Pierre Jean Jouve (11 October 1887 – 8 January 1976) was a French writer, novelist and poet.Michael Sheringham, 'Jouve, Pierre-Jean', ''Oxford Companion to French Literature''
Online
at

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He was nominated for the

Nobel Prize in Literature ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , caption = , awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature , presenter = Swedish Academy , holder = Annie Ernaux (2022) , location = Stockholm, Sweden , year = 1901 , ...

five times. In 1966 he was awarded the ''Grand Prix de Poésie'' by the

French Academy French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

. Born and raised in Arras, as a teenager Jouve read

Rimbaud Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (, ; 20 October 1854 – 10 November 1891) was a French poet known for his transgressive and surreal themes and for his influence on modern literature and arts, prefiguring surrealism. Born in Charleville, he start ...

, Mallarmé, and

Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticism inherited fro ...

and began to write poetry of his own. In 1906, he and his sister Madeleine, together with their close family friends the Charpentiers, founded the literary magazine ''Le Bandeau d'Or''. At that time, Jouve drew close to the

Abbaye de Créteil L'Abbaye de Créteil or Abbaye group (french: Le Groupe de l'Abbaye) was a utopian artistic and literary community founded during the month of October, 1906. It was named after the Créteil Abbey, as most gatherings took place in that suburb of Pa ...

, a literary and utopian movement based outside Paris. In 1910 he married Andrée Charpentier, and the couple moved to Poitiers, where Andrée took a position as a teacher and Pierre sold

player pianos A player piano (also known as a pianola) is a self-playing piano containing a pneumatic or electro-mechanical mechanism, that operates the piano action via programmed music recorded on perforated paper or metallic rolls, with more modern im ...

. During World War One he served as an orderly in the hospital at Poitiers. A militant pacifist, in 1915 he and Andrée left France for Switzerland, where he became close to the novelist

Romain Rolland Romain Rolland (; 29 January 1866 – 30 December 1944) was a French dramatist, novelist, essayist, art historian and Mysticism, mystic who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915 "as a tribute to the lofty idealism of his literary pro ...

and continued to serve as an orderly. In the 1920s, Jouve fell in love with Blanche Reverchon, a psychiatrist and the first translator of

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...

's work into French; later, at Freud's urging, she established her own practice as a psychoanalyst in Paris.. She and Jouve were married in 1925. In 1928, after undergoing analysis himself, Jouve renounced all of his previously published work. His subsequent writing was heavily influenced by his reading of Freud and deeply engaged with themes of sexuality and guilt. In later life, he and Blanche were at the center of a circle of writers and artists that included

Balthus Balthasar Klossowski de Rola (February 29, 1908 – February 18, 2001), known as Balthus, was a Polish-French modern artist. He is known for his erotically charged images of pubescent girls, but also for the refined, dreamlike quality of his image ...

, Philippe Roman,

David Gascoyne David Gascoyne (10 October 1916 – 25 November 2001) was an English poet associated with the Surrealist movement, in particular the British Surrealist Group. Additionally he translated work by French surrealist poets. Early life and surrealis ...

, and Henry Bauchaud. Vociferously anti-fascist, Jouve was along with

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 ...

one of the chief poets of the French resistance.

Works

Original works in French

* ''Paulina 1880'', 1925 * ''Vagadu'', 1931 * ''Noces'', 1931 * ''Sueur de sang'', 1935 * ''Matière céleste'', 1937 * ''La Vierge de Paris'', 1946 * ''Tombeau de Baudelaire'', 1958

Works translated into English

* ''An Idiom of Night'', selected and translated by

Keith Bosley Keith Anthony Bosley (16 September 1937 – 24 June 2018) was a British poet and translator. Bosley was born in Bourne End, Buckinghamshire, and grew up in Maidenhead, Berkshire. He was educated at Sir William Borlase's Grammar School in Marlow ...

(

Swallow Press Ohio University Press (OUP), founded in 1947, is the oldest and largest scholarly press in the state of Ohio. It is a department of Ohio University that publishes under its own name and the imprint Swallow Press. History The press publishes a ...

1968) * ''Hélène'', trans.

Lydia Davis Lydia Davis (born July 15, 1947) is an American short story writer, novelist, essayist, and translator from French and other languages, who often writes short (one or two pages long) short stories. Davis has produced several new translations of ...

(Marlboro Press 1995; 1936) * ''Paulina 1880'', trans. Rosette Letellier and Robert Bullen (Marlboro Press 1995; 1925) * ''The Desert World'', trans. Lydia Davis (Marlboro Press 1996; 1927) * ''Hecate: The Adventure of Catherine Crachat: I'', trans. Lydia Davis (Marlboro Press 1997; 1928) * ''Despair Has Wings: Selected Poems'', trans.

, ed. Roger Scott (Initharmon Press 2007)

References

External links

* Nancy Sloan Goldberg
translation of part of 'Les Enterrés' (The Buried)
a poem published in ''Danse des morts'', 1917 {{DEFAULTSORT:Jouve, Pierre Jean 1887 births 1976 deaths People from Arras French male poets French male novelists 20th-century French poets 20th-century French novelists 20th-century French male writers