Raymond Queneau (21 February 1903 – 25 October 1976) was a French poet A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary greatly in different cultures and time periods and novelist A novel is a long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century and the co-founder of Ouvroir de littérature potentielle (Oulipo) Oulipo is a loose gathering of (mainly) French-speaking writers and mathematicians which seeks to create works using constrained writing techniques. It was founded in 1960 by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais. Other notable members include novelists Georges Perec and Italo Calvino, poet Oskar Pastior and poet/mathematician Jacques Roubaud.

Contents

Biography

Born in Le Havre Le Havre is a city in the Seine-Maritime department of the Haute-Normandie region in France. It is situated in north-western France, on the right bank of the mouth of the river Seine on the English Channel. Le Havre is the most populous commune in the Haute-Normandie region, although the total population of the greater Le Havre conurbation is, Seine-Maritime Seine-Maritime is a French department in the Haute-Normandie region in northern France, which was previously known as Seine-Inférieure. It is situated on the northern coast of France, at the mouth of the Seine, and includes the cities of Rouen and Le Havre. Until 1955 it was named Seine-Inférieure, Queneau was the only child of Auguste Queneau and Joséphine Mignot. He received his first baccalauréat The baccalauréat , often known in France colloquially as le bac, is an academic qualification which French and international students take at the end of the lycée (high school). It was introduced by Napoleon I in 1808. It is the main diploma required to pursue university studies. There is also the European Baccalaureate which students take at in 1919 for Latin and Greek, and a second in 1920 for philosophy, then studied at the Sorbonne The University of Paris was founded in the mid 11th century, and officially recognized as a university likely between 1160 and 1170 (or possibly as early as 1150). In 1970 it was reorganized as 13 autonomous universities (University of Paris I–XIII). The university is often referred to as the Sorbonne or La Sorbonne after the collegiate (1921–1923) where he was a fair student of both letters and mathematics, graduating with certificates in philosophy and psychology.

Queneau performed military service as a zouave Zouave was the title given to certain infantry regiments in the French Army, normally serving in French North Africa between 1831 and 1962. The name was also adopted during the 19th century by units in other armies, especially volunteer regiments raised for service in the American Civil War. The characteristic zouave uniform included short open in Algeria Algerian Arabic is the language used by the majority of the population. Although French has no official status, Algeria is the second Francophone country in the world in terms of speakers and Morocco Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco (المملكة المغربية, al-Mamlakah al-Maġribiyya), is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of nearly 39 million and an area of 710,850 km², including the disputed Western Sahara which is mainly under Moroccan administration. Morocco has a coast on the Atlantic Ocean that during the years 1925–1926. He married Janine Kahn in 1928, with whom he had a son, Jean-Marie, in 1934. They remained married until Janine's death in 1972. Queneau was drafted in 1939 but demobilized in 1940, and through the remainder of World War II, he and his family lived with the painter Élie Lascaux in Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat is a commune in the Haute-Vienne department in the Limousin region in west-central France.

Queneau spent much of his life working for the Gallimard Éditions Gallimard is one of the leading French publishers of books. An article in the Guardian described it as having "the best backlist in the world". In 2003 it and its subsidiaries published 1418 titles publishing house, where he began as a reader in 1938. He later rose to be general secretary, and eventually became director of l’Encyclopédie de la Pléiade in 1956. During some of this time, he also taught at l’École Nouvelle de Neuilly. He entered the Collège de ‘Pataphysique 'Pataphysics is a pseudophilosophy dedicated to studying what lies beyond the realm of metaphysics. It is a parody of the theory and methods of modern science and is often expressed in nonsensical language. The term was coined and the concept created by French writer Alfred Jarry (1873–1907), who defined 'pataphysics as "the science of in 1950, where he became Satrap, and was elected to the Académie Goncourt The Société littéraire des Goncourt , usually called the académie Goncourt (Goncourt Academy), is a French literary organization based in Paris that was founded in 1900 in accordance with the wishes of French writer and publisher Edmond de Goncourt (1822-1896), and in opposition to the then existing policies towards writers by the Académie in 1951, l’Académie de l’Humour in 1952, and the jury of the Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Film Festival , founded in 1946, is one of the world's oldest and most prestigious film festivals. The private festival is held annually (usually in May) at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, in the resort town of Cannes, in the south of France 1955–1957.

During this time, Queneau also acted as a translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh into Southwest Asian languages of the, notably for Amos Tutuola's Palm Wine Drinkard (L'Ivrogne dans la brousse) in 1953. Additionally, he edited and published Alexandre Kojève Alexandre Kojève was a Russian Marxist-Hegelian philosopher and statesman whose philosophical seminars had an immense influence on twentieth-century French philosophy, and on his student the American philosopher Allan Bloom. As a statesman in the French government, he was instrumental in the creation of the European Union's lectures on Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (August 27, 1770 – November 14, 1831) was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism. His historicist and idealist account of reality as a whole revolutionized European philosophy and was an important precursor to Continental philosophy and Marxism's Phenomenology of Spirit. Queneau had been a student of Kojève's during the 1930s and was, during this period, also close to writer Georges Bataille Georges Bataille (10 September 1897 – 8 July 1962) was a French writer. Although several philosophers have been significantly influenced by his thought, Bataille tended not to refer to himself as a philosopher.

As an author, Queneau came to general attention in France with the publication in 1959 of his novel Zazie dans le métro, and again in 1960 with the film adaptation by Louis Malle Louis Malle was a French film director, screenwriter, and producer. He has worked in both French cinema and Hollywood. His films include Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (1958), Atlantic City (1981), and Au revoir, les enfants (1987) at the height of the Nouvelle Vague The New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of classical cinematic form and their spirit of youthful movement. Zazie explores colloquial language as opposed to 'standard' written French; a distinction which is perhaps more marked in French than in some other languages. The first word of the book, the alarmingly long "Doukipudonktan" is a phonetic Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds (phones): their physiological production, acoustic properties, auditory perception, and neurophysiological status. Phonology, on the other hand, is concerned with abstract, grammatical transcription of "D'où qu'ils puent donc tant?" "Why