Claudel, Paul

(1868-1955)

   writer, poet, diplomat

   Born in Villeneuve-sur-Fère, Aisne, Paul Claudel was of a provincial bourgeois background. Early influences on him were the scientific, naturalistic, and materialistic ideas of the late 19th century. It was at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris (December 25, 1886) that he said he had a revelation of the Catholic faith. Certainly, his volumes of poetry, plays, religious prose, travel writing, and literary criticism often expressed his ardent Roman Catholicism. His early works are influenced also by Stéphane mallarmé (Tête d'or, 1890; La Ville, 1893). Claudel studied for a diplomatic career that began in 1893 with an assignment to the United States, where he wrote L'Échange (1895). From 1895 to 1909, he was posted in the Far East, which also enriched his literary experiences. Returning to Europe, he served successively as French consul in Prague, Frankfurt, and Hamburg, until he left Germany in 1914. He subsequently was a minister plenipotentiary in Rio de Janeiro, then in Copenhagen, then was named French ambassador to Japan (1921), the United States (1927), and Belgium (1933-36). During these periods he wrote L'Otage (1911), L'Annonce faite à Marie (1912), Le Pain dur (1914), Le Père humilié (1916), and Le Soulier de satin (1929). Claudel frequently used themes relating to spiritual conflict and the salvation of the soul, and he was, in many ways, influenced, as noted, by the symbolists, Richard Wagner, and Friedrich Nietzsche, as well as the philosophies of the Far East. These multiple influences would convince him also to equate poetry with action. other of Claudel's works include Présence et Prophétie (1942), L'Apocalypse (1952), and a translation of Aeschylus's Oresteia (1916). His correspondence with andré Gide (1899-1926) was published in 1952. Claudel was elected to the Académie Française in 1946.