Some letters to Paul Éluard

The correspondence of Paul Éluard & Jean Paulhan (1919-1944) was published by editions Claire Paulhan.

Letter
dated: Tuesday (January or February 1919)

I like that you said the word “proverb”. The clever fear him; I think it takes a lot of simplicity and critical thinking to discover it, and the thing. And the Poems for Peace charm me a lot.
I would like these Malagasy science words to interest you.

*

How old are you, who are you? I would like to know, and if we will be able to know each other, better than by letter, at the end of this long tunnel.
I will be in Paris, I think, from March 10. That’s how old I am: I’m thirty-three.

*

I liked the haï-kaï of Julien Vocance, whose real name you told me. I find them perfectly beautiful - it is more difficult for me to judge your poems from the outside, as they seem internal to me, and as if still in formation. However, I preferred “I had a long time…” and “my dear, we need…”

*

It is not normal for poetry to seem made of words: and this feeling, I think, only appears after the habit of long imitations. I feel in you this right effort to touch things.

Which writers do you like?
I am your friend

Jean Paulhan

*
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Letter
dated: Monday (Tarbes, before February 27, 1919)

only eleven days ago I learned about this review [Literature] — now I hope a lot from it (...)

André Breton wrote to me late, I would have insisted that two names that are dear to me be included among the collaborators.(...)

I would like you to know Breton. If you want I will send you some of his verses.

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Letter
dated: Tuesday (March 1919)

(...) What do you think of Literature? and what do you blame him for that will not be in our Proverb? (...)

*

I am concerned to demonstrate that words are not a translation of thoughts (as happens with telegraphic signs, or the signs of writing) but a thing themselves, a matter to be reduced, and difficult.

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Letter
dated: Friday (after March 10, 1919)

(...) how happy I am that this healing interested you.
it would take a lot to remove all personality.
firstly that the work of art is no longer taken as an imitation of true things (imitation making one think of the one who imitates)
and much more profoundly that words are no longer considered signs, imitation of ideas or things. It holds up.
This is where I work, in this specific place. I would like to be worthy, later, of our friendship.
This really moved me, the animals and their people. What fine and violent relationships you have with words - that you may thus miss them - or else this extreme gentleness.
once in Paris, I will lend you “Sages and poets…” — the book by Couchoud, which I told you about. (...)

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Letter
dated: Thursday evening (May 29, 1919)

*

yes, I can't wait to see you. But tomorrow I can't go to Claudel.
(I saw him at Miss Monnier's house, at a reading of Romans. He has a vulgar and extraordinarily detailed head)
Do you have so much work every day? I no longer saw either Breton or Soupault.

*

How I love this bird nurse.

jean paulhan

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Letter
dated: Sunday (March 1922)

THANKS. I didn't think you could become even freer. I guess now that there remained, even in Examples, some links. The Max Ernsts are very good. Have you read the story of airplanes that met in an air path? In your air too you know how to make roads, perhaps countries and catastrophes. I prefer the “Ribbons” one. It's true, where do we think we are? How happy I am to have this book.
Your

Jean P.

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_The following offensive tire, sent by Paul Eluard, will cause a long break of almost ten years between the two former friends:

dated: October 10 (1927)

It suddenly seems to me that you don't know me well, for quite a long time, but especially since a certain article by Jean Guérin in the n.r.f and since the letter that my friend Breton sent you on this subject.
You still need to know that I am from the race that annoys you, in detail and in general, in the particular and in the general.
I consider you to be a dirty idiot among so many others, you and your tic-tac-toe style, you and your shitty Legion of Honor, you and your alcove secrets, you I already told you, bidet dust, poor French bugger.

---

Letter
undated: (1935)

Dear Sir]

I thank you for the two beautiful poems that you sent me.
You will soon receive the proofs. Best feelings.

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Letter
dated: Wednesday (late September 1944)

Perhaps (if it doesn't bother you) you should start the key if you read it, with the "Observations". I believe that we must first experience all the absurdity of current views on language and poetry, if we want to want to find the truth about it.

— a truth that it is not easy (nor undoubtedly possible) to say, but which can, I believe (this is the whole subject of the Key) be provoked. (this was the meaning of this epigraph, of questionable taste): it seems to me that the poetic state has its reality (obviously), its measures, its precision. It also seems to me that he can be trained by critical means...
but whether I succeed is another question. To you,

Jean

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Letter
dated: Monday morning (1944)

Here's what Drieu is referring to: when the NRF started again, a few friends came to tell me that they would only collaborate with my permission. It would have been pretentious and somewhat ridiculous to refuse them this permission, which they wanted. I gave it to them, as quickly as possible.
Among them were Marcel Jouhandeau, Marcel Arland, and — whom it would not be accurate to call my friend — Jacques Chardonne.
In my place, would you have refused? I have often wondered what would have happened if I had done it.

*

Furthermore, I had never lost contact with Drieu and Jouhandeau. I always told them very clearly what I thought of their articles. (And it was by supporting his denunciation with a letter from me to Marcel [Jouhandeau] that Caryathis later wanted to have me arrested).

*

No, you would not have refused, since at that time you were collaborating — as Gide and Valéry did, as Mauriac declared himself ready to do — on the review. You changed then, like them — but not, I think, for the same reason. For Gide and Valéry it must have been the protests of their friends; for you, Russia's entry into the war.

*

This is where I vaguely fear that we will separate one day. I am against the Germans even if they became Communists. Maybe you are for the Communists even if they became Germans.

But I kiss you. We came back from your place all warmed up.

Jean

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Letter
dated: 17.2.47

Dear Paul,

your second unpleasant letter, although it bears fifteen signatures (instead of five) is much better kept than the first, that of twenty years ago. I think you'll soon be able to think on your own. Did you collaborate on the echoes? At first glance, I don't think so. To you,

J.P.