La Tour du Pin, Patrice de 1911–1975

(Patrice Arthur Elie Humbert de La Tour du Pin Chambly de la Charce)

PERSONAL: Born March 16, 1911, in Paris, France; died October 28, 1975, in Paris, France; son of Brigitte O'Connor. Education: Studied literature at the Sorbonne, and law for three years at the École Libre des Sciences Politiques. Religion: Catholic.

CAREER: Writer. Military service: French Army, served during World War II; prisoner of war.

WRITINGS:

La quête de joie (poems; title means "The Quest for Joy"; also see below), La Tortue (Paris, France), 1933, reprinted, Gallimard (Paris, France), 1989.

L'enfer, Éditions de Mirages (Tunis, Tunisia), 1935.

Le lucernaire: Office du corps et du sang du Christ, Éditions de Mirages (Tunis, Tunisia), 1936.

Le don de la passion, La Pleiade (Paris, France), 1937.

Psaumes, Gallimard (Montreal, Quebec, Canada), 1938.

La vie recluse en poësie (poems; bound with Présence et poësie by Henri Daniel-Rops; Plon (Paris, France), 1938, translated as part of The Dedicated Life in Poetry and the Correspondence of Laurent de Cayeux, translated by G.S. Fraser, introduction by Stephen Spender, Harvill Press (London, England), 1948.

Les anges, Monomotapa (Tunis, Tunisia), 1939.

Deux chroniques intérieures, Éditions P. Seghers (Paris, France), 1945.

La Genèse (poems), Ides et Calendes (Neuchâtel, Switzerland), 1945.

Le jeu du seul (poems; title means "The Game of the Solitary Man"), Gallimard (Paris, France), 1946.

Les concerts sur terre, R. Laffont (Paris, France), 1946.

Une somme de poésie (poems; title means "A Summa of Poetry"), Gallimard (Paris, France), 1946, reprinted, 1999.

Les contes de soi, R. Laffont (Paris, France), 1946.

La contemplation errante, Gallimard (Paris, France), 1948.

(With Jean Lurçat, Maurice Darantière, and Jules Dominique Morniroli) Bestiaire fabuleux, Darantière (Paris, France), 1951.

Noël des eaux, Ides et Calendes (Neuchâtel, Switzerland), 1951.

(With Jacques Ferrand) Pépinière de sapins de Noël, Gallimard (Paris, France), 1957.

Le second jeu (poems; title means "The Second Game"), Gallimard (Paris, France), 1959.

Lettres aux confidants (poems), 1960.

Le petit théâtre crépusculaire (poems; title means "The Little Twilight Theater"), Gallimard (Paris, France), 1963.

La quête de joie, suivi de "petite somme de poésie," Gallimard (Paris, France), 1966.

Une lutte pour la vie (poems; title means "A Fight for Life"), Gallimard (Paris, France), 1970.

Concert eucharistique, Desclée (Paris, France), 1972.

Psaumes de tous les temps (title means "Psalms of All Times"), Gallimard (Paris, France), 1974, reprinted, Cerf (Paris, France), 1990.

Lettres de Faire-part, Compagnie Typographique (France), 1974.

(With André Romus) Lettres à André Romus (correspondence), Seuil (Paris, France), 1981.

Carnets de route, preface by Joseph Gelineau, Plon/Mame (Paris, France), 1995.

Chemin de croix: des rapatriés en pèlerinage à Lourdes (poems), Saint-Augustin (Saint-Maurice, Switzerland), 1998.

Du vierge, de la Vierge, selected and edited by Marc Gsell, Saint-Augustin (Saint-Maurice, Switzerland), 1999.

Also author of Le Royaume de l'homme. Contributor to Lys et violettes: premiers essais de eux jeunes cousins, Les Gemeaux (Paris, France), 1926.

SIDELIGHTS: An important French poet known for writing on religious themes, Patrice de La Tour du Pin's preoccupation with spirituality was most famously expressed in his ambitious verse collection Une somme de poésie. Born to an aristocratic family, he initially studied to be a lawyer. However, after three years at the École Libre des Sciences Politiques, he abandoned this idea to focus on his poetry. The poet won early acclaim with his first collection, 1933's La quête de joie. After serving in the French army during World War II and spending time as a prisoner of war, he returned home in 1942. A few years later, he released the lengthy Une somme de poésie, which includes much of his previously written poems and adds to them. Taken together, the verses express La Tour du Pin's ongoing theme of man's quest for transcendence, and the poet would continue to build on this collection in such books as Le second jeu and Psaumes de tous les temps.

As a stylist, La Tour du Pin was not an innovator, preferring to stick with traditional poetic forms while concentrating on his spiritual message. As Yves-Alain Favre put it in a Renascence article, "He wanted to sing successively of man in relation to himself, of man in relation to others and of man in relation to God." Crediting the poet for renewing "Christian writing in France," Favre asserted, "Not only does La Tour du Pin succeed in writing poems that are at the same time prayers (by using traditional forms of the hymn), but he also invents new forms and tries to write masses." The scholar added, "For Patrice de la Tour du Pin, working with language and seeking out meaning are no longer separate, because he succeeds in making a total fusion between the art of poetic creation and the spiritual quest."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Encyclopedia of World Literature in the Twentieth Century, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1999.

PERIODICALS

Renascence, autumn-winter, 1983–84, Yves-Alain Favre, "Patrice de la Tour du Pin: The Renaissance of a Liturgical Poetry," pp. 45-54.

Times Literary Supplement, July 19, 1974, "Poetry Plus," review of Psaumes de tous les temps, p. 771.