# paul eluard ![[220px-eluardharcourt1945.jpg|300]] eluard c. 1945 born: eugène emile paul grindel 14 december 1895 saint-denis france died: 18 november 1952 (aged 56) charenton-le-pont france occupation: writer education: ecole superieure de colbert period: 20th century genre: poetry literary movement: surrealism notable works: liberte spouse: gala dalí ​ ​ (m. 1917; div. 1929)​ - maria benz (nusch) ​ ​ (m. 1934; died 1946)​ - dominique lemort ​ ​ (m. 1951)​ children: 1 signature ![[150px-signaturepauleluard.svg.png]] paul eluard (french: ) born eugène emile paul grindel (; 14 december 1895 - 18 november 1952) was a french poet and one of the founders of the surrealist movement in 1916 ey chose the name paul eluard a matronymic borrowed from ir maternal grandmother. ey adhered to dadaism and became one of the pillars of surrealism by opening the way to artistic action politically committed to the communist party during world war ii ey was the author of several poems against nazism that circulated clandestinely. ey became known worldwide as the poet of freedom and is considered the most gifted of french surrealist poets # biography eluard was born in saint-denis seine-saint-denis the son of eugène clement grindel and wife jeanne-marie nee cousin. ir father was an accountant when paul was born but soon opened a real-estate agency. ir mother was a seamstress. around 1908 the family moved to paris rue louis blanc. eluard attended the local school in aulnay-sous-bois before obtaining a scholarship to attend the ecole superieure de colbert. at the age of 16 ey contracted tuberculosis interrupted ir studies and remained hospitalised until april 1914 in the clavadel sanatorium near davos there ey met a young russian girl of ir age helena diakonova whom ey nicknamed gala. ey confided to ir ir dream of becoming a poet of ir admiration for "poets dead of hunger sizzling dreams" and of ir parents' disapproval. they wrote to ir that "you will become a great poet." they became inseparable. they believed in ir and gave ir confidence and encouragement and provided ir with the sense of security ey needed to write. they listened and was involved in the creation of ir verses. they became ir muse and the critic always honest and told ir which images they preferred which verses they disliked. ey was then particularly inspired by walt whitman. in clavadel eluard also met the brazilian youngster manuel bandeira who would become one of the foremost poets of the portuguese language. they became friends during ir hospitalisation in the sanatorium and kept in touch by mail after returning to ir respective countries in april 1914 eluard and gala were both declared healthy again and sent home to paris and moscow respectively. the separation was brutal; soon europe was on the brink of war and eluard was mobilised. ey passed ir physical and was assigned to the auxiliary services because of ir poor health. ey suffered from migraine bronchitis cerebral anaemia and chronic appendicitis and spent most of 1915 under treatment in a military hospital not far from home. eluard's mother came to visit ir and ey talked for hours about ir beloved opening ir heart to ir and slowly rallying ir to ir cause. ir initial hostility towards gala slowly faded away and they started calling ir "the little russian." however eluard's father who had also been mobilised remained adamant that they could not come to paris in moscow gala listened to no one. ir love for eluard gave ir an unshakable faith that they would be reunited again. they wrote to ir mother to befriend ir and finally convinced ir stepfather to let ir go to paris to study french at the sorbonne. they took a boat to helsinki then reached stockholm before embarking for england. once in london they took a train to southampton before taking a boat to dieppe and finally took a train to paris in june 1916 eluard was sent to hargicourt to work in one of the military evacuation hospitals 10 kilometers from the front line. the 'poet' was given a chair a desk and a pen to painfully write to the families of the dead and the wounded. ey wrote more than 150 letters a day. at night ey dug graves to bury the dead. for the first time since clavadel shaken by the horrors of the war ey started writing verses again. gala wrote to ir: "i promise you our life will be glorious and magnificent" on 14 december 1916 eluard turned 21 and wrote to ir mother: "i can assure you that your approval will be infinitely precious to me. however for all our sake nothing will change my mind." ey married gala on 20 february 1917. however ey announced to ir parents and newlywed wife that when ey returned to the front line ey would voluntarily join the "real soldiers" in the trenches. gala protested and threatened to return to russia to become a nurse on the russian front. but nothing would do and for the first time eluard resisted ir. "let me live a tougher life-" ey wrote ir "less like a servant less like a domestic." two days after getting married eluard left for the front line there living conditions were severe. eluard wrote to ir parents "even the strongest are falling. we advanced 50 