Reverdy, Pierre

Reverdy, Pierre 

Born Sept. 13, 1889, in Narbonne; died June 21, 1960, near Solesmes. French poet.

Reverdy’s works are marked by a Rousseauistic and Tol-stoyan nonacceptance of the bourgeois world. His poetry written between 1916 and 1924 (Discards From Heaven, 1924) was surrealistic. Realistic tendencies predominated in the book Workers’ Labor (1949), which contains poems written in the 1930’s and during the period of the Resistance. Reverdy also wrote rhymed prose: the novel In Our Skin (1926) and the collection of short stories In the Midst of Risks and Dangers (1930). His books of philosophic and aesthetic meditations included The Hair Glove (1927), My Ship’s Log (1948), and Weighted Down (1956). Reverdy’s realism and moral fortitude during the fascist occupation made him a predecessor of P. Eluard and of progressive French poets of the period between 1940 and the 1960’s.

WORKS

In Russian translation:
[Stikhi.] In Ia pishu tvoe imia, Svoboda. [Compiled by and articles about authors written by S. Velikovskii. Moscow, 1968.]

REFERENCES

Balashov, N. I. “P’er Reverdi.” In Istoriia frantsuzskoi literatury, vol. 4. Moscow, 1963.
Rousselot, J. P. Reverdy. [Paris, 1965.]
Hommage à P. Reverdy: Témoignages, textes, documents, correspondance inédits. Paris, 1961. (Contains bibliography.)
Greene, R. W. The Poetic Theory of Pierre Reverdy. Berkeley-Los Angeles, 1967. (Bibliography on pp. 97–105.)

N. I. BALASHOV