Claudel : traduire, écrire, prier

Since the very beginning of his career as a poet, Paul Claudel’s creation goes with a translation work, which accompanies it over many years. The two main texts on which he works are very different: the biblical Psalms and Aeschylus’ Oresteia. This cultural gap between Claudel’s choices of translation reveals a peculiar conception of writing. We will study, in each case, the part Claudel gives to creation in his translation works, but it also may be interesting to think about the links between these translations and Claudel’s own poetic and dramatic work. Eventually, as Claudel is a fervent Christian, writing and translation are linked by a third notion, possibly surprising: prayer, considered as the pure and spontaneous expression of individual inwardness.