Poètes de la Grande Guerre: expérience combattante et activité poétique by Laurence Campa (review)

Laurence Campa’s latest book is a welcome addition to the literature on French writers who served in the military during the First World War. The fact that it is concerned with seven different poets, only two of whom are well known, makes it all the more interesting. ‘Mon enquête se propose de faire l’histoire de poètes qui furent combattants’, she explains, ‘de comprendre quelle fut leur guerre, et d’interpréter leurs œuvres liées à la guerre grâce à une double lecture historique et littéraire’ (p. 11). Following an excellent introduction to war poetry in general and to the problems facing critics who attempt to write about it, the reader encounters six different studies. Some of the poets attempted to continue their literary activities, some abandoned them altogether, and some recorded their experience in prose. The first chapter consists of a brief but incisive analysis of Apollinaire’s ‘L’Adieu du cavalier’, which, thanks largely to the surrealists, has been consistently misrepresented since it appeared in Calligrammes. Far too many readers have been unable to get beyond the first verse, ‘Ah Dieu! que la guerre est jolie’, and have erroneously attributed this sentiment to the poet himself. The second chapter contains a fascinating study of the effect of Blaise Cendrars’s wound and subsequent amputation on his poetry between 1916 and 1918. Since he refused to write about his war experience, it has required some skilful detective work on Campa’s part to fill in the blanks. The third chapter is devoted to two of Apollinaire’s friends, René Dalize and André Salmon, who are largely forgotten. Although the first poet was killed before he had a chance to realize his full potential, the second revisited the war, and his friend’s death, over and over again for the rest of his life. The fourth chapter is concerned with Georges Duhamel, who, though not a combattant, was attached to the medical corps. After discussing the war’s crucial impact on his writing, it traces the reception of Vie des martyrs from 1916 to 1929. The fifth chapter discusses posthumous collections of poetry, the various formats in which they appeared, and the ways in which the poets were presented to the public. Conceived both as reliquaries and as monuments, Campa observes, the volumes preserved what was left of the poet and also served as memorials. This was especially true of Jean Le Roy, killed in Belgium in 1918, whose remains were never recovered from the battlefield. The final chapter considers Louis Krémer, who was unknown during his lifetime, abandoned poetry for prose, and has recently been rediscovered. Most of his writings survive in the form of letters, sent almost daily to a friend in Paris, which present a vivid portrait of the war. To a considerable extent, but to differing degrees, this describes all the poets in this volume. Thrust into an impossible situation, each resolved the conflict between poetry and war as best he could.