- Paul Éluard
Paul Éluard was the
pen name of Eugène Émile Paul Grindel (14 December 1895 –18 November 1952 ), a Frenchpoet who was one of the founders of the surrealist movement.Biography
He was born in Saint-Denis, just outside of Paris, son of Clément Grindel and wife Jeanne Cousin. At age 16, after a happy childhood, Éluard contracted
tuberculosis and interrupted his studies. He met Gala, born Elena Ivanovna Diakonova, whom he married in 1917, in theSwiss sanatorium ofDavos . Together they had a daughter named Cécile.Around this time Éluard wrote his first poems. He was particularly inspired by
Walt Whitman . In 1918,Jean Paulhan “discovered” him and introduced him toAndré Breton andLouis Aragon . This was his introduction to the Surrealist movement.After a marital crisis, he travelled, returning to France in 1924. His poems of this time reflect his difficulties during the period, in which he had another bout of tuberculosis and separated from Gala when she left him for
Salvador Dalí .In 1934, he married Nusch (Maria Benz), a model of friends
Man Ray andPablo Picasso , who was considered somewhat of a mascot of the surrealist movement. DuringWorld War II , he was involved in theFrench Resistance . He battled also with his poems, such as his 1942 poem "Liberty" and "Les sept poèmes d'amour en guerre" (1944). His work was quite militant, yet simple.He joined the
French Communist Party in 1942, [http://www.litweb.net/biography/252/Paul_Eluard.html] which led to his break from the Surrealists, and he later eulogisedStalin in his political writings.Milan Kundera has recalled he was shocked when he heard of Paul Eluard's public approval of the hanging of Kundera's friend, the Prague writerZavis Kalandra in 1950. [http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=4328]Later life
His grief at the premature death of his wife
Nusch in 1946 inspired the work "Le temps déborde" in 1947. The principles of peace, self-government, and liberty became his new passion. He was part of the Congress of Intellectuals for Peace inWroclaw in 1948, and persuadedPablo Picasso to also participate.Eluard met his last wife, Dominique Laure, at the Congress of Peace in Mexico in 1949, and they married in 1951. He dedicated his work "The Phoenix" to her.
Paul Éluard died from a heart attack in November 1952. His funeral was held in Charenton-le-Pont, and organized by the Communist Party.
Pablo Picasso was seated next to Dominique. "In fact," she said later, "it was Éluard who was a friend to Picasso, and the other way around only to the extent that Picasso was capable of friendship." [http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/eluard.htm]He is buried in
Père Lachaise Cemetery.In Popular Culture
The poems in "The Capital of Pain (Capitale de la Douleur)" inspired the 1965
Jean-Luc Godard film "Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution ".External links
* [http://www.geocities.com/timilie/oeuvre.html Works not in translation]
* [http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/eluard.htm Biography]
* (public domain in Canada)
* [http://french.chass.utoronto.ca/fcs195/eluard-text.html La terre est bleue...]
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