Selected Writings

by Paul Éluard, Lloyd Alexander (Translator)

bilingual edition, tr Gilbert Bowen

Genres: Poetry, France, Classics, Fiction, French Literature, Literature, 20th Century

218 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1950

About the author

Paul Éluard was the pen name of Eugène Émile Paul Grindel. French poet, a founder of Surrealism with Louis Aragon and André Breton among others, one of the important lyrical poets of the 20th century. Éluard rejected later Surrealism and joined the French Communist Party. Many of his works reflect the major events of the century, such as the World Wars, the Resistance against the Nazis, and the political and social ideals of the 20th-century.

Reviews

[Ipsita · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was exactly what I needed after a disastrous semester whose results would be equally (if not more) catastrophic. I'm just surprised at the cloak of obscurity surrounding the poet and his works. Paul Éluard is a poet who celebrates the essence of being human, of being alive and of the endless possibilities surrounding life. Even though many poems in this collection were published during or after the Second World War, yet instead of being patriotic, these poems recognize the universal significance of suffering and peace. His is the conciliatory voice of a loved one holding your hand at the end of a particularly bad day and whispering reassuringly that it'll be alright, not today or tomorrow but someday, it'll be alright.

Even if in the whole of my life I had known but one moment of hope, I would have waged this fight. Even if I am to lose it, for others will win it. All others. (Preface of A Lesson in Morality)

If there's something that undermines literature in transcending as a quintessence of art, it's music. However, the poetic function of language defies this impasse through lyricism, word play and continuity. There's Mallarmé and his ingenious spacing techniques, Mayakovsky and his adroit mastery in imagery; and there's Éluard with his minimum usage of punctuations (a fact, as observed in the Introduction, often unnoticed due to the natural rhythm created by his poetry). The poets create an illusion of continuity teeming spontaneously like music.

My favourites include Absence, Five Haiku, The Nakedness of Truth, November 1936, I cannot be Known, Courage, Liberty, Seven Poems of Love at War, The Same Day for All, Right in the Middle of the Month of August, The Arms of Sorrow, The Kiss, Dialogue, Marine, The Face of Peace, Sound Justice, The Phoenix and Simple Pictures of Tomorrow.

I've quoted some of the exemplary verses below:

The dumb girl talks:
It is art's imperfection,
This impenetrable speech. (Five Haiku)


Despair has no wings,
Nor has love,
No countenance:
They do not speak.
I do not stir,
I do not behold them,
I do not speak to them,
But I am as real as my love and my despair. (The Nakedness of Truth)

Speak of the sky the sky empties
Autumn does not matter much
Our masters stamped their feet
We forgot autumn
And we shall forget our masters. (November 1936)


I cannot be known
Better than you know me (I cannot be Known)


The fear and the courage to live and to die
Death so difficult and so easy. (The Victory of Guernica)

This shower of rain is a burst of fire:
The heat will smother it. (Free Hands)

The harvest of the sky over our earth
Feeds my voice I dream and weep
I laugh and dream among the flames
Among the clusters of the sun

And over my body your body spreads
The sheet of its bright mirror. (Absence)


We who are not helmeted
Nor booted nor gloved nor well brought up
A ray lights up in our veins
Our light comes back to us
The best of us have died for us
And their blood now finds again our hearts (Courage)

I heard them calculate
The multiplied dimensions of the autumn leaf
The melting of the wave on the crest of the quiet sea
I heard them calculate
The multiplied dimensions of future strength. (The Last Night)

And by the power of a word
I begin my life again
I was born to know you
To name you
Liberty. (Liberty)

For I heard them laughing
In their beauty in their blood
In misery and torment
Laughing at laughter to come
Laughing at life and being born to laughter. (The Same Day for All)


Warriors in the image of my heart
This one thinks of death
That one does not
One sleeps the other wakes
But all dream the same dream
To be free

Each is the shadow of all. (The Arms of Sorrow)

Still warm from sleep gown cast away
You drift but you have closed your eyes
Drift like a new song comes to life
Faintly yet from everywhere (The Kiss)


You of this day whom I love beyond myself
Like life made hope
You make great my heart my body and my senses
And the supreme reason

For not believing time surpasses life
For time is life itself. (Simple pictures of tomorrow)

[Olga · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five Haiku

The wind
Undecided
Rolls a cigarette of air

The mute girl talks:
It is art's imperfection.
This impenetrable speech.

The motor car is truly launched:
Four martyrs' heads
Roll under the wheels.

