Everything about Paul Luard totally explained
Paul Éluard was the
pen name of
Eugène Émile Paul Grindel (
December 14,
1895 –
November 18,
1952), a
French poet who was one of the founders of the
surrealist movement.
Biography
He was born in
Saint-Denis, just outside of
Paris, son of Clément Grindel and wife Jeanne Cousin. At age 16, after a happy childhood, Éluard contracted
tuberculosis and interrupted his studies. He met
Gala, born Elena Ivanovna Diakonova, whom he married in
1917, in the
Swiss sanatorium of
Davos. Together they'd a daughter named Cécile.
Around this time Éluard wrote his first poems. He was particularly inspired by
Walt Whitman. In
1918,
Jean Paulhan “discovered” him and introduced him to
André Breton and
Louis Aragon. This was his introduction to the Surrealist movement.
After a marital crisis, he travelled, returning to France in
1924. His poems of this time reflect his difficulties during the period, in which he'd another bout of tuberculosis and separated from Gala when she left him for
Salvador Dalí.
In
1934, he married
Nusch (Maria Benz), a model of friends
Man Ray and
Pablo Picasso, who was considered somewhat of a mascot of the surrealist movement. During
World War II, he was involved in the
French Resistance. He battled also with his poems, such as his
1942 poem
Liberty and
Les sept poèmes d'amour en guerre (1944). His work was quite militant, yet simple.
He joined the
French Communist Party in 1942,
(External Link
) which led to his break from the Surrealists, and he later eulogised
Stalin in his political writings.
Milan Kundera has recalled he was shocked when he heard of Paul Eluard's public approval of the hanging of Kundera's friend, the Prague writer
Zavis Kalandra in
1950.
(External Link)
Later life
His grief at the premature death of his wife
Nusch in 1946 inspired the work "Le temps déborde" in 1947. The principles of peace, self-government, and liberty became his new passion. He was part of the Congress of Intellectuals for Peace in
Wroclaw in 1948, and persuaded
Pablo Picasso to also participate.
Eluard met his last wife, Dominique Laure, at the Congress of Peace in Mexico in 1949, and they married in 1951. He dedicated his work
The Phoenix to her.
Paul Éluard died from a heart attack in November
1952. His funeral was held in Charenton-le-Pont, and organized by the Communist Party.
Pablo Picasso was seated next to Dominique. "In fact," she said later, "it was Éluard who was a friend to Picasso, and the other way around only to the extent that Picasso was capable of friendship."
(External Link)
He is buried in
Père Lachaise Cemetery.
In Popular Culture
The poems in
The Capital of Pain (Capitale de la Douleur) inspired the 1965
Jean-Luc Godard film
Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Paul Luard'.
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