Apollinaire In The Great War

[supersub]

I've just come across this excellent little book about French poet Guillaume Apollinaire during the war. It's not a book of weapons and strategies (though both get a mention), but a biography based mainly on Apollinaire's letters.

Perhaps surprisingly for an avant-garde poet, Apollinaire (a man now largely remembered for coining the word "surrealist") was an enthusiastic soldier, making every effort to sign up to the French army as soon as possible, even though he wasn't then a French citizen. He joined the French artillery, then was later commissioned as an officer in the infantry. His time on the Champagne front is detailed in his own words, via his letters, leading up to the moment when he was invalided out and beyond.

And those letters! They were mainly to his lady friends, and if you thought sex was invented in 1963, you're in for a shock! They are pretty explicit. They led me to a little-known novel he wrote (Les Onze Mille Verges - The 11,000 Rods, a pun on vierges=virgins)... pretty unreadable, but a dip into any page will give a taste of how pornographic it was. And that published before the Great War, when we all thought ladies were ladies...

Anyway, leaving that aside, I'd recommend this book - of interest both to WW1 historians and to fans of 20th century French poetry. Give it a go!

 

https://www.peterowen.com/shop/apollinaire-in-the-great-war-1914–18?search=apollinaire

Edited 12 December , 2018 by supersub

[seaJane]

Hmmmm, might give that a go, when I'm feeling strong-minded.

 

[Martin Bennitt]

I recently saw a stage play, or rather a dialogue, of the letters between Apollinaire and Madeleine Pages, whom he had met on a train as he was going to join his regiment. Apollinaire seems prone to have fallen in love with a host of women at first sight, what the French call the coup de foudre.

 

Oh, and ‘verge ‘ doesn’t just mean ‘rod’.

 

Cheers Martin B

[David Filsell]

As A young would be journo I was taught by a grizzled old sub editor, "All ladies are women, but not all women are ladies." Apo. clearly rumbled it too!

[supersub]

Yes, Madeleine Pages is one of the lady friends... she became his fiancee on the basis of that brief train ride and some increasingly racy correspondence. 

And I think it is fair to say Apollinaire was a man who knew how to use his rod!

Sad that he survived the war and a head injury, only to succumb to the flu epidemic.

[angelab]

On 13/12/2018 at 14:11, Martin Bennitt said:

.....  Oh, and ‘verge ‘ doesn’t just mean ‘rod’.

 

 

Just what I was about to point out, Martin, but was wondering how to do so in seemly fashion without being court-marshalled! ;-)