Paul Éluard, born Eugène Émile Paul Grindel on 14 December 1895 in Saint-Denis, near Paris, became one of the defining French poets of the twentieth century. His career crossed some of the century’s most turbulent landscapes: the First World War, the invention of Dada and Surrealism, the rise of fascism, the German occupation of France, the liberation, and the ideological divisions of the Cold War. In each period, Él…
“We need few words to express what is essential; we need all the words to make it real.”
Neighbourhood:
French Symbolists, Love Poets, Modernist Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Despair, Sorrow, Fear
Alan Seeger was born in New York City on 22 June 1888, into an American family whose comfort, education, and international connections gave him unusual freedom while also placing before him the question of what a privileged young man ought to do with his life. He died on 4 July 1916, age twenty-eight, in the Battle of the Somme while serving in the French Foreign Legion. In the years between those dates he became, in…
“I have no fear of death, and am quite ready to meet it.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Death & Mortality, Edwardian Poets, Modernist Poets, War Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Wonder
