Paul Claudel was indeed a French poet, and, I believe, a diplomat. He was
also the beloved brother of the sculptor Camille Claudel, who has attracted
so much attention from (especially) female poets lately.
Those 4 lines weren't all that Auden later cut from his poem. If memory
serves me aright, he cut at least 2 full stanzas.
Time, that is intolerant
Of the young and ignorant,
And indifferent in a week
To a beautiful physique;
Time, that with this strange excuse
Pardoned Kipling and his views,
And will pardon Paul Claudel,
Pardon him for writing well.
But what did Auden mean by "writing well", that Claudel should need to be
pardoned for it?
I'd guess this is a question of writing within the framework of his own
time, something which would apply to Kipling, and maybe even to Auden
himself.
It's only the great poet who writes outside his own time.
joanna
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robin Hamilton" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 1:55 AM
Subject: Re: Dipodic is...? (Re: is dipodic a no-no? )
>>> (In any case, Auden's sentiments seem just. But who the hell was Paul
>>> Claudel?)
>
> Well, the Later Auden wouldn't have agreed about the sentiments -- he
> chopped that and I think the preceding four lines from the later versions
> of
> "Elegy for W.B.Yeats". At least he didn't disavow the entire poem, the
> way
> he did "September 1939".
>
> Claudel was a French rightwing writer, not exactly flavour of the month
> when
> Auden wrote the poem in the late thirties.
>
> I find it easier to forgive Pound his fascism than Eliot his antisemitism
> in
> "Burbank with a Baedekar, Bleistein with a Cigar".
>
> Robin
>
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