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Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48100 I I I 75-19,429 DICKSON, Patricia Stoup, 1939- PRESENCE AND ABSENCE IN THE THEATER OF JEAN TARDIEU. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1975 Language and Literature, modern Xerox University MicrofilmsAnn , Arbor, Michigan 48106 0 Copyright By Patricia Stoup Dickson 1975 THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED. PRESENCE AND ABSENCE IN THE THEATER OF JEAN TARDIEU DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Patricia Stoup Dickson, B.S., M.A. * * * * * The Ohio State University 1975 Reading Committee: Approved By Pierre Astier Charles Carlut Robert Cottrell Adviser Department of Romance Languages ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many thanks to everyone who helped, supported and encouraged me during the writing of this study, particularly my husband, Charles, my adviser, Professor Pierre Astier and my parents, Mr. and Mrs. E.M. Stoup. ii VITA March 1, 19394 . Born— Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 1961 ............. B.S., Indiana University of Penn sylvania, Indiana, Pennsylvania 1961-1965........ French and Spanish Teacher, Churchill Area Schools, Pittsburgh, Pennsyl vania 1963 ............. Summer study at Universite d'Aix-Marseilles 1966 ............. M.A., University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 1966-19674 . 4 4 . French Teacher, Columbus (Ohio) Public Schools 1967-196 8 . Lecturer in French Readings and Spanish Language Courses, Ohio Dominican College 1968-197 0 . Teaching Associate, Department of Romance Languages, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: French Literature 20th Century Studies 4 Professor Pierre Astier 19th Century Studies. Professor Charles Carlut Medieval Studies and History of French Language. Professors Eleanor Bulatkin and David Griffin Minor Field: Spanish Literature (Spain and Latin America) 19th and 20th Century Studies. Professor Martha Frosch History of Spanish Language. Professor David Griffin H i * TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii . VITA ................ ill Chapter I. JEAN TAEDIEU AND THE HIDDEN R I V E R ............... 1 II. T H & T R E DE CHAMBRE: DRAMES & L A I R ............... 30 III. THE&TRE DE CHAMBRE: COMEDIES 12CLAIR............. 65 IV. POEMES A JOUER................................... 108 V. CONCLUSION......................................... 180 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................... 193 iv CHAPTER I JEAN TARDIEU AND THE HIDDEN RIVER The works of Jean Tardieu are extremely diverse. In addition to his major collections of poetry, essays and plays, Tardieu has written a treatise on modern art, prefaces or introductions to the works of several contemporary painters, poetry evoking specific works of art or music, a preface to a selection of rondeaux by Charles d*Orleans and even a book for children. His works also include trans lations from the German of two plays by Goethe and a long poem by Holderlin as well as a comedy by Paul Portner and a radio play by Dieter Wellershoff. Even within Tardieu's major works, there is much variety: his poetry ranges from lyric to burlesque, his essays from serious and philosophical to fantastic and surrealistic, his plays from satiric to poetic. This diversity of literary production reveals Tardieu's interest in all forms of artistic expression and it also indicates a willingness to experiment freely with language and forms. The only son of a harpist and a painter, Tardieu grew up surrounded by the arts; thus it is hardly surprising that his own artistic talent became apparent at an early age. But rather than musical tones or paint, Jean Tardieu chose words as his medium of expression. Beginning to compose poems at seven and plays at eleven, Tardieu was already preparing for a long and fruitful literary career. Tardieu*s happy and harmonious childhood came to an abrupt end at seventeen when he suffered a severe psychological crisis brought on by fatigue and an overdose of philosophy. Suddenly becoming aware of "1'etrangetd du fait d'exister, de se connaltrt, d'avoir un *moi* ,"1 Tardieu found consolation and satisfaction in writing: En se voyant Strange, en se voyant etranger a lui-mime, il reconnait sa propre image et, sous les balbutiements affoies, un pouvoir: celui de 1*expression. C'est pourquoi il est et restera £crivain. Ecrire pour lui, est, trks momentand- ment, mais trbs intens&nent, accomplixj.2 Attempting to explain to himself this new awareness of the strangeness of self and the world, he wrote a play entitled Consoler in which the positive and negative poles of his thought are already quite evident: Et je vais a nouveau d tatons parmi des objets inertes, parmi des choses dont la mati&re se ddforme et s'anime A mon con tact: la bizarre aventure! ma pensê dddoublê se fait d'un c6t£ positive, et comprend l'unlvers. .de l'autre, elle s'&neut d'un surnaturel monstrueux; je sais qu'ici ces meubles sont des meubles; qu'aucune ime ne parle en eux, et cependant je tremble d'epouvante. .3 After Consoler. Tardieu gave up writing plays completely in order to concentrate on writing poetry, publishing his first major collection, Le Fleuve cache, in 1933. In a recent interview, Tardieu speaks of these years following his youthful crisis as a time of "silence ou lanilie Noulet, Jean Tardieu. Po&tes d'aujourd'hui (Paris: Editions Pierre Seghers, 1964), p. 200. This work is the only major source of biographical information on Tardieu and therefore all sub sequent biographical material in this chapter is based upon it. Îbid., p. 15. ^Quoted by E. Noulet, ibid.. p. 11. de secheresse."^ Much of his time was taken up by studies and then by earning a living, so that, although he had many notebooks full of ideas for plays, he only managed to write short poems and was not able to materialize any of those proposed plays. However, this latent desire to write plays was manifesting itself in his poetry as a progressive use of dialogue. Toward the end of World War II, Tardieu felt the need to return to playwriting: La technique po^tique et ses recherches n'ont ensuite dd- tourn^ de 1'expression dramatique. Seulement, celle-ci s'est progressivement manifestê dans mes po^mes, par un gout du dialogue qui s'est d^velopp^ jusqu'4 donner mon ThÂtre de chambre et mes Po&mes a louer. Cela a correspondu particu- lierement, au temps de 1'Occupation, ^ un besoin de me lib^rer sous la forme dramatique.^ The first two plays which really gave Tardieu his start in the theater, Qui est lei? and Un Mot pour un autre, were produced in 1949 and 1950 respectively. These two plays are representative of the two basic categories— drama and comedy— to be found in the experi mental, one-act plays included in Tardieu's Th^tre de chambre. I (1955). Tardieu describes Qui est ltL? as "une sorte de cauchemar" in which he was trying to create an essential drama: "une fiction dramatique qui ne soit pas a proprement parler une action; quelque ^See Carol Jean Beverly, Appendix A, "Parody and Poetry in the Theater of Jean Tardieu" (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana Uni versity, 1972), p. 198. Hereinafter referred to as Interview. ^Quoted by Paul-Louis Mignon in Le Theatre d'aulourdhui de A jusqu'A Z (Paris: Editions de l'Avant-Sc&ne/Editlons Michel Brient et Cie., 1966), p. 248. chose de tout a fait condens^ et essentiel, comme un poeme ou comme un r^ve."^ Un Mot pour un autre is a burlesque comedy based on the arbitrary nature of language which represents "le cSte recherche sur le langage, parodie du langage."7 Tardieu*s second volume of plays, Poemes

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