Ah! a thousand flames, a fire,
The light, a shadow!
The sun is following me.

A feather gives to a hat
A touch of lightness:
The chimney smokes.

[Sajid · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I cannot be known
Better than you know me
Your eyes in which we sleep
We together
Have made for my man's gleam
A better fate than for the common nights
Your eyes in which I travel
Have given to the signs along the roads
A meaning alien to the earth
In your eyes those who reveal to us
Our endless solitude
Are no longer what they thought themselves to be
You cannot be known
Better than I know you.”

“ABSENCE
I speak to you across cities
I speak to you across plains
My mouth is upon your pillow
Both faces of the walls come meeting
My voice discovering you
I speak to you of all seasons
0 cities memories of cities Cities wrapped in our desires
Cities come early cities come lately Cities strong and cities secret
Plundered of their master builders
All their thinkers all their ghosts
Fields pattern of emerald
Bright living surviving
The harvest of the sky over our earth
Feeds my voice I dream and weep
I laugh and dream among the flames
Among the clusters of the sun
And over my body your body spreads
The sheet of its bright mirror.”

“She is standing on my eyes
And her hair is in my hair;
She has the figure of my hands
And the colour of my sight.
She is swallowed in my shade
Like a stone against the sky.
She will never close her eyes
And will never let me sleep;
And her dreams in day's full light Make the suns evaporate, Make me laugh and cry and laugh, Speak when I have nought to say.”

[Edita · Rating 4 out of 5]

To say that for so long man has made man fear
And made fear the birds he bore within his head.

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favourite French poet.

[Rosa Ramôa · Rating 4 out of 5]

De Primeiro em Primeiro de Maio


Como da mesma árvore sendo as folhas
Nós somos reunidos por vento sufocante
Miséria é a noite e a guerra dilúvio
Do espelho que nos estendem apenas resta o chumbo

E não é só de ontem mas de sempre que ousam
Votarem-nos ao nada a nós jovens de novo
A cada beijo terno como a cada manhã
Nós que tiramos do futuro nossa luz

Os nossos amos têm marcas de um céu que é falso
Nós nossa força é nua é única e primeira
P'ra sempre no futuro nós sobre a terra os homens
E só suportaremos o peso da ventura

O peso leve e doce de rebentos e frutos.

[Iulia Kyçyku · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful, powerful poetry book, but the translation wasn't accurate in many places. Also, there were a little too many poems related to the war experience in this section, but that's just my taste.

[Myat Thura Aung · Rating 4 out of 5]

Il y a des mots qui font vivre

[Mesia Loriana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love every lyric. Beautiful poems.

"Je dis ce que je vois
Ce que je sais
Ce qui est vrai."

[Mehrnaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Je fis un feu, l'azur m'ayant abandonne.

[Cellophane Renaissance · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some pieces I loved, between the languages :

Parlez du ciel le ciel se vide
L'automne nous importe peu
Nos maîtres ont tapé du pied
Nous avons oublie l'automne
Et nous oublierons nos maîtres.

Speak of the sky the sky empties
Autumn does not matter much

I cannot be known
Better than you know me

Your eyes in which I travel
Have given to the signs along the roads
A meaning alien to the earth

You cannot be known
Better than I know you.

La mort si difficile et si facile

Ma bouche est sur ton oreiller
My mouth is upon your pillow

Et sur mon corps ton corps étend

And over my body your body spreads
The sheet of its bright mirror.

Paris a froid Paris a faim
Paris ne mange plus de marrons dans la rue

J'ai vécu comme une ombre

Sur I'absence sans désir

Car vivre et faire vivre est au fond de nous tous
For to live and help others to live is in the heart of all of us

Le mot chaleur le mot confiance

I am alone in my body

unie et pleine

and love will bless the night
l'amour baptisera la nuit

you float
Past your body's boundaries

LIKE MANY OTHERS
From one war to another I grew old

d'espérances terrestres

"J'ai vu avec ces yeux que j'ai, avec ce cœur qui regarde"
"I have seen with these eyes, I have, with this beholding heart,"

Our hearts polish the stone.

L'utilité de la beauté

Pour tous du pain pour tous des roses


Nous prendrons de vitesse l'aube et le printemps­
Et nous préparerons des jours et des saisons
A la mesure de nos rêves.

We shall seize the dawn and spring
And we shall make ready days and seasons
Measured to our dreams.

La blanche illumination

Mon bonheur c'est notre bonheur
Mon soleil c'est notre soleil
Nous nous partageons la vie

My happiness is our happiness
My sun is our sun
We share life with each other

Nous allons combler l'innocence

For we are growing real.

