Raymond Queneau , (born in Le Havre the February 21st 1903 - died in Paris, the October 25th 1976) is a novelist, poet, playwright and mathematician, and cofounder of the literary movement called “Oulipo” ( Or to vroir of Li tentielle ttérature Po ).

Biography

Raymond Queneau was born within a family from tradesmen. He goes up to Paris to make studies of philosophy in the Sorbonne where he follows in particular the courses of Alexandre Kojève on Hegel. He attends the surrealist group to which he adheres in 1924. Following its exclusion in 1930, it takes part in the lampoon a corpse against André Breton with a text entitled “Dédé”. Raymond Queneau reported in a satirical way his experiment of surrealism in Odile , where Breton appears under the features of the character of Anglarès .

After the rupture with the Surrealism, it launches out in the study of the insane arts persons and works with a Encyclopédie of inaccurate sciences . Refused by the editors, this encyclopedia will be useful to him for the novel the Children of the Silt (1938).

Its military service in Algeria and in Morocco (1925-1927) enables him to be initiated with the slang and Arabic. During a voyage in Greece in 1932, it becomes aware of the danger to let the literary language move away from the spoken language. To bring closer these two extremes will become its literary great project. He collaborates in the review social Criticism of Boris Souvarine, then with the daily newspaper the Intransigent .

It is in 1933 qu ' it publishes its first novel the Grass which it built according to its dires like a literary illustration of the Discourse on Method of Descartes. This novel will be worth the recognition of some amateurs to him who decree to him the first Prix of the Two-Nest eggs . Four novels of autobiographical inspiration will follow: the Last days, Odile , Children of the Silt and Oak and Chien , entirely written in worms.

After some measuring rods of journalist and some odd jobs, Queneau enters into 1938 to the editions Gallimard where he carries on the activities of reader, English translator, then member of the Reading panel. It will become in 1954 director of the collection the Pleiad. In parallel, it founds a review ( Volontés ) and starts a psychoanalysis.

It is with Pierrot my friend , published in 1942, qu ' it is its first success. In 1947, appear the Exercices of style , a short account declined in a hundred styles, of which some will be adapted to the cinema by Yves Robert. The Exercices of style were inspired by the Art of the Running away of Bach, at the time of a concert with his/her friend Michel Leiris, where it wanted to develop various styles of writing. Under the pseudonym of Sally Mara, it publishes One is always too good with the women who is worth some contentions with the censure to him. It translates the novel of George of Maurier Peter Ibbetson .

With the Release, he attends the youth of Saint-Germain-of-Meadows. Its poem If you think , put in music by Joseph Kosma on the initiative of Jean-Paul Sartre, is one of successes of Juliette Gréco. Other texts are sung by the Brothers Jacques. He writes words for musical comedies, dialogs of films of which Mr Ripois realized by Rene Clément with Gerard Philippe and, also, the comment of the short-measuring of Alain Resnais Song of the styrene . He carries out and interprets the film the Following day .

He publishes new whimsical chronicles of the life of suburbs: Far from Rueil (1944), Sunday of the life (1952) of which the title borrowed from Hegel. A more experimental novel, Saint-Glinglin (1948), gathers texts published separately since 1934.

In love with sciences, Raymond Queneau between with the mathematical Company of France in 1948. It endeavors to create arithmetic rules with the construction of its works, like, for example, the " S + 7" : to take a text, any, to take a dictionary, any, general practitioner or set of themes, and to further replace all the substantives of the known as text by other substantives found in the selected dictionary and located seven places or seven front places compared to the place initially occupied (or that would have occupied if it were there) by the substantive being replaced. In 1950, it publishes a scientific text of inspiration Petite portable cosmogony .

Always in 1950, it enters like Satrape to the Collège of' Pataphysique, and is elected with the Académie Goncourt in 1951.

In 1959 appears Zazie in the Subway which opens by the expression “Doukipudonktan! ”. The success of this novel surprised Queneau itself and made of him a popular author. An adaptation to the theater by Olivier Hussenot and the cinema by Louis Malle will follow.

