Joë Bousquet (; 19 March 1897 – 28 September 1950) was a French poet. Bousquet was born in

Narbonne Narbonne (, also , ; oc, Narbona ; la, Narbo ; Late Latin:) is a commune in France, commune in Southern France in the Occitania (administrative region), Occitanie Regions of France, region. It lies from Paris in the Aude Departments of Franc ...

. Wounded on 27 May 1918 at Vailly near the

Aisne Aisne ( , ; ; pcd, Ainne) is a French department in the Hauts-de-France region of northern France. It is named after the river Aisne. In 2019, it had a population of 531,345.First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, he was

paralysed Paralysis (also known as plegia) is a loss of motor function in one or more muscles. Paralysis can also be accompanied by a loss of feeling (sensory loss) in the affected area if there is sensory damage. In the United States, roughly 1 in 50 ...

for the rest of his life, and lived a life largely bedridden, surrounded by his books. His physical incapacity and constant pain (for which he took

opium Opium (or poppy tears, scientific name: ''Lachryma papaveris'') is dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which i ...

) caused a retreat from the world, but also became the starting point for an extensive body of poetry and writing. He contributed poetry to the Carcassonne poetic review ''

Cahiers du Sud ''Les Cahiers du Sud'' was a French literary magazine based in Marseilles. It was founded by Jean Ballard in 1925 and published until 1966. History and profile Ballard founded ''Les Cahiers du Sud'' as a continuation of the Marseilles review '' ...

'', and carried on a correspondence with many writers and friends, including

Louis Aragon Louis Aragon (, , 3 October 1897 – 24 December 1982) was a French poet who was one of the leading voices of the surrealist movement in France. He co-founded with André Breton and Philippe Soupault the surrealist review ''Littérature''. He wa ...

André Gide André Paul Guillaume Gide (; 22 November 1869 – 19 February 1951) was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (in 1947). Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the Symbolism (arts), symbolist movement, to the advent o ...

Paul Éluard Paul Éluard (), born Eugène Émile Paul Grindel (; 14 December 1895 – 18 November 1952), was a French poet and one of the founders of the Surrealist movement. In 1916, he chose the name Paul Éluard, a matronymic borrowed from his maternal ...

Max Ernst Max Ernst (2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German (naturalised American in 1948 and French in 1958) painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and Surrealism ...

, and

Simone Weil Simone Adolphine Weil ( , ; 3 February 1909 – 24 August 1943) was a French philosopher, mystic, and political activist. Over 2,500 scholarly works have been published about her, including close analyses and readings of her work, since 1995. ...

. He died in

Carcassonne Carcassonne (, also , , ; ; la, Carcaso) is a French fortified city in the department of Aude, in the region of Occitanie. It is the prefecture of the department. Inhabited since the Neolithic, Carcassonne is located in the plain of the ...

, and his home there is now a museum in his memory. Bousquet became friends with the

surrealist 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 ...

s, and his poetry is often associated with them. He also purchased paintings by

Salvador Dalí Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (; ; ; 11 May 190423 January 1989) was a Spanish Surrealism, surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarr ...

, Max Ernst,

Jean Fautrier Jean Fautrier (May 16, 1898 – July 21, 1964) was a French painter, illustrator, printmaker, and sculptor. He was one of the most important practitioners of Tachisme. Early life Jean Fautrier was born in Paris in 1898. He was given his unwed m ...

Wols Wols was the pseudonym of Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze (27 May 19131 September 1951), a German painter and photographer predominantly active in France. Though broadly unrecognized in his lifetime, he is considered a pioneer of lyrical abstracti ...

André Masson André-Aimé-René Masson (4 January 1896 – 28 October 1987) was a French artist. Biography Masson was born in Balagny-sur-Thérain, Oise, but when he was eight his father's work took the family first briefly to Lille and then to Brussel ...

and

Hans Bellmer Hans Bellmer (13 March 1902 – 24 February 1975) was a German artist, best known for the life-sized pubescent female dolls he produced in the mid-1930s. Historians of art and photography also consider him a Surrealist photographer. Biography B ...

, and was modeled by

René Iché René Iché (21 January 1897 – 23 December 1954) was a 20th-century French sculptor. Life and work René Iché was born in Sallèles-d'Aude, France. He fought in World War I, where he was injured and gassed. After the war, he earned a degre ...

and painted by

Jean Dubuffet Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet (31 July 1901 – 12 May 1985) was a French Painting, painter and sculpture, sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so-called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what ...

. His work was admired by many famous French writers of the 20th century, including

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 ...

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 ...

Maurice Blanchot Maurice Blanchot (; ; 22 September 1907 – 20 February 2003) was a French writer, philosopher and literary theorist. His work, exploring a philosophy of death alongside poetic theories of meaning and sense, bore significant influence on post- ...

Paul Valéry Ambroise Paul Toussaint Jules Valéry (; 30 October 1871 – 20 July 1945) was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. In addition to his poetry and fiction (drama and dialogues), his interests included aphorisms on art, history, letters, mus ...

, and, most notably,

Gilles Deleuze Gilles Louis René Deleuze ( , ; 18 January 1925 – 4 November 1995) was a French philosopher who, from the early 1950s until his death in 1995, wrote on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volu ...

Poetry

* ''Le Mal d'enfance'', (Denoël, 1939), illustrated by

* ''Traduit du silence'', (Gallimard, 1941) * ''Le Meneur de lune'', (1946) * ''La Connaissance du soir'', (Éditions du Raisin, 1946)

References

:''This article is based in part on the article

Joë Bousquet Joë Bousquet (; 19 March 1897 – 28 September 1950) was a French poet. Bousquet was born in Narbonne. Wounded on 27 May 1918 at Vailly near the Aisne battlelines at the end of the First World War, he was paralysed for the rest of his life, an ...

from the

French Wikipedia The French Wikipedia (french: Wikipédia en français) is the French-language edition of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. This edition was started on 23 March 2001, two months after the official creation of Wikipedia. It has article ...

, retrieved on 30 September 2006.'' Ohry A, Ohry-Kossoy K. Joë Bousquet: paraplegia as a poet's plight and challenge. Paraplegia. 1988 Aug;26(4):273-7.

External links

*
Painting of Joë Bousquet in bed
painting by

, 1947.
Joë Bousquet
(in French)

(in French)

(in French)

(in French) {{DEFAULTSORT:Bousquet, Joe 20th-century French male writers French military personnel of World War I People from Narbonne 1897 births 1950 deaths French male poets 20th-century French poets