completely healed.

He went through life leaning towards something that he was the only one to perceive and that he gradually translated for others, in a low voice: the silence of the skeleton, the sound of blood in the arteries, the miracle and the pain of living in an incomprehensible world. The man of good will was him. He was courteous to the stars, the trees, the dead, to men and to the stones of the rivers. He recited his poems, when asked, in a timid voice, and his large hands rowed gently in the air to make a passage for his words.
But the poet must not hide poetry from us. What proofs, what arguments could be valid against our inner conviction that there exists, even if only in us, a universe where metals and flowers, herbs and beasts, will-o'-the-wisps and storms combined participate in our nature, support it and contribute to taking it beyond itself? As Goethe in his old age simply called Nouvelle the tale in which he thought to bring together all the prestige and artifices of the novel and the story, the entire work of Jules Supervielle bears the name of Poetry, and again of Poetry.

The man in him was so big that he seemed made to walk over quagmires and precipices.
His poems have long inhabited the American pampas and vast spaces. Then they came closer to our hearts. They had never been too far away.
Supervielle is the poet of a slight tremor which seems to come to us from the stars, storms and other strange figures, which crowd the windows of the earth.

Jean Paulhan 1960.

Resources

Images and portraits

A life, a work - Jules Supervielle - France Culture

Oloron-Sainte-Marie, read by Jules Supervielle

Supervielle and her literary friendships

J. Supervielle, Choice of letters (ed. S. Fischbach)

WikipediaWikidataDataBnfWorldcat

Bibliography of texts published in the NRF

The texts below, published in La Nouvelle Revue Française, are grouped into four main sets: texts by Jules Supervielle, notes and columns by the author, texts about the author, and, when available, translations by the author.

Texts by Jules Supervielle

  1. Centre de l'Horizon marin – Invocation aux oiseaux – L'escale portugaise, 1920-04-01
  2. Terre, 1922-09-01
  3. Poèmes, 1923-11-01
  4. Supplique – Tornade, 1926-10-01
  5. Le Cœur et le Tourment, 1927-10-01
  6. Saisir, 1928-07-01
  7. Cœur, 1929-01-01
  8. Les boiteux du ciel, 1929-07-01
  9. Le Forçat, 1930-01-01
  10. André Gaillard, 1930-02-01
  11. Le boeuf et l'âne de la crèche, 1930-12-01
  12. L'allée – L'ours, 1931-02-01
  13. La Fuite en Égypte, 1932-05-01
  14. Les amis inconnus, 1932-10-01
  15. Les Bonshommes de cire, 1933-05-01
  16. L'escalier, 1933-11-01
  17. Lettre à l'étoile, 1936-01-01
  18. Poèmes, 1937-01-01
  19. Prière à l'Inconnu, 1937-08-01
  20. La Fable du Monde, 1938-03-01
  21. Le Minotaure, 1939-05-01
  22. Des deux côtés des Pyrénées, 1939-07-01
  23. Le jeune homme du dimanche, 1953-01-01
  24. Poèmes, 1954-01-01
  25. Le Jeune Homme des autres Jours, 1954-08-01
  26. Dernières Métamorphoses, 1955-05-01
  27. La Sanglante Métamorphose, 1956-01-01
  28. Poèmes, 1957-08-01
  29. Chercher sa Pensée, 1958-05-01
  30. Christine, 1958-08-01
  31. Chercher sa Pensée (II), 1959-04-01

Notes by Jules Supervielle

These texts by Jules Supervielle may include reading notes, mood notes, performance reviews, miscellaneous pieces, or previously unpublished texts. They appeared in NRF sections such as Chronique des romans, L'air du mois, Le temps comme il passe, etc., or in tribute issues.

  1. L'arbre entre tous, 1939-08-01, L'air du mois
  2. Lettre trouvée dans un taxi, 1954-12-01, Le temps, comme il passe
  3. Prière à l'Inconnu, 1958-06-01, Le temps, comme il passe
  4. Vous êtes là... – Encore vivant..., 1960-10-01, Textes inédits

Translations by Jules Supervielle

  1. Bucéphale et autres récits, by Franz Kafka, 1929-08-01

Texts about Jules Supervielle

These texts may include thematic studies about the author, correspondence, reading notes on works by or about the author, interviews conducted by the author, or works edited by the author.

  1. Le Voleur d'Enfants, par Jules Supervielle (Éditions de la N. R. F.), by Benjamin Crémieux, 1927-04-01, Notes : le roman
  2. Oloron-Sainte-Marie, par Jules Supervielle (Éditions des Cahiers du Sud), by Félix Bertaux, 1927-12-01, Notes : la poésie
  3. Le Survivant, par Jules Supervielle (Éditions de la N. R. F.), by Henri Pourrat, 1929-02-01, Notes : le roman
  4. Saisir, par Jules Supervielle (Éditions de la N. R. F.), by Gabriel Bounoure, 1931-09-01, Notes : la poésie
  5. Les Amis inconnus, par Jules Supervielle (Éditions de la N. R. F.), by A. Rolland de Renéville, 1934-09-01, Notes : la poésie
  6. Bolivar, de Jules Supervielle (Comédie-Française), by Jean Guérin, 1936-04-01, Notes : le théâtre
  7. L'Arche de Noé, par Jules Supervielle, by Marcel Arland, 1938-05-01, Essais critiques
  8. La Fable du Monde, par Jules Supervielle (N. R. F.), by Julien Lanoë, 1939-01-01, Notes : la poésie
  9. Une lettre [à Jules Supervielle], by Roger Caillois, 1954-08-01, Correspondance
  10. L'Escalier, par Jules Supervielle (Gallimard), by Pierre Oster, 1956-10-01, Notes : la poésie
  11. Jules Supervielle, by N. R. F., 1960-06-01, articles
  12. Les thèmes dans la poésie de Jules Supervielle, by A. Rolland de Renéville, 1960-10-01, Les thèmes particuliers et les sujets

Chronological distribution of texts published in the NRF (1908-1968)

This chart shows the chronological distribution of texts across the four categories defined above: Texts, Notes, Translations, and Texts about the author.

Bibliography of texts published in the journal Commerce

The texts below, published in the journal Commerce, are grouped into two sets: texts by Jules Supervielle and texts translated by the author.

Texts by Jules Supervielle

  1. Poème (p. 61), printemps 1926 [200 p.]
  2. Oloron-Sainte-Marie (p. 159-164), hiver 1926 [200 p.]
  3. La Pampa aux yeux clos (p. 139-181), printemps 1928 [210 p.]

Translated texts by Jules Supervielle

  1. Federico Garcia Lorca, Le martyre de sainte Eulalie (p. 73-78), automne 1928 [174 p.]

Bibliography of texts published in the journal Mesures

The texts below, published in the journal Mesures, are grouped into two sets: texts by Jules Supervielle and texts translated by the author.

Texts by Jules Supervielle

  1. Le galop incertain, 15 avril 1935 [206 p.]
  2. Marines, 15 octobre 1936 [174 p.]
  3. Tristesse de Dieu, 15 janvier 1938 [184 p.]
  4. Plein ciel, 15 octobre 1939 [180 p.]

Bibliography of texts published in Les Cahiers de la Pleiade

The texts below, published in Les Cahiers de la Pleiade, are grouped into three sets: texts by Jules Supervielle, texts translated by the author, and texts about the author.

Texts by Jules Supervielle

  1. Madame, avril 1947 [292 p.]
  2. Oublieuse mémoire, automne 1948-hiver 1949 [198 p.]
  3. Hommage, été-automne 1950 [188 p.]