At the time of a conference, ( decade of Cerisy ), it founds in 1960, with François Lionnais, a literary group of research called the Oulipo ( Or to vroir of Li tentielle ttérature Po ). Its thirst for combinative mathematics will be also épanchera with the cut of the Sewing room which reception the " père" Graph theory, Claude Berge. Absolutely singular fact! Raymond Queneau will be confined even into 1972 of an article in a great review for researchers, Journal off Combinatorial Theory . As for Oulipo, it will have his many children, more or less secessionists, like: Or-X-Po, Oupeinpo, Outrapo, Oubapo…

With A hundred and Thousand Billion Poems (1961), Raymond Queneau makes a success of an exploit as well literary as leading. It is an deliver-object which makes it possible to the reader to combine itself of the worms in order to compose of the poems answering the traditional form of the regular sonnet: two quatrains followed by two tercets, is fourteen worms. Hundred thousand billion is the number of possible combinations calculated by Queneau: “It is altogether a kind of machine to manufacture poems, but of limited number; it is true that this number, though limited, provides reading for nearly two hundred million years (by reading twenty-four hours out of twenty-four). ”

The novel the blue Flowers (1965), new public success, illustrates the apologue of the thinker Chinese taoist Tchouang-Tseu wondering whether it is Tchouang-Tseu dreaming of a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming that it is Tchouang-Tseu… It also publishes this year a collection of critical studies Bâtons, Chiffres and Letters . It continues its poetic work with Courir the streets , Battre the countryside , Fendre the floods .

Raymond Queneau dies the October 25th 1976.

Works

The complete Œuvres are published with the editions Gallimard in the Bibliothèque of the Pleiad. ; Novels
  • the Grass , 1933
  • Mouth of stone , 1934
  • the Last Days , 1936
  • Odile , 1937
  • the Children of the Silt , 1938
  • a hard winter , 1939
  • mixed Times (stone II Mouth), 1941
  • Pierrot my friend , 1942
  • Far from Rueil , 1944
  • One is always too good with the women , 1947
  • Saint-Glinglin , 1948
  • the Diary of Sally Mara , 1950
  • Sunday of the life , 1952
  • Zazie in the subway , 1959
  • blue Flowers , 1965
  • Flight of Icare , 1968

; Poetry

  • Oak and dog , 1937
  • Ziaux , 1943
  • the fatal Moment , 1948
  • Small portable cosmogony , 1950
  • A hundred and thousand billion poems , 1961
  • the Dog with the mandoline , 1965
  • To run about the streets , 1967
  • To beat the countryside , 1968
  • To split the floods , 1969 elementary
  • Moral , 1975
  • logical Analysis , 1947

; Tests and articles

  • Sticks, figures and letters , 1950
  • For an ideal library , 1956
  • Discussions with Coal Georges , 1962
  • Edges , 1963
  • a History models , 1966
  • the Voyage in Greece , 1973
  • Traité democratic virtues , 1993

; Various

  • Exercises of style , 1947
  • Tales and matter , 1981
  • Newspaper 1939-1940 , 1986
  • Newspapers 1914-1965 , 1996
  • cross Letters 1949-1976: Andre Blavier - Raymond Queneau , correspondence presented and annotated by Jean-Marie Klinkenberg, 1988
  • On the S-additive continuations , Newspaper off Combinatorial Theory 12 (1972), pp. 31-71

; Translations

External bonds

  • “Queneau on the fabric”. Resources on line on the site of the Academy of Versailles
  • Site on Queneau: biography, bibliography, manuscripts, paintings, bonds and contacts
  • Site of Oulipo
  • Site of Ouxpo
  • Study: The spectacle in '' the Grass ''
  • Queneau and the jazz
  • Omajakeno
  • Queneau, history and the 'pataphysic
  • the ortograf of Queneau standardized

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