Jean Paulhan

Jean Paulhan
Paulhan in 1938
Born	2 December 1884 Nîmes, Gard, France
Died	9 October 1968(1968-10-09) (aged 83) Paris, France
Occupation	Teacher, translator
Notable works	The Flowers of Tarbes, or Terror in Literature
Partner	Anne Desclos
Relatives	Frédéric Paulhan (father)

Jean Paulhan (2 December 1884 – 9 October 1968) was a French writer, literary critic and publisher, director of the literary magazine Nouvelle Revue Française (NRF) from 1925 to 1940 and from 1946 to 1968. He was a member (Seat 6, 1963–68) of the Académie française. He was born in Nîmes (Gard) and died in Paris.

Biography[edit]

Paulhan's father was the philosopher Frédéric Paulhan^[1]:11 and his mother was Jeanne Thérond. From 1908 to 1910 he worked as a teacher in Madagascar, and he later translated Malagasy poems, or Hainteny, into French.^[2]

Paulhan's translations attracted the interest of Guillaume Apollinaire and Paul Éluard.^[3]

He served as Jacques Rivière's secretary at the NRF, until 1925 when he succeeded him as the journal's editor.^[1]:13 In 1935 he, Henri Michaux, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Groethuysen and others launched a similar but more luxuriously-produced journal Mesures, under the direction of Henry Church.^[4]

One of his most famous works of literary criticism was The Flowers of Tarbes, or Terror in Literature (1941), a study of the nature of language in fiction.^[5] Paulhan also wrote several autobiographical short stories; English translations of several appeared in the collection Progress in Love on the Slow Side.^[6] During the Second World War, Paulhan was an early and active member of the French Resistance^[2] and was arrested by the German Gestapo. After the war he founded Cahiers de la Pléiade and in 1953 re-launched La Nouvelle Revue Française.

Paulhan provoked controversy by opposing independence for Algeria, and supporting the French military during the Algerian War;^[7] this resulted in a rift between Paulhan and his friend Maurice Blanchot.^[8]

Author Anne Desclos revealed that she had written the novel Story of O as a series of love letters to her lover Paulhan,^[9] who had admired the work of the Marquis de Sade.

Works[edit]

• Les Hain-Tenys Merinas (Geuthner, 1913, reissued 2007)
• Le Guerrier appliqué (Sansot, 1917 ; Gallimard 1930, reissued 2006)
• Jacob Cow le Pirate, ou Si les mots sont des signes (1921)
• Le Pont traversé (1921, reissued 2006)
• Expérience du proverbe (1925)
• La Guérison sévère (1925, reissued 2006)
• Sur un défaut de la pensée critique (1929)
• Les Hain-Tenys, poésie obscure (1930)
• Entretien sur des faits-divers (1930, 1945)
• L'Aveuglette (1952)
• Les Fleurs de Tarbes ou La terreur dans les Lettres (1936, 1941)
• Jacques Decour (1943)
• Aytre qui perd l'habitude (1920, 1943, reissued 2006)
• Clef de la poésie, qui permet de distinguer le vrai du faux en toute observation, ou Doctrine touchant la rime, le rythme, le vers, le poète et la poésie (1945)
• F.F. ou Le Critique (Gallimard, 1945; reissued by Éditions Claire Paulhan, 1998)
• Sept causes célèbres (1946)
• La Métromanie, ou Les dessous de la capitale (1946, reissued 2006)
• Braque le Patron (1946)
• Lettre aux membres du C.N.E. (1940)
• Sept nouvelles causes célèbres (1947, reissued 2006)
• Guide d'un petit voyage en Suisse (1947, reissued 2006)
• Dernière lettre (1947)
• Le Berger d’Écosse (1948, reissued 2006)
• Fautrier l'Enragé (1949)
• Petit-Livre-à-déchirer (1949)
• Trois causes célèbres (1950)
• Les Causes célèbres (1950, reissued 2006)
• Lettre au médecin (1950, reissued 2006)
• Les Gardiens (1951, reissued 2006)
• Le Marquis de Sade et sa complice ou Les revanches de la Pudeur (1951)
• Petite préface à toute critique (1951)
• Lettre aux directeurs de la Résistance (1952)
• La Preuve par l'étymologie (1953)
• Les Paroles transparentes, avec des lithographies de Georges Braque (1955)
• Le Clair et l'Obscur (1958)
• G. Braque (1958)
• De mauvais sujets, gravures de Marc Chagall (1958, reissued 2006)
• Karskaya (1959)
• Lettres (1961)
• L'Art informel (1962)
• Fautrier l'enragé (1962)
• Progrès en amour assez lents (1966, reissued 2006)
• Choix de lettres I 1917–1936, La littérature est une fête" (1986)
• "Choix de lettres II 1937-1945, Traité des jours sombres" (1992)
• Choix de lettres III 1946-1968, Le Don des langues (1996)
• La Vie est pleine de choses redoutables (Seghers; reissued by Claire Paulhan, 1990)
• "Lettres de Madagascar, 1907-1910", Éditions Claire Paulhan (2007)
• "Œuvres complètes", edited by Bernard Baillaud, Volume I, Gallimard (2006).

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Michael Syrotinski, Defying Gravity: Jean Paulhan's Interventions in Twentieth-Century French Intellectual History (SUNY Press, 1998).
• Anna-Louise Milne, The Extreme In-Between: Jean Paulhan's Place in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Legenda, 2006)
• Jean Paulhan, On Poetry and Politics. Translated by Jennifer Bajorek, Eric Trudel and Charlotte Mandell (University of Illinois Press, 2008).
• "Protean, Paradoxical Jean Paulhan", by John Taylor, 'Paths to Contemporary French Literature', volume 2, New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2007, pp. 237–240.

External links[edit]

• (in French) Les Lettres Françaises Archived 2010-10-07 at the Wayback Machine
• (in French) France Culture, Alain Veinstein reçoit Bernard Baillaud