Title: Contacts and relationships in the poetry of Pierre Reverdy
Description: This work explores a subject central to Reverdy's poetry: contacts and relationships with the world, the self and others. It is divided into five areas of contact : visual, aural, movement, gesture and touch. The poet tends to both seek and avoid contacts; he prefers indirect relationships and adopts the passive role of someone waiting for signs of hope. These may be rays of light, slight sounds, movements or touches; what he seeks in them is reassurance of his own existence and proof of the existence of other conscious life. His tendence to inertia and passivity prevents him from going towards objects or people and frustrates his attempts at liberation. Thus relationships in the poetry are often limited or unfulfilled.
Exterior reality as portrayed in the poetry frequently lacks the meaningful signs that the poet desires, being either empty and blank or cluttered with objects and people that are threatening and hostile. Here lies the root of the poet's basic fears - dread of the void and dread of being overwhelmed. The study examines the contribution of these fears to his inability to participate and find harmony in relationships.
The work also deals with the poet's relationship with his alternative reality of poetic images. The study examines therefore two types of relationship: one involving the mind and art, enabling the poet to grasp something fixed; the other involving the senses in search of a reality which slips away. It examines the links betweeen images and the contacts with reality from which they derive, and assesses the extent to which ideal relationships between the poet and his alternative reality are satisfactory.
Subjects: 20th Century, French, poetry, literature
People: Pierre Reverdy (1889-1960)