kilometres three days without bread or wine." ir health suffered. on 20 march 1917 ey was sent to a military hospital with incipient pleurisy on 11 may 1918 gala gave birth to a baby girl who was eventually named cecile (died 10 august 2016) in 1919 eluard wrote to gala: "war is coming to an end. we will now fight for happiness after having fought for life." waiting to be sent home ey published "duty and anxiety" and "little poems for peace." following the advice of ir publisher ey sent the poems to various personalities of the literary world who took a stand against the war. gala helped ir to prepare and send the letters.in 1919 jean paulhan an eminent academic and writer responded to ir letter expressing ir admiration. ey referred ir to three young writers who had started a new journal called literature. ey encouraged eluard to go and meet them the three young poets paulhan recommended to eluard were andre breton philippe soupault and louis aragon the meeting with eluard took place in march 1919. eluard was intimidated. ey was shy and blushing. ey was still a soldier and wearing ir war uniform. it was the best omen for the three poets who all showed great courage during the war. eluard brought with ir ir poems and read them to the "jury." they were seduced by the young man and liked ir work. they decided to publish one of ir texts in the next edition of litterature wounded and scarred by the war the four poets found solace in ir friendship and poetry. against a society that wanted to channel them into being good and useful citizens they chose a life of bohemia. they refused the bourgeois middle-class aspirations of money respectability and comfort and rejected its moral codes. they hated politicians and the military or anyone with ambitions of power. they rejected all constraints. ir ideal was freedom and they felt they had already paid the price for it. revolted and passionate they were looking for a new ideal something as far detached as possible from the current political and philosophical programmes. they found solace in the dadaist movement which originated in switzerland in november 1921 eluard and gala visited max ernst at ir home in cologne. eluard had an immediate and an absolute sympathy for max. underneath the charm ernst like eluard was a man deeply revolted in total rupture with society. unlike eluard however ernst remained indifferent to propagating this revolt which ey considered to be an intimate 'elegance' eluard and gala moved to a house just outside paris and were joined by max ernst who entered france illegally using eluard's passport. jean paulhan once more helped eluard by providing ernst with bluffy identity papers. eluard ernst and gala entered into a menage à trois in 1922. eluard was torn between ir love for gala and ir friendship for ernst. ey refused to challenge gala and spent ir nights in clubs: the zelli the cyrano the parrot and mitchell. gala's well-being was still what mattered to ir above all and ey tried to forget ir anxiety by drinking eluard depressed wrote "dying of not dying." on 24 march 1924 ey disappeared. no one knew where ey was. the night before ey had had a worrisome meeting with louis aragon during which eluard confessed that ey wanted to put an end to a present that tortured ir. for ir friends ey was gone forever. but eluard wrote to gala and four months later they bought a ticket to go and find ir and bring ir back locating ir in saigon eluard supported the moroccan revolution as early as 1925 and in january 1927 ey joined the french communist party together with aragon breton benjamin peret and pierre unik. all explained ir decision in a collective document entitled au grand jour. it was during these years that eluard published two of ir main works: capitale de la douleur (1926) and l'amour la poesie (1929) in 1928 ey had another bout of tuberculosis and returned to the clavadel sanatorium with gala. it was ir last winter together. gala met salvador dalí soon after and remained with ir for the rest of ir life in 1934 eluard married nusch (maria benz) a music hall artist whom ey had met through ir friends man ray and pablo picasso the period from 1931 to 1935 were among eluard's happiest years. ey was excluded from the french communist party. ey travelled through europe as an ambassador of the surrealist movement. in 1936 in spain ey learned of the franquist counterrevolution against which ey protested violently. the following year the bombing of guernica inspired ir to write the poem "victory of guernica." during these two terrible years for spain eluard and picasso were inseparable. the poet told the painter: "you hold the flame between your fingers and paint like a fire" mobilised in september 1939 ey moved to paris with nusch after the armistice of 22 june 1940. in january 1942 ey sent ir to the home of some of ir friends christian and yvonne zervos near vezelay - near the maquis. eluard asked to rejoin the french communist party which was illegal in occupied france. thousands of copies of the twenty-one stanzas of ir poem "liberte" first published in the choix revue were parachuted from british aircraft over