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Biography of Saint-John Perse
Name: Saint-John Perse
Birth Date: May 31, 1887
Death Date: September 20, 1975
Place of Birth: Guadeloupe, West Indies
Nationality: French
Gender: Male
Occupations: poet, diplomat
Saint-John Perse
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. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1960.Saint-John Perse was born Alexis Saint-Léger Léger on a family-owned island near Guadeloupe in the West Indies on May 31, 1887. At the age of 11 he went to the southern French city of Pau, where he attended school. He then studied at the University of Bordeaux and subsequently traveled extensively before establishing himself in Paris to prepare for the Foreign Service exams. He was accepted by the French Foreign Service in 1914 and spent the years from 1916 to 1921 in China. During the 1920s and 1930s he was again in Paris, rising in the service to the rank of secretary general. His brilliant diplomatic career ended in 1940, however, because he …showed first 150 words…
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…showed last 150 words…specifically as background for a recapitulation of human history.Perse's enormous poetic frescoes demonstrated an epic gift uncommon today. He used a verse form of multiple cadences similar to the "verset" invented by Paul Claudel, and his tendency toward periphrase and allegory and his majestic images all suggested Claudel.Perse died on September 20, 1975, at his villa in Giens, on the French Riviera. His substantial appeal to poets, including T.S. Eliot, and the wealth of praise accorded his work stand in sharp contrast to his creative output. "Mr. Perse's productivity was minuscule," wrote the New York Times, "he published only seven volumes, all genuinely slender." Further Reading A general comprehensive study in English is Arthur Knodel, Saint-John Perse: A Study of His Poetry (1966). A very useful introduction, it offers a full discussion of each one of the poet's works. Other sources of information about Perse include the New York Times.
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