Jean Tardieu (born in

Saint-Germain-de-Joux Saint-Germain-de-Joux () is a commune in the Ain department in eastern France. Population See also *Communes of the Ain department The following is a list of the 393 communes of the Ain department of France. The communes cooperate i ...

, Ain, 1 November 1903, died in

Créteil Créteil () is a commune in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, Île-de-France. It is located from the centre of Paris. Créteil is the ''préfecture'' (capital) of the Val-de-Marne department as well as the seat of the Arrondissement of Cré ...

, Val-de-Marne, 27 January 1995) was a French artist, musician, poet and dramatic author.

Life and career

He earned a degree in literature and worked for a publishing house. He published several poetry collections in the 1930s before starting to write for the stage. After World War II, Tardieu entered the world of radio and worked his way to head of dramatic programming and then director of programs at France-Music. The quality and success of French National Public Radio 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 ...

has been attributed largely to Jean Tardieu. He was married to pteridologist Marie Laure Tardieu. Tardieu's works mingled with the ideals of the French New Theatre and used comedy to pick apart more traditional theatre. He is often associated with the

Theatre of the Absurd The Theatre of the Absurd (french: théâtre de l'absurde ) is a post–World War II designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1950s. It is also a term for the style of ...

. Some of his work has been translated into English, including: * ''The Underground Lovers, and other experimental plays'' * ''Going...Going...Gone! The Client Dies Twice: Three Plays'' (

Black Apollo Press Black Apollo Press is an independent publisher based in Cambridge, England. It was founded in 1995 by American writer Bob Biderman and British Baudelarian scholar, David Kelley. As well as publishing original translations of important European ...

, ) * ''The River Underground: Selected Poems & Prose'' Some of his work is present in

Julio Cortázar Julio Florencio Cortázar (26 August 1914 – 12 February 1984; ) was an Argentine, nationalized French novelist, short story writer, essayist, and translator. Known as one of the founders of the Latin American Boom, Cortázar influenced an ent ...

's 1963 novel '' Rayuela'' (''Hopscotch''). Tardieu's work is included in Chapter 152, entitled "The Abuse of Consciousness". The French composer

Germaine Tailleferre Germaine Tailleferre (; born Marcelle Germaine Taillefesse; 19 April 18927 November 1983) was a French composer and the only female member of the group of composers known as ''Les Six''. Biography Marcelle Germaine Taillefesse was born at Sai ...

Les Six "Les Six" () is a name given to a group of six composers, five of them French and one Swiss, who lived and worked in Montparnasse. The name, inspired by Mily Balakirev's '' The Five'', originates in two 1920 articles by critic Henri Collet in '' ...

, who was a harp student of Tardieu's mother

Caroline Luigini Caroline Luigini, called ''Câline'', (2 November 1873 in Lyon – 1968 in Paris, aged 94) was a French musician, harpist and professor of harp of Italian origin, born from a family of musicians of Modena, who was the pupil of Camille Saint-Saëns. ...

and who first met Tardieu as a child, set several of Tardieu's poems to music notably in the "Concerto des Vaines Paroles" for Baritone Voice, Piano and Orchestra and in the cycle "Trois Poèmes de Jean Tardieu" for Voice and Piano. He was a great friend of

Jean René Bazaine Jean René Bazaine (21 December 1904 – 4 March 2001) was a French painter, designer of stained glass windows and writer. He was the great great grandson of the English Court portraitist Sir George Hayter. Studies Bazaine was born in Paris. He ...

who turned his poem ''L'Ombre, la branche'' into a fine illustrated art book.( Maeght Éditeur, 1977: 150 ex. with 16 colored litho's, 50 ex. with three added litho's.)

References

1903 births 1995 deaths People from Ain Lycée Condorcet alumni 20th-century French dramatists and playwrights 20th-century French poets {{theat-bio-stub