![Georges Schehadé vers 1987](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Georges_Schehad%C3%A9_vers_1987.jpg)
Georges Schehadé (2 November 1905 – 17 January 1989) was a
Lebanese playwright
A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays.
Etymology
The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...
and
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...
writing in
French.
Life and career
Georges Schehadé was born in
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...
,
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
, in an aristocratic
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
orthodox
Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to:
Religion
* Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pa ...
family of Lebanese origin but spent most of his life in
Beirut
Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...
,
Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...
. His sister was the novelist,
Laurice Schehadé. He studied
law
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
at the American University of Beirut and became a general secretary at the ''Ecole Supérieure de Lettres'' in 1945.
In 1930,
Saint-John Perse
Alexis Leger (; 31 May 1887 – 20 September 1975), better known by his pseudonym Saint-John Perse (; also Saint-Leger Leger), was a French poet-diplomat, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1960 "for the soaring flight and evocative ...
published Schehadé's first poems in the literary magazine ''Commerce''. During his first travel to Europe in 1933 he met
Max Jacob
Max Jacob (; 12 July 1876 – 5 March 1944) was a French poet, painter, writer, and critic.
Life and career
After spending his childhood in Quimper, Brittany, he enrolled in the Paris Colonial School, which he left in 1897 for an artistic ca ...
and
Jules Supervielle
Jules Supervielle (16 January 1884 – 17 May 1960) was a Franco-Uruguayan poet and writer born in Montevideo. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature three times.
He opposed the surrealism movement in poetry and rejected automatic wri ...
. After
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, he frequently stayed in Paris where he sympathized with the
Surrealists
Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...
, especially with
André Breton
André Robert Breton (; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first ''Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') o ...
and
Benjamin Péret
Benjamin Péret (4 July 1899 – 18 September 1959) was a French poet, Parisian Dadaist and a founder and central member of the French Surrealist movement with his avid use of Surrealist automatism.
Biography
Benjamin Péret was born in Rezé, ...
.
Between 1938 and 1951, Georges Schehadé wrote four small books of
poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
that
Gallimard published in 1952 under the title ''Les Poésies''.
The year before
Georges Vitaly
Georges Vitaly, real name Vitali Garcouchenko, (15 January 1917 – 2 January 2007), was a 20th-century French actor, theater director and theater manager.
The son of immigrants from the Russian revolution, he trained as actor from 1934. In 1947 ...
produced Schehadé's first play, ''Monsieur Bob'le'', at the
Théâtre de la Huchette
The Théâtre de la Huchette is a theatre in Paris.
This small theatre in Paris' Left Bank, located at 23 rue de la Huchette in the 5th arrondissement, is known for playing Eugène Ionesco's absurdist double-bill of The Lesson and The Bald Sopr ...
, and it got very controversial reviews. Most critics didn't like it at all but several poets and actors – amongst them André Breton,
René Char
René Émile Char (; 14 June 1907 – 19 February 1988) was a French poet and member of the French Resistance.
Biography
Char was born in L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue in the Vaucluse department of France, the youngest of the four children of Emile ...
,
Georges Limbour
Georges Limbour (Courbevoie, 11 August 1900 — Chiclana de la Frontera, near Cadiz, 17 May 1970)Colin-Pichon, M., Georges Limbour: le songe autobiographique, Lachenal & Ritter, Paris, 1994, pp. 209–219 was a French writer, poet and art critic, ...
, Benjamin Péret,
Henri Pichette
Henri Pichette (1924–2000) was a French writer and poet.
Works
*Xylophonie (with Antonin Artaud), 1946
*Apoèmes, Gallimard, 1947
*Les Epiphanies, Gallimard, 1948
*Rond-Point, Joyce regular part au futur and pour Pages Chaplin, Mercure de Fran ...
and
Gérard Philipe
Gérard Philipe (born Gérard Albert Philip, 4 December 1922 – 25 November 1959) was a prominent French actor who appeared in 32 films between 1944 and 1959. Active in both theatre and cinema, he was, until his early death, one of the main ...
– were very fond of it and wrote a couple of articles in ''Le Figaro Littéraire''.
In 1954,
Jean-Louis Barrault
Jean-Louis Bernard Barrault (; 8 September 1910 – 22 January 1994) was a French actor, director and mime artist who worked on both screen and stage.
Biography
Barrault was born in Le Vésinet in France in 1910. His father was 'a Burgundia ...
produced his second play, ''La Soirée des proverbes'', that hadn't any success either. Only in 1956, with his third play, ''Histoire de Vasco'' (world premièred at
Schauspielhaus Zürich
The Schauspielhaus Zürich ( en, Zürich playhouse) is one of the most prominent and important theatres in the German-speaking world. It is also known as "Pfauenbühne" (Peacock Stage). The large theatre has 750 seats. The also operates three st ...