Nous devenons réels ensemble par I'effort

We are growing real by deeds together

Strength will grow lighter and lighter

Éveille-toi cœur et couleur en tête
Awake with heart and colour in your head

Je te regarde tout est nu
I gaze upon you nothing is concealed

C'est le commencement du monde

Éveille-toi que je suive tes traces
J'ai un corps pour t'attendre pour te suivre

Awake that I may follow where you go
I have a body that waits to follow you

Un corps pour passer ma vie à t'aimer
A body to spend with you a life of love

And all the alleys of the blood

Le ciel va se remplir d'étoiles, goutte à goutte.

La forêt bruit,

Chacun suit son chemin

Tu multiples mon cœur et mon corps et mes sens
You make great my heart my body and my senses

[yuefei · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of gorgeous imagery and uses of language, but also very of its time (WWII and postwar France). A little too humanist (the symbolism is often problematically and suspiciously clear) and politically optimistic to really vibe—not to mention the translation is meh—but still enjoyed it, especially the early surrealist-tinged works and some of the more subdued later works.

This is one of my faves, one that I actually think works better in-translation compared to the original French:


The Corner

I hope to find
What is denied to me.

[trestitia ⵊⵊⵊ deamorski]

taaa

burdan buralara geldim. 6 yıl. bana da helal olsun. inşallah bu kitaptaki derlemelerin arasında vardır bu şiiri.

[Krys · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5*

[Alex Obrigewitsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps the beauty and power of Eluard's poetry stems from its simplicity. Poetry is not about grand images and complex symbols. Poetry is about expressing life, and through poetry to propel life excessively into its coming future. It needs no monumental figures or language, but only those of life in all its simplicity, for "poetry is in life" (23). Seeking to speak for the silenced, the language "of a woman, a child, a lunatic" (23), poetry opens up language and in so doing also opens us up as living beings.

Beginning with Surrealism, like Max Ernst, Eluard used poetry to fight for "man's total emancipation" (10). But when even Surrealism became too imposing with its strictures and its dictates, Eluard sought freedom beyond even Surrealism. He utilised Surrealism to get beyond Surrealism; perhaps the most surreal movement possible.

Throughout his life and his writings Eluard was aimed towards bringing forth a future, opening the space for its coming. He writes of love, of freedom, and of fraternity with all other human beings. An idealist who saw the ideal not in the clouds or in the mind but in a reality that is pregnant, waiting for us to give it birth; a 'reality' both beneath and beyond reality. Despite his importance to France and the period of history that his life spans, the import of his poetry is not local to either of these locales alone. Eluard's writing, and the ideas it leads forward, possess a power and a value for all who remain within the realm of the human.

[Karlos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who can deny a collection where the main themes are love, brotherhood and kindness?

Eluard’s poems are easy to read if not always easy to understand- especially the earlier surrealist ones. Eluard came to surrealism via Dada, he then went beyond venturing into the Communist Party, was expelled only to rejoin later in the 40’s.

There’s the famous resistance poems, love poems and poems to the fallen in Spain, the workers and the antiFascists who fought Nazis.

This bilingual edition is compact and includes an easy and insightful introduction.

Gabriel Peri is my favourite and still moves me 20 years after I first read it. Elsewhere you might find you enjoy phrases and lines more than whole poems but all are worth reading, especially aloud. It’s ripe with humanity.

[Greta · Rating 3 out of 5]

I tell of what I see
What I know
What is true.

[Sreena · Rating 4 out of 5]

"You cannot be known
Better than I know you."

I wasn't sure what to expect. A poet of Surrealism, of resistance, of love - a kaleidoscope of themes, and would it speak to me?

Speaking of Surrealism, it's a movement that has always fascinated me.
At its core, it's about exploring the subconscious mind, tapping into the raw, unfiltered realm of dreams and desires. Eluard - being a prominent figure in surrealist movement, it is no wonder that I found his poems beautiful.

Coming to the poetry collections in this book, I have to say it seamlessly blends different styles and themes, which makes it unique. You could feel that in one moment, you're basking in the warm glow of love poems like "My love is a bird without a cage," and the next, you're grappling with the stark realities of war in poems like "Victory.

Some of my favourites:

I cannot be known
Better than you know me

Your eyes in which we sleep
We together
Have made for my man's gleam
A better fate than for the common nights

Your eyes in which
I travel
Have given to the signs along the roads
A meaning alien to the earth

In your eyes those who reveal to us
Our endless solitude
Are no longer what they thought themselves to be

You cannot be known
Better than I know you.

