Paul Claudel & Jean Paulhan, 1925-1954
Paul ClaudelJean PaulhanThe correspondence exchanged between Jean Paulhan and Paul Claudel begins significantly with the death of Jacques Rivière in 1925, when Jean Paulhan succeeds the latter as director of the N.R.F. The controversy surrounding the last years of Jacques Rivière's life also occupies an important place in the first remarks of the letter writers. This correspondence is also crossed by cyclical tensions which give it all its salt: Claudel falls into frank hostility towards the N.R.F. when his editorial line no longer suits him, and he makes it known clearly; Paulhan diplomatically strives to bring the prestigious playwright back to his review, while trying to preserve the open-mindedness and apoliticism of the N.R.F. These letters also reflect the intellectual ferment of the interwar and post-war periods; the history of the N.R.F. is traced there in watermark; we see the emergence of a new aspect of Claudelian writing, that of the exegetical work.
The critical apparatus proposed by Catherine Mayaux underlines the extraordinary creativity of the mature Claudel, highlights the importance of the sometimes stormy links of the poet with the N.R.F. and its Director - a figure closely linked to his own -, and insists, more broadly, on his relations with the literary and diplomatic circles of his time.
Publisher : Peter Lang