Jules Supervielle

Jules Supervielle (January 16th 1884 - May 17th 1960) was a Poète and a writer free-Uruguyan.

Jules Supervielle always kept away from the Surréalistes which reigned on first half of the 20th century (let us recall that the Proclamation of André Breton date of 1924). Eager to propose a more human poetry and to join again with the world, it rejected the automatic writing (that the surrealist ones well quickly gave up themselves) and dictatorship of the Inconscient, without to disavow the assets of modern poetry since Baudelaire, Rimbaud and Apollinaire, like certain fundamental innovations of surrealism.

Attentive with the universe which surrounded it as with the phantoms of its interior world, it was one of the first to recommend this vigilance, this control that the following generations, moving away from the surrealist movement, put at the honor. It anticipated the movements of the years 1945-50, dominated by the powerful personalities of Rene Char, Henri Michaux, Saint-John Perse or Francis Ponge, then - after the bracket avant-gardist of the years 1960-70 - those of the poets eager to create a new lyricism and to introduce a certain form of crowned or, at least, a more modest approach of the mysteries of the universe, without radical questioning of the language: Yves Bonnefoy, Philippe Jaccottet, Jacques Dupin, Eugene Guillevic, Jean Grosjean, Andre Frénaud, Andre of Bouchet, Jean Follain, to quote only them.

Its spiritual admirors or successors name Rene-Guy Cadou, Alain Bosquet, Lionel Ray, Claude Roy, Philippe Jaccottet or Jacques Réda…

Great events of the life of Supervielle

A very plain family

Of 1880 with 1883: Bernard, uncle of the poet, found in Uruguay a bank with his wife Marie-Anne. This company quickly becomes family: Bernard asks his Jules brother, father of the poet, to come to join it in Uruguay. Jules makes trio a perfect quartet by marrying his own sister-in-law, Marie, sister of Marie-Anne and mother of the poet.

Birth of an orphan

1884 : The poet is born with Montevideo, in Uruguay, of a father inhabitant of Béarn and a Basque mother. The same year, the small Jules and his parents return in France to return visit to their family. It is with Oloron-Holy-Marie that a tragedy accident occurs: his/her father and his mother die brutally, undoubtedly poisoned by the water of a tap or victims of the Choléra. The child is initially raised by his grandmother.

1886 : his/her uncle Bernard brings back the small Jules in Uruguay, where it raises it with his wife as if he were his own son.

Beginnings of a literary vocation

1893 : At the nine years age, the small Jules learns by chance that he is only the adoptive son of his uncle and his aunt. He begins the drafting of a book of fables on a register of the Supervielle bank.

1894 : His/her uncle and his aunt settle with Paris. Jules will make all his secondary studies there.

1898 : Jules discovers Musset, Hugo, Lamartine, Leconte de Lisle and Sully Prudhomme. He starts to write poems in hiding-place.

1901 : He publishes in account of author a plate of poems entitled Brumes of last the . He spends his summer holidays in Uruguay in 1901, 1902 and 1903.

Of 1902 with 1906: Jules continues his studies, since the baccalaureat until the license of letters. He makes also his military service but, of fragile health, he supports the life of barracks badly.

The entry in the adult life

1907 : he marries Pilar Saavedra in Montevideo. From this union will be born six children, born between 1908 and 1929.

1910 : it deposits a subject of thesis on the feeling of nature in poetry Spanish-American . Extracts will appear in the Bulletin of the American library.

1912 : After many voyages, it settles in Paris, in an apartment, 47, boulevard Lannes, where it will remain during twenty-three years. But, very often, it will cross the Atlantic to go in Uruguay, its second fatherland.

Of 1914 with 1917: Jules is mobilized. He will carry on in particular activities with the ministry for the War, because of his linguistic abilities. Starting from 1917, it reads much and discovers Claudel, Rimbaud, Mallarmé, Laforgue and Whitman.

1919 : The publication of its poems draws the attention of Gide and of Valéry and in contact with the New French Review puts it (NRF).

Birth of a poet

1922 : Publication of its first important collection of poems: Unloading docks .