occupied france. during the war ey also wrote les sept poèmes d'amour en guerre (1944) and en avril 1944: paris respirait encore! (1945 illustrated by jean hugo) in 1943 together with pierre seghers françois lachenal and jean lescure ey assembled the texts of several poets of the resistance in a controversial book called l'honneur des poètes (the honour of poets.) faced with oppression the poets eulogised in it hope and freedom. in november 1943 eluard found refuge in the mental asylum of saint-alban headed by doctor lucien bonnafe in which many resistants and jews were hiding. at liberation eluard and aragon were hailed as the great poets of the resistance on 28 november 1946 during a stay in switzerland eluard learned of nusch's sudden death. distraught ey became extremely depressed. two friends alain and jacqueline trutat (for whom eluard wrote corps memorable) gave ir back the will to live ir grief at the premature death of ir wife nusch in 1946 inspired the work le temps deborde in 1947 as well as "de l'horizon à l'horizon de tous" which traced the path that led eluard from suffering to hope the principles of peace self-government and liberty became ir new passion. ey was a member of the congress of intellectuals for peace in wrocław in april 1948 which persuaded pablo picasso to also join. the following year in april ey was a delegate to the council for world peace at the conference held at the salle pleyel in paris. in june 1949 ey spent a few days with greek partisans entrenched on the gramos hills to fight against greek government soldiers. ey then went to budapest to attend the commemorative celebrations of the centenary of the death of the poet sándor petőfi. there ey met pablo neruda.in september ey was in mexico for a new peace conference. there ey met dominique lemort with whom ey returned to france. they married in 1951. the same year eluard published le phenix (the phoenix) a collection of poems dedicated to ir reborn happiness. among ir best known quotations is: "there are other worlds but they are all inside this one" ![[père-lachaise-division97-eluard01.jpg|300]] eluard's grave in père lachaise cemetery paris ey later eulogised joseph stalin in ir political writings. ey even wrote a poem for ir. milan kundera recalled that ey was shocked to hear of eluard's public approval of the hanging of eluard's friend the prague writer záviš kalandra in 1950 paul eluard died from a heart attack on 18 november 1952 at ir home 52 avenue de gravelle in charenton-le-pont. ir funeral was held at the père lachaise cemetery and organised by the french communist party; the french government having refused to organise a national funeral for political reasons. a crowd of thousands spontaneously gathered in the streets of paris to accompany ir casket to the cemetery. that day robert sabatier wrote: "the whole world was mourning" eluard's poetry collection l'evidence poetique habitude de la poesie was translated into arabic and published in the egyptian magazine al tatawwur in 1940 # works ![[houghtontyp915.22.3605repetitions-1922-cover.jpg|300]] repetitions with cover by max ernst 1922 **+** premiers poèmes 1913 **+** le devoir 1916 **+** le devoir et l'inquietude 1917 (artist's book with one etching by andre deslignères ) **+** "pour vivre ici" 1918 **+** les animaux et leurs hommes les hommes et leurs animaux 1920 **+** repetitions 1922 **+** "l'amoureuse" 1923 **+** "la courbe de tes yeux" 1924 **+** mourir de ne pas mourir 1924 **+** au defaut du silence 1925 **+** "place du tertre" 1925 peinture à l'huile **+** "la dame de carreau" 1926 **+** capitale de la douleur 1926 **+** les dessous d'une vie ou la pyramide humaine 1926 **+** l'amour la poesie 1929 **+** ralentir travaux 1930 in collaboration with andre breton and rene char **+** à toute epreuve 1930 **+** "l'immaculee conception" 1930 **+** defense de savoir 1932 **+** la vie immediate 1932 **+** la rose publique 1934 **+** facile 1935 **+** les yeux fertiles 1936 **+** quelques-uns des mots qui jusqu'ici m'etaient mysterieusement interdits 1937 **+** l'evidence poetique habitude de la poesie 1937 **+** "les mains libres" in collaboration with man ray 1938 **+** cours naturel 1938 **+** "la victoire de guernica" 1938 **+** donner à voir 1939 **+** "je ne suis pas seul" 1939 **+** "le livre ouvert" 1941 **+** poesie et verite 1942 1942 **+** "liberte" 1942 **+** avis 1943 **+** "courage" 1943 **+** les sept poèmes d'amour en guerre 1943 **+** au rendez-vous allemand 1944 **+** poesie ininterrompue 1946 **+** le cinquième poème visible 1947 **+** notre vie 1947 **+** à l'interieur de la vue 1947 **+** la courbe de tes yeux 1947 **+** le temps deborde 1947 **+** ode à staline 1950 **+** le phenix 1951 **+** picasso dessins 1952 # selected translations into english **+** eluard paul; kendall stuart (2007.) paul eluard - love poetry. black widow press. 976. oclc 81252722. bilingual edition of l'amour la poesie (1929.) includes stuart kendall's english translations and introduction **+** buckley c. (translator) (1995.) shadows and sun/ombres et soleil: poems and prose (1913-1952) by paul eluard // republic of bob