Saint-John Perse Summary

The French poet and diplomat, Saint-John Perse (1887-1975) ranks among the greatest French poets of the 20th century. His work is epic in nature, characterized by a cosmic vision and a lofty rhetoric.... Read more

In the following essay, Chapin examines contradictory elements of Léger's poetry, describing them as the "aristocratic" and "primitive" aspects of his writing... Read more

In the following essay, Cranston asserts that birds are "the overarching theme of Léger's œuvre." The Saint-John Foundation, organized in 1976, placed its inaugur... Read more

In the following favorable review of Vents, Fowlie places Léger within the context of modern French poets as well as the tradition of Symbolism and Surrealism. St.-John Perse revindicates, r... Read more

In the following essay, Colt discusses the influence of Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy on Léger's work. Appraisals of St.-John Perse, the French poet, by American critics lea... Read more

In the following excerpt, Knodel explores the function of anonymity in Anabase. Anabase was the first of Saint-John Perse's poems to be widely translated into other languages, as well as the... Read more

In the following essay, Raine explores the defining characteristics of Léger's verse. In conversation the author of the poems published under the pseudonym St.-John Perse once said to... Read more

Critical Essay by Conrad Aiken [In Pluies, a] magnificent poem, which is at once a kind of litany, or litany of litanies, and an allegorical history of mankind, a history in terms of metaphor, the po... Read more

Critical Essay by John D. Price [For Perse] symbolic and individual man, that is Man the species and man the solitary male human being, share many of the same qualities, and … these vary littl... Read more