- Robert Desnos
Robert Desnos (
4 July 1900 -8 June 1945 ), was a Frenchsurrealist poet who played a key role in the surrealistic movement of his day.Biography
Robert Desnos was a son of a café owner. He was born in
Paris on4 July 1900 . Desnos attended commercial college, and started work as a clerk. After that he worked as a literary columnist for the newspaper "Paris-Soir ."The first poems by Desnos to appear in print were published in 1917 in "La Tribune des Jeunes" (Youth's Tribune) and in 1919 in the
avant-garde review, "Le Trait d’union" (The hyphen), and also the same year in the Dadaist magazine "Littérature ". In 1922 he published his first book, a collection of surrealistic aphorisms, with the titleRrose Selavy (based upon the name (pseudonym) of the popular French artistMarcel Duchamp ).In 1919, he met the poet
Benjamin Péret who actually introduced him to the ParisDada group andAndré Breton , with whom he soon became a friend. While working as a literary columnist for "Paris-Soir", Desnos was an active member of the Surrealist group and developed a particular talent for “automatic writing ”. He, together with writers such asLouis Aragon andPaul Eluard , would form the literary vanguard of surrealism. But although he was praised by Breton in his 1924 "Manifeste du Surréalisme" for being the movement’s "prophet", Desnos disagreed with Surrealism’s involvement incommunist politics, which caused a rift between him and Breton. Desnos continued work as a columnist.In 1926 he composed "The Night of Loveless Nights," a lyric poem dealing with
solitude curiously written in classicquatrain s, which makes it more likeBaudelaire than Breton. Desnos fell in love withYvonne George , a singer whose obsessed fans made his love impossible. He wrote several poems for her, as well as the surrealist novel "La liberté ou l'amour!" (1927).By 1929, Breton definitively condemned Desnos, who in turn joined
Georges Bataille and "Documents", as one of the authors to sign "Un Cadavre" (A cadaver) attacking “le boeuf Breton” (the ox Breton). He wrote articles on “Modern Imagery”, “Avant-garde Cinema” (1929, issue 7), “Pygmalion and the Sphinx” (1930, issue 1), andSergei M. Eisenstein , theSoviet filmmaker, on his film titled "The General Line " (1930, issue 4).His career in radio began in 1932 with a show dedicated to
Fantomas . During that time, he became friends withPicasso , Hemingway,Artaud andJohn Dos Passos ; published many critical reviews onjazz and cinema; and became increasingly involved in politics. He wrote for many periodicals, including "Littérature", "La Révolution surréaliste", and "Variétés". Besides his numerous collections of poems, he published three novels, "Deuil pour deuil" (1924), "La Liberté ou l’amour!" (1927), and "Le vin est tiré" (1943); a play "La Place De La' Etoile," (1928; revised 1944) and a film script, "L' Etoile de mer" (1928), which was directed byMan Ray that same year.During
World War II , Desnos was an active member of theFrench Résistance , often publishing under pseudonyms, and was arrested by theGestapo on22 February 1944 . He was first deported to the Nazi German concentration camps ofAuschwitz in occupied Poland, thenBuchenwald ,Flossenburg in Germany and finally toTerezín (Theresienstadt ) in occupiedCzechoslovakia in 1945, where he died fromtyphoid , only weeks after the camp’s liberation. He wrote poems during his imprisonment which were accidentally destroyed following his death.He was married to
Youki Desnos , formerlyLucie Badoud , nicknamed "Youki" ("snow") by her loverTsuguharu Foujita before she left him for Desnos. Desnos wrote several poems about her. One of his most famous poems is "Letter to Youki," written after his arrest.He is buried at the
Montparnasse cemetery in Paris.Desnos's poetry has been set to music by a number of composers, including
Witold Lutosławski with "Les Espaces du Sommeil " (1975) and "Chantefleurs et Chantefables " (1991),Francis Poulenc ("Dernier poème", 1956) andHenri Dutilleux with "Le Temps l'Horloge" (2007).Carolyn Forché has translated his poetry and names Desnos as a significant influence on her own work.Works include
*"Deuil pour deuil" (1924) /Grief for Grief/
*"La Liberté ou l’amour!" (1927) /Liberty or Love/
*"Corps et biens" (1930) /Body's fine/
*"État de veille" (1943) /Waking/
*"Le vin est tiré" (1943) /The wine is drawn/
*"Le dernier poème" (1945?) /The last poemFilm
*"
L'Étoile de mer " (1928) /The Starfish/ in collaboration withMan Ray References
*Waldberg, Patrick. "Surrealism." Thames and Hudson, 1965.
*Durozi, Gerard. "The History of the Surrealist Movement." University of Chicago Press, 2002.
*Pollizzotti, Mark. "Revolution of the Mind." Da Capo, 1997
*"Dada and Surrealist Film." Edited by Rudolf E. Kuenzli. MIT Press, 1996.
*"Modern Frech Theatre." Edied & translated by Michael Benedikt and George E. Wellwarth. E.P. Dutton, 1966
*Desnos, Robert. "Liberty or Love." Atlas Press, 1993External links
* [http://www.poemhunter.com/robert-desnos/ Poems in English]
* [http://www.robert.desnos.online.fr Robert Desnos Website]
* (public domain in Canada)
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