Cœur, Temps and Monde in Le forçat innocent of Supervielle: A Poet’s Existential Metaphors of Prison and Shelter

Poet Jules Supervielle has a marginal status in twentieth-century French literature as he was not engaged in any prominent movement of his time (Symbolism, Futurism, or Surrealism). In that regard, his poetry is neither nationally colored nor aesthetically connoted. It might well be the reason for his lacking consideration in the literary canon. But these differences must get our special attention. Supervielle was not born in France and he was to live and write his works in a state of existential angst, divided, as he always felt, between his native Uruguay and his French legacy. As such, the poet developed a unique intimate oeuvre through which he tried to recapture and mingle his vacant identities. This article examines the recurrent themes of “heart,” “time,” and “world” in the collection of poems Le forcat innocent (1930) to show that a life-long meditation on his defective health, the unmanageable flow of time, and the hope for universal communion helped Supervielle overcome these metaphorical prisons and create a propitious shelter to his poetic expression. Contrasting aspects in his poetry, however, cannot stand apart from each other, and we have to consider their interlacing, which illuminates Supervielle’s work in a truly phenomenological manner. This article is available in Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature: http://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol33/iss1/8 Cœur, Temps and Monde in Le forcat innocent of Supervielle: A Poet’s Existential Metaphors of Prison and Shelter Franck Dalmas Stony Brook University This article proposes an examination of Jules Supervielle’s book of poetry Le forcat innocent ‘The Innocent Convict,’ published in 1930, through the motif of the “poetic prison.”1 I offer to interpret the collection as an elaborate metaphor for the poet’s heart: an inspiring and sensible heart, but also an oppressive and defective heart—concurrently hosting and detaining each other. Most commentators have tied the haunting imagery of guilt complex and confinement to the poet’s biography with no conclusive elucidation to the enigmatic title. I wish to show that Supervielle’s poetical skill goes beyond personal anecdotes and epitomizes, in a very suggestive language, the existentiality of the human condition. I will distinguish three central themes amidst the well-organized poems, and I will open up new theoretical avenues to suggest that these images unveil a much larger project of “being-in-the-world.” Interestingly enough for our study, phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty speaks of an “existential tide” while elaborating on schizophrenic and dream images, and he uses the simile of diastolic and systolic heartbeats.2 To my knowledge, a phenomenological reading has never been sought and seems a very dynamic approach to justify Supervielle’s ambivalent statement. I will first survey his poetics and the intriguing structure of his book, and only then will I look into phenomenological concepts that can give a genuine appreciation of the novelty and productivity of his poetry as a whole. 1 Dalmas: Cœur, Temps and Monde in Le forcat innocent of Supervielle: A Poe Published by New Prairie Press