Pierre-Jean Jouve(1887-1976)
- Writer
French poet and novelist. Born of a bourgeois family. His weak health
prevented him from studying at the university. First poems much in the
style of Baudelaire and Mallarmé. Published pacifist texts during World
War I and went through a deep identity crisis as a result. He rejected
all he had written before and turned to spiritual poetry with profound
religious dimensions. Married psychoanalyst Blanche Reverchon. Main
novels : Paulina 1880 (1925), the story of a young woman torn between
faith and pleasure ; Le Monde désert (1927), the story of the discovery
of poetry, Hécate (1928) and Vagadu (1931), inspired by psychoanalysis.
After 1931 Jouve spent most of his time writing poetry : Les Noces
(1931), Sueur de sang (1935); La Vierge de Paris (1944), Matière
Céleste (1937) and Kyrie (1938), all profoundly religious. Later poetry
: Diadème (1949); Mélodrame (1957); Moires (1962).