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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
The image of collapse or implosion which dominates Reverdy's poetry and haunts the climactic section of La Nausée is glossed in the concluding pages of Sartre's novel and in various parts of Camus's Le Mythe de Sisyphe. All three men focus on the experience of the absurd, on the malaise that accompanies the fleeting awareness of the contingency of all things, a feeling that is often triggered by the perception of abrupt decline or dissolution. This existentialist malaise or nausea, which terrifies Sartre's hero Roquentin, is in fact the very stuff of Reverdy's poetry and as such it demoralizes his readers. At the same time, however, Reverdy's poetry is deeply satisfying. Its ultimate appeal can perhaps best be understood in the light of Roquentin's final decision to face up to his nausea and to purify it in a lasting form such as a work of literature. It is precisely this solution to the problem of the absurd that Reveredy had intuited at the beginning of his career in 1915. Indeed, his life's work as a poet amounts to a sustained effort to confront the absurd and neutralize it in poetic form.
1 From a letter to Jean Rousselot, dated 16 May 1951; see Entretiens, No. 20 (nov. 1961), p. 16.
2 From a letter to Emma Stojkovic-Mazzariol, dated 3 Jan. 1948; see Mercure de France, 'CCCXLIV“ (Jan. 1962), 89.
3 “Départ” is from Reverdy's 1918 plaquette entitled Les Ardoises du toit. Along with the eight other groups of poems which Reverdy published between 1915 and 1922, Les Ardoises du toit was reprinted in Pluport du temps (Paris: Gallimard, 1945). “Départ” appears on p. 165 of Plupart du temps. Subsequent page references to this volume are in the body of the article, preceded by PT. (Long out of print, Plupart du temps was reissued in 1967 by Flammarion, with an appendix by Maurice Saillet.)
4 See in Plupart du temps the following poems: “Envie,” p. 10, “Les Cornes du vent,” p. 13, “Carnaval,” p. 14, “Le Patineur céleste,” p. 18, “Après le bal,” p. 29, and “Bataille,” p. 32.
5 See in Plupart du temps the following poems: “Plus loin que là,” p. 10, “Les Poètes,” p. 15, “Salle d'attente,” p. 16, “Incognito,” p. 17, “Le Voyageur et son ombre,” p. 18, “La Repasseuse,” p. 19, and “Une Apparence médiocre,” p. 21.
6 Le Mythe de Sisyphe (Paris: Gallimard, 1942), pp. 28–29.
7 La Nausée (Paris: Gallimard, 1938), p. 166.
8 Le Mythe de Sisyphe, p. 27.
9 See Sartre's very pertinent remarks about the contemporary poet's necessary and highly original failure in “Qu'estce que la littérature?” in Situations, 'ii“ (Paris: Gallimard, 1948), 85–88.
10 Ferraille, together with seven other groups of poems from the 1925–49 period and a series of previously unpublished poems dating from 1913–15, was reprinted in Main d‘œuvre (Paris: Mercure de France, 1949). The lines quoted, from “Front de nuages,” appear on p. 354 of Main d‘œuvre. Subsequent page references to this volume are in the body of the article, preceded by MO.
11 La Liberté des mers (Paris: Maeght, 1960) is a deluxe edition of nineteen prose poems illustrated by Georges Braque. Sixteen of its poems were reprinted in Derrière le miroir, No. 135–136 (déc. 1962–jan. 1963), pp. 11–19. “L'Esprit dehors” is on p. 18 of this issue.
12 La Nausée, pp. 217–221.