French Literature Reviews - 2026
Agrégation. A Reading of Saint-John Perse's Vents
Poetry and Poetics
A Reading of Saint-John Perse's Vents
Henriette Levillain
Paris, Gallimard
"Cahiers de la NRf" / "Cahiers Saint-John Perse" collection
2006
Isbn: 2-07-078284-0 / Ean 13 : 9782070782840
15,00 €
Publisher's Description:
Saint-John Perse composed Vents during the summer of 1945, while staying, as he did every summer, on a small island in Maine (United States). It was the sixth summer of his exile since June 1940, when Alexis Leger, the diplomat, had been relieved of his duties as Secretary General of the Quai d'Orsay by Paul Reynaud. From the depths of silence and solitude, the call of poetry was heard once again—poetry which had been set aside since Anabase. And with the collection, first titled Quatre poèmes-1941-1944, then Exil, a cycle had come to a close. That of political exile: the liberation of occupied France could legitimately lead to the rehabilitation of the outcast. That of poetic exile: Perse had learned the sacrifice of the past and the imaginary dialogue with humble folk, on shipyards and slipways deserted by the crowd after the launching of a great three-year-old hull. The theme was soon no longer relevant to the circumstances. Yet, in the months preceding Vents, Saint-John Perse faced a major dilemma: he had to choose between resuming his public life as a high-ranking official—but what would that look like?—and building a major poetic work—but would it be heard? One might be surprised to learn that it was the poet he had intended to strangle during the summer of 1944, having become too inconvenient for the practical preparation of a new life (letter to Mrs. Francis Biddle). Vents is thus the unexpected outcome of a crisis of renunciation, as profound as the Night of Genoa was for Valéry. Ultimately, Saint-John Perse chose to remain with his American friends, even if it meant adopting the fictional posture of an exile. In his poem, he crosses the United States on horseback, from East to West. Had he turned his back on a wounded old Europe, giving up on making his voice heard there? Or was it that the height of his mount and the distance of the Atlantic were the only vantage points from which he could successfully speak to the people of his country? Swept forward by the force of the winds, the driving rhythm of the verset, and the extraordinary leaps of imagery, the reader is not always aware of the drama unfolding in Vents: the eagerly addressed recipients are absent from it.
A professor at Paris IV Sorbonne, Henriette Levillain is the author of numerous articles, monographs, and collaborative volumes on Saint-John Perse, including Le Rituel poétique de Saint-John Perse, Gallimard, "Idées", 1977; Sur deux versants, la création chez Saint-John Perse d'après les versions anglaises de son œuvre poétique, Librairie José Corti, 1987; and, in collaboration with Mireille Sacotte, Saint-John Perse, Europe, 1995 and Saint-John Perse (1945-1960), une poétique pour l'âge nucléaire, Klincksieck, 2005.
This volume examines the genesis and background of Saint-John Perse's long poem Vents, composed in the summer of 1945 during the poet's American exile. The text discusses the circumstances surrounding its creation, notably the personal dilemma the author faced between resuming a public life as a high-ranking official or building a major poetic work. The study reflects upon a turning point in the writer's life, marked by physical displacement, the context of a wounded Europe, and the choice to remain with his American friends while adopting the posture of an exile.
Henriette Levillain is a professor at the Paris IV Sorbonne and the author of numerous articles, monographs, and collaborative volumes on Saint-John Perse. The work touches upon the formal qualities of the collection, including the driving rhythm of the verset and striking imagery, while also noting the thematic complexities of addressing an absent audience. Readers interested in twentieth-century French literature and modernist poetry may find this critical reading a helpful companion to understanding the interplay between biography and poetic creation in the author's work.