The poetic work

Critical editing and text study

This text of about thirty pages occupies p. 491-520 of the Poetic Works. “The Mass there”, a long poem, was composed by Claudel in Brazil,

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Between 1918 and 1953, Claudel composed a vast collection of “Psalms” translated from the Latin of the Vulgate. Only a small number were published during his lifetime in three thin collections.

The publication of A Hundred Phrases for Fans is in reality the final point of a process in which one can distinguish four stages during which the spirit of the collection evolved considerably.

Poetry written after the Five Great Odes is from a man of faith. Catholicism often rhymes with liturgy. The Processional to greet the new century (1907) takes its form in the procession to celebrate the temporal continuity of the Catholic world until the advent of the heavenly Jerusalem.

The Cantata for three voices (June 1911-July 1912) appears to be a total work. The argument is already dramatic. Three women, Laeta, engaged, Fausta, exiled, Beata, widow,

On his return to China after renouncing his monastic vocation, Claudel meets Rosalie Vetch—an event he calls a “conflagration” whose turbulent consequences haunt the poems of the period 1901-1905,

(Connaissance de l’Est)

Written at the same time as the Vers d’Exil, but published earlier, in 1900, Connaissance de l’Est is a much larger book.

Little is known about the poems Claudel wrote  before 1895. Many have been lost or destroyed. A handful of texts remain , most of them written in regular verses,