The Freelance Mentalists.
Sunday, February 05, 2023
 



Liberty


by Paul Eluard (1942)



On my school notebooks

On my desk and on the trees

On the sands, on the snow

I write your name


On all the pages I've read

On all the pages that are blank

Stone, blood, paper or ashes

I write your name


On the gold images

On the warriors' weapons

On the crown of kings

I write your name


On the jungle and the desert

On the nests on the bushes

On the echo of my childhood

I write your name


On the wonders of nights

On the white bread of day

On the seasons of brides

I write your name


On all my rags of blue

On the musty pond in sunlight

On the living lake in moonlight

I write your name 


On the fields, on the horizon

On the wings of the birds

And on the windmill of shadows

I write your name


On each breath of daybreak

On the sea, on the boats

On the mad mountaintop

I write your name


On the foam of the clouds

On the sweat of the storm

On dull, heavy rain

I write your name


On the glittering forms

On their ringing colors

On the physical truth

I write your name


On the awakened trails

On the routes deployed

On the crowded squares

I write your name


On the lamp that is lit

On the lamp that is not

On homes reunited

I write your name


On the fruit cut in two

Of the mirror and my room

On the empty shell of my bed

I write your name


On my dog, that loyal fresser

On his perked-up ears

On his klutzy paws

I write your name


On the ramp to my door

On everyday objects

On the roar of the hearth

I write your name


On flesh in rapport

On the foreheads of my friends

On each outstretched hand

I write your name 


On the window of surprises

On expectant lips

Far above the silence

I write your name


On my hideouts destroyed,

On my lighthouses, collapsed,

On the walls of my tsuris

I write your name


On absence purged of desire

On naked solitude

On the death marches

I write your name


On recovered health

On danger long past

On hope free of memories

I write your name


And by the power of one word

I begin my life again

I was born to know you

To name you


Liberty.



–translated by j.w.






« Liberté »


Paul Eluard wrote this poem in Paris in 1942, and it was published in an underground edition in occupied France on 3 April of that year.  


Then in June, Eluard was persuaded to allow the poem to be reprinted in the magazine Fontaine, to be circulated in the southern part of France governed by Marshall Pétain's regime based in Vichy.  Max-Pol Fouchet, the editor of Fontaine, tells of how Eluard thought that publishing the poem in Vichy France was sheer lunacy, because it was bound to get both of them in serious trouble with the censor and the government.


According to Fouchet, the poem was then examined by the French censor, in the company of the relevant German and Italian officials.  When he was presented with a poem of 21 stanzas, with each stanza ending with the line, "I write your name", the censor became so bored that he couldn't be bothered to read it all the way to the end.  He declared, "These poets are rambling. I write your name, I write your name! Let him write it already, and let's not talk about it anymore!"  Then he asked Fouchet, "What is this, some kind of love poem?" and Fouchet answered "Yes."


And that's how the poem got past the Vichy government's censors.

The story is told here:

http://www.maxpolfouchet.com/images/stories/Oeuvre/Fontaine/aproposdupoemelibertinfontaine22.pdf


Then a couple months later, the poem was reprinted in England by the official Gaullist magazine La France libre.  The Royal Air Force then loaded thousands of copies of the poem onto their planes and dropped them by parachute over occupied France.


And still later, in January of 1943, the poem was published in Switzerland, with copies again making their way back to occupied France.


The original text, along with the backstory, can be found here:

https://www.poemes.co/liberte-paul-eluard.html


You can hear Paul Eluard himself read his poem here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bktcB5QpNp0


It was Paul Valéry who is reported to have said, "A poem is never finished, only abandoned," and it's the same with translations. There's probably a minor howler or two lurking somewhere in my version, but the process of second-guessing can be drawn out forever.


Some of the lines are fairly obscure in the French -- as borne out by the fact that the translations of those lines vary so widely. However (1) interpretation varies from translator to translator, with some of them opting for wording that's equally obscure in English, and (2) even though Paul Eluard started out as one of the original Surrealists (e.g. collaborating with André Breton on L'Immaculée Conception in 1930), by 1938 he had broken away from Breton and the movement, became politically committed, and during WWII was active in the French Resistance and a member of the Communist Party. So despite the ambiguity of some of the wording, I'm sure he was writing with a wider audience in mind.




 

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