), Schehadé wrote a work that was staged all over the world and translated into more than 25 languages. In 1974, the British composer
Gordon Crosse
Gordon Crosse (1 December 1937 – 21 November 2021) was an English composer.
Biography
Crosse was born in Bury, Lancashire on 1 December 1937, and in 1961 graduated from St Edmund Hall, Oxford with a first class honours degree in music, where h ...
(translation and libretto by
Ted Hughes
Edward James "Ted" Hughes (17 August 1930 – 28 October 1998) was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest wri ...
) made an opera out of this play: ''The Story of Vasco'', premièred by
Sadler's Wells Opera
English National Opera (ENO) is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with The Royal Opera. ENO's productions are sung in English. ...
at the
Coliseum Theatre
The London Coliseum (also known as the Coliseum Theatre) is a theatre in St Martin's Lane, Westminster, built as one of London's largest and most luxurious "family" variety theatres. Opened on 24 December 1904 as the London Coliseum Theatre o ...
in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
.
From 1960 to 1965, Schehadé wrote three other plays, ''Les Violettes'' (1960), ''Le Voyage'' (1961) and ''L'Emigré de Brisbane'' (1965) that entered the repertoire of the
Comédie-Française
The Comédie-Française () or Théâtre-Français () is one of the few state theatres in France. Founded in 1680, it is the oldest active theatre company in the world. Established as a French state-controlled entity in 1995, it is the only state ...
in 1967. It was his last play.
In 1985, after a long period of silence, Georges Schehadé published his last book of poetry, ''Le Nageur d'un seul amour'', a collection of poems he had written between the late 1960s and the early 1980s. He died on 17 January 1989 in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
and was buried in the
Cimetière du Montparnasse
Montparnasse Cemetery (french: link=no, Cimetière du Montparnasse) is a cemetery in the Montparnasse quarter of Paris, in the city's 14th arrondissement. The cemetery is roughly 47 acres and is the second largest cemetery in Paris. The cemetery ...
.
Georges Schehadé was mentioned to have influenced
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (; alternatively ''Nessim ''or'' Nissim''; born 12 September 1960) is a Lebanese-American essayist, mathematical statistician, former option trader, risk analyst, and aphorist whose work concerns problems of randomness, ...
in Taleb's youth, mentioned the postface of
The Bed of Procrustes
''The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms'' is a philosophy book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb written in the aphoristic style. It was first released on November 30, 2010 by Random House. An updated edition was released on Octo ...
.
Works
Poetry
*''Étincelles'', Edition de la Pensée latine, Paris 1928
*''Poésies I'', GLM, Paris 1938
*''Poésies II'', GLM, Paris 1948
*''Poésies III'', GLM, Paris 1949
*''Poésies Zéro ou L'Écolier Sultan'' (written in 1928/29), GLM, Paris 1950
*''Si tu rencontres un ramier'' (later called ''Poésies IV''), GLM, Paris 1951
*''Les Poésies'' (Poésie I–IV), Gallimard, Paris 1952, reprinted in paperback edition Poésie/Gallimard 1969, 2001 and 2009
*''Poésies V'' (1972)
*''Le Nageur d'un seul amour'' (= ''Poésies VI''), Gallimard, Paris 1985
*''Poésies VII'' (last poems), Editions Dar An-Nahar, Beyrouth 1998
Plays
*''Monsieur Bob'le'', Gallimard, Paris 1951
*''La Soirée des proverbes'', Gallimard, Paris 1954
*''Histoire de Vasco'', Gallimard, Paris 1956
*''Les Violettes'', Gallimard, Paris 1960
*''Le Voyage'', Gallimard, Paris 1961
* ''L'Émigré de Brisbane'', Gallimard, Paris 1965
*''L'Habit fait le prince'' (written in 1957), pantomime, Gallimard, Paris 1973
Other works
*''Rodogune Sinne'' ("novel", published in 1942, 1947; written in 1929)
*
Goha
''Goha'' is a 1958 French-Tunisian film. It starred Omar Sharif and it was the cinema debut of Claudia Cardinale. At the 1958 Cannes Film Festival it was awarded with the Jury Prize and it had been nominated for the Palme d'Or. It was shown as pa ...
(screenplay), 1958
*''Anthologie du vers unique'', Ramsay, Paris 1977
External links
Georges Schehadé in IMEC (Institut Mémoires de l'Edition Contemporaine)The Story of Vasco, latest production in UK
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schehade, Georges
1905 births
1989 deaths
Lebanese male poets
Lebanese dramatists and playwrights
Asian writers in French
People from Alexandria
Writers from Beirut
20th-century Lebanese poets
20th-century dramatists and playwrights
French-language poets
20th-century male writers