Roger Gilbert-Lecomte
It is the nobility of Letters, it is the nobility in particular of Poetry, that the writer runs his danger which is not unlike the danger of the trapeze artist or the matador - which is perhaps all the more pressing because it is obscure and difficult to imagine: because it is a question of a stranger disposition of the mind. It is the danger which chases Rimbaud to Abyssinia and which throws Antonin Artaud into the tortures of opium.
Roger Gilbert-Lecomte was more sensitive than any other to this danger. He never stopped facing it without physical poverty, illness, lack of money ever being able to dissuade him from the risk he had chosen. He fought for all of us like a hero.
What was immediately striking about this young man of extreme elegance and great beauty was his intelligence. His reasoning was abundant, rigorous, pressing. There is no doubt that he knew with extreme acuteness, in all its details, the noble danger he ran — and from which he died.
Jean Paulhan, 1966.
Resources
Roger Gilbert-Lecomte - “You are screwed, poet! » (letter to René Daumal)
Roger Gilbert-Lecomte – Exceptional tribute (Chaîne Parisienne, 1963)
Roger Gilbert-Lecomte, Ultimate homage - France Culture, 2002
Roger Gilbert-Lecomte, Introduction to his Correspondence - France Culture, 1971
What is The Great Game? - France Culture, 2000
The Great Game, between illusion and lucidity
Appeal for air - The Great Game: The slopes of Reims - France Culture, 2015
Roger Gilbert-Lecomte resources — Mélusine site
Works available on Gallica
- The Red Lyon; followed by The Storm of the Swans or The Conquest of Signs, drawings by René Daumal and Roger Gilbert-Lecomte, Paris, 1964.
- The Black Mirror, Paris, 1938.
- Life, love, death, emptiness and wind, Paris, 1933.
Mention of Roger Gilbert-Lecomte in a text about Paulhan constellation :
- Esquisse d'un double portrait de Léon Pierre-Quint et de Jean Paulhan en maîtres de jeu de Bernard Baillaud
- In Memoriam Roger Gilbert-Lecomte de Léon Pierre-Quint
- In Memoriam Roger Gilbert-Lecomte de Pierre Minet
Text by Roger Gilbert-Lecomte within the Paulhan constellation :
- Avant-Propos de Roger Gilbert-Lecomte
Bibliography of texts published in the NRF
The texts below, published in La Nouvelle Revue Française, are grouped into four main sets: texts by Roger Gilbert-Lecomte, notes and columns by the author, texts about the author, and, when available, translations by the author.
Texts about Roger Gilbert-Lecomte
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.
- Le Testament de Roger Gilbert-Lecomte, by Pierre Oster, 1955-12-01, Chroniques
- Roger Gilbert-Lecomte, René Daumal, Roger Vailland et Robert Meyrat..., by Véra Daumal, 1957-02-01, articles
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.