“THE CITY” OF PAUL CLAUDEL AND THE INTELLECTUAL MILIEU IN FRANCE AT THE END OF XIX CENTURY

Abstract

Claudel’s enthusiasm for the Illuminations is well-known. It was the beginning of the new orientation when the thought of Claudel was adopted after leaving behind the famous tetrasyllable Taine-et-Renan. For the same reason the impact of the Rimbaldian genius can be found in the heart of La Ville (The City). The poet captivates the interacting phenomena, even those that extend into the ineffable. Following the spirit of the religious defence on which Christian existentialism was based Claudel would set out in search of the broken relationship between man and his original bond. The protagonists of the dramas are in search of plenitude: all struggles between nothing and everything, between misery and greatness. They embody different faces of the author who cherished the fundamental text of the Christian apology. The person of the author was like God in creation: present everywhere, visible nowhere since appearing under the many faces that the thought of the playwright adopted during the turbulent period. In this way La Ville is a mature synthesis of the talents of young Claudel. While constructing “The City” the playwright enunciates the postulates he has developed in Poetical art, which culminate in the predominance of the eye, based on the Thomist analogy of the light, the symbol of the eternity. In this sense the author introduces the couple of Coeuvre and Lâla into the drama. As the poet and his muse, they aim to devaluate the present profane and secular world in favour of its purpose, both intrinsic and final. The latter is, as the protagonists testify, so well accomplished that it can only be fulfilled eternally.