And ofcourse, how can I forget the best of all - "Liberty"

On barren solitude
On the steps of death
I write your name

On health returned
On vanished risk
On hope without remembrance
I write your name

And by the power of a word
I begin my life again
I was born to know you
To name you

Liberty.

[Hon Lady Selene · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strange bloke, rather fallen out of trend, but perhaps understandably so since he founded the Surrealism movement with Andre Breton only to later reject it and join the Communist Party. He sure loves a good allusion to limbs though, almost every poem references Hands in some way (apart from the ones I've selected here lol).

THE NAKEDNESS OF TRUTH

"I know it well.
Despair has no wings,
Nor has love,
No countenance:
They do not speak.
I do not stir,
I do not behold them,
I do not speak to them,
But I am as real as my love and my despair."


THE SAME DAY FOR ALL

"She was laughing around me
Around me she was naked
She was like a forest
Like a multitude of women
Around me
Like armour against the wasteland
Like armour against wrong."

III

"She is always unwilling to understand, to listen,
She laughs to hide her fear of herself.
She has always walked beneath the arches of nights
And wherever she went
She left
The mark of broken things."

[Paul Duncanson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading poetry reminds me of looking at art. I really just don’t know what to look for or how to describe it. I recently recreated a Monet landscape painting and suddenly I could describe it, its style, focus, how it was painted, how long it took.

I’m finding similar clarity from the introduction in this book. I admire the humanistic qualities of this poet and kindness, true kindness.

Another favorite author of mine would translate this man’s poems, they both served in the military during the great wars, and both were sickly and they were simply too kind and aware of the human disposition of love I suppose. It was difficult for them. And they came out hating war like any rational person.

This is one day
Too many: time overflows

The French are really hilarious I keep seeing descriptions of them relentlessly complaining and being fragile.


Even his wife left him for Salvador Dali poor guy

[Dylan (Khanh) · Rating 5 out of 5]

the poet of communism par excellence. Detractors may find his verse to be too simple-minded, nay, vulgar, but that is exactly the appeal. Eluardian punctuation, content, flow, points to the natural, the intuitive, the au courant.

A man and another man a people and another people
That is humanity
A man and a woman and their child between them
Love enduring
…
You make great my heart my body and my senses
And the supreme reason
For not believing time surpasses life
For time is life itself.
-Simple pictures of tomorrow, Eluard

Of course, human experience goes beyond the intermittences of man and woman, same goes with the relation of man and another man. What is queer, what is alien, what is uncanny, is not known to Eluard. But that is the point! Eluard points to the intersubjectivity between us, a la a kind of Hegelian recognition, that is sure as he hopes, will build a republic surpassing life and time.

[justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Curious about how the poems were curated because all of them were his most political ones... While not entirely against art in favor of movements, I wish I could have read the poems so diligently hyped up in the book's introduction. Where are the poems written in the trilogy of his wives, and where is the poem with the excerpt the introduction carries slightly on its shoulders: "you came I was very sad I said yes / it was from the time I met you that I said yes to the world"? I think the poems tell us about Eluard as much as a Linkedin bio might tell you about someone. What was the selection process?

[Fatima · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still warm from sleep gown cast away
You drift but you have closed your eyes ·
Drift like a new song comes to life
Faintly yet from everywhere

Sweet delectable you float
Past your body's boundaries
And you do not lose your way

You have stridden over time
New-born woman you are here
For infinity to see.




I love you, Paul Eluard

[Sibilla Librum · Rating 4 out of 5]

Випадково знайшла цю збірку і прочитала її за годину. Мені сподобалося. То було швидко і цікаво. Запам'яталися описи очей (думаю, це як родзинка автора), а також описи Парижу. Щось новеньке і цікаве. Та й переклад англійською зрозумілий і легкий

[Wawan Kurn · Rating 4 out of 5]

saya menyukai puisi dalam buku ini dalam kejernihan beberapa metafora yang selalu ingin saya ciptakan tapi belum bisa.

[Matt Morris]

For reviews of this & other books, please visit:

https://miscmss.blogspot.com/2019/08/...

[s · Rating 2 out of 5]

maybe it’s better in french but the english translation felt so dry. not really my style but i did like a few poems

[yiling]

我现在的水平读诗还是很困难……

[Peter Rowe · Rating 5 out of 5]

H

[Hallie Lauinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

****3.5