1923 : It is the beginning of a long friendship with Henri Michaux, who will become his close friend. It is as this year as it publishes its first novel: the Man of the pampa .

1925 : He binds with the large German poet Rainer Maria Rilke and publishes one of the major poetic collections of the XXe century: Gravitations .

1927 : He becomes the close friend of Jean Paulhan and subjects from now on all its texts to him.

1931 : He writes its first important collection of news: the Child of the open sea . At that time, he devotes himself to many literary activities and acquires the recognition of criticism, including in Uruguay. Its first important part, the Beautiful one with wood , is born also at that time. In addition, it will not cease altering its texts, giving place to multiple republications, and the fact of often passing from a literary kind to another.

1938 : It binds with Etiemble.

Years of exile

1939 : With the declaration of war start difficult years: the international tension, of the financial problems and the troubles of health (pulmonary and cardiac problems) lead Jules Supervielle to be exiled for seven years in Uruguay. It is named officer of the Légion of honor.

1940 : The Supervielle bank goes bankrupt; the poet is ruined. But its literary activity is always also intense and its plays will be assembled thereafter by large directors, of which Louis Jouvet. It in addition continues to be devoted to translations (Guillen, Lorca, Shakespeare…) and will receive several literary prizes throughout these years of maturity.

1944 : It makes conference series at the university of Montevideo on contemporary French poetry.

Dedication

1946 : Supervielle returns in France, having been named attached cultural fee near the legation from Uruguay to Paris. It publishes its first mythological tales under the title Orphée .

1951 : It publishes an autobiographical account entitled Boire with the source , like some invaluable pages on its design of poetry: while thinking of a poetic art, following its poetic collection Births . At that time, he suffers from arrhythmia and the after-effects of his lung disease.

1959 : He makes appear his last poetic collection, the tragic Body .

1960 : Supervielle is elected Prince of the poets by its pars. The May 17th, it dies in its Parisian apartment; it is buried with Oloron-Holy-Marie. In October, the NRF makes appear an special issue which pays homage to him.

Of 1966 with 1987: publication with the editions Gallimard (collection “Poetry”) of its principal poetic collections.

1976 : Pilar dies in its turn; she is buried at the sides of her husband.

1990 : The town of Oloron-Holy-Marie creates the Prix Jules-Supervielle; among his prizes winner, one raises the names of major contemporary poets: Alain Bosquet, Eugene Guillevic, Henri Thomas, Jean Grosjean and Lionel Ray.

1996 : Publication of complete poetic works of Jules Supervielle in the Library of the Pleiad, with the Gallimard editions.

Principal works

to see All its work

Critical studies

Claude Roy, Supervielle , Paris, Poetries P., NRF, 1970
Sabine Dewulf, Jules Supervielle or poetic knowledge - Under the sun of lapse of memory , coll Literary Critics, in two volumes, Paris, ED. Harmattan, 2001

Current events

an emission on Jules Supervielle was carried out by France Culture on Sunday, April 29, 2007 in the emission " A life, a œuvre".

For more details.

the editions the Feast (Bordeaux) publish the texts Saint-Jean-Foot-of-Port and Oloron resulting from Boire to the source, delivers today almost untraceable. They evoke the return to the native soil which was also that where his/her parents died tragically, whereas it was old only of a few months. It is into 1926 that the poet carries out this " pèlerinage" in the streets, the houses of its early childhood. Precision of descriptions, emotion, these texts plunge the reader in the Country-Basque of the end of the XIXe century.

the Pyrenees. Saint-Jean-Foot-of-port. Oloron of Jules Supervielle, the Feast, 2006 (postface of Jacques Gall and photographs of Jean-Christophe Garcia).

Since November 2003, association " Friends of Jules Supervielle" organize conferences and animations in order to make known this poet. Besides in February 2008, will take place, in Oloron-Holy-Marie, a conference on the topic: " Supervielle in the world of today. To which manners of being its poetry does invite us it? "

External bonds

Jules Supervielle and poetry
Jules Supervielle
a man with the sea (analyzes)

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