{"id":23264,"date":"2016-04-28T00:24:01","date_gmt":"2016-04-27T22:24:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/?p=23264"},"modified":"2016-04-28T17:34:00","modified_gmt":"2016-04-28T15:34:00","slug":"saint-john-perse-french-poetry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/saint-john-perse-french-poetry\/","title":{"rendered":"Saint-John Perse – French Poetry"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo

Photo by Nobel Foundation, Public Domain<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n

I interviewed mon ami<\/strong> (my friend) as a part of the Real French Series<\/a>, and I wanted to get him to share de la culture fran\u00e7aise<\/strong> (some French culture) as a part of the interview. I asked him to recite une po\u00e8me<\/strong> (a poem), and he was happy to share one!<\/p>\n

I had never heard of or le po\u00e8me <\/strong>or le po\u00e8te<\/strong> (the poet) so une fois \u00e0 la maison <\/strong>(once home) I looked up le po\u00e8te<\/strong>, Saint-John Perse<\/em>.<\/p>\n

His real name is Alexis Leger<\/em>, and he was born in 1887 on the island of Guadeloupe<\/strong> (Guadalupe) in the Caribbean, and he moved to\u00a0l’Hexagone<\/strong><\/a> (“The Hexagon”, French term for Mainland France) in 1899. He studied law and began a career as un dipl\u00f4m\u00e2t<\/strong> for France. It was during his career as un dipl\u00f4m\u00e2t<\/strong> that he started using le pseudonyme<\/strong> (the pen name) Saint-John Perse<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Known for being anti-nazi, he fled to les \u00c9tats-Unis<\/strong> (the United States) during the German occupation of France, and he he wrote many of his most notable po\u00e8mes <\/strong>there. Le po\u00e8te<\/strong> stayed aux \u00c9tats-Unis<\/strong><\/a> until his death in 1967.<\/p>\n

Sa po\u00e9sie<\/strong> (his poetry) is internationally recognized. He received le prix Nobel de litt\u00e9rature<\/strong> (the Nobel Prize in literature) in 1960 “for the soaring flight and evocative imagery of his poetry”.<\/p>\n

Mon ami<\/strong> chose to recite a part of Amers<\/em><\/strong>, his longest and often considered best po\u00e8me<\/strong>. The title of le po\u00e8me<\/strong> is un jeu de mots<\/strong><\/a> (a play on words, pun), where Amers<\/em> can sound like several different words in French:<\/p>\n

Amers \u2013 Seamarks, daymarks, daymarkers (nautical term)
\nAmer \u2013 Bitter
\nAm\u00e9rique \u2013 America (where he was when he wrote le po\u00e8me<\/strong>)
\nAux mers \u2013 To the seas
\nLa mer \u2013 The sea
\nLa m\u00e8re \u2013 The mother<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Saint-John Perse never specified the exact meaning he intended for le po\u00e8me<\/strong>, leaving it intentionally vague<\/strong>. Ceci dit<\/strong> (that said), many of the possible meanings have to do with la mer<\/strong>, a key subject and the setting of le po\u00e8me<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Le po\u00e8me<\/strong> is his longest and mon ami<\/strong> did not have the entire thing memorized. Instead there were a few lines qui a touch\u00e9 son coeur<\/strong> (that touched his heart) that he recited from memory:<\/p>\n

Et comment il nous vint \u00e0 l\u2019esprit d\u2019engager ce po\u00e8me, c\u2019est ce qu\u2019il faudrait dire. Mais n\u2019est-ce pas assez d\u2019y trouver son plaisir ? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Et bien f\u00fbt-il, \u00f4 dieux ! que j\u2019en prisse soin, avant qu\u2019il ne nous f\u00fbt repris\u2026 Va voir, enfant, au tournant de la rue, comme les Filles de Halley, les belles visiteuses c\u00e9lestes en habit de Vestales, engag\u00e9es dans la nuit \u00e0 l\u2019hame\u00e7on de verre, sont promptes \u00e0 se reprendre au tournant de l\u2019ellipse.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And how it came to us to induce this poem is what we will have to tell. But it is not enough to take pleasure in it?<\/em><\/p>\n

And how good it was, O gods! that I took care of it before it was taken away from us\u2026 Go and see, child, at the turn of the street, how the Daughters of Halley, the beautiful celestial visitors in Vestal robes, caught in the night by the hook of glass, are prompt to escape at the turn of the ellipse.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Be sure to come back next week to see the interview and to hear mon ami<\/strong> recite le po\u00e8me de Saint-John Perse !<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

I interviewed mon ami (my friend) as a part of the Real French Series, and I wanted to get him to share de la culture fran\u00e7aise (some French culture) as a part of the interview. I asked him to recite une po\u00e8me (a poem), and he was happy to share one! I had never heard…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":23265,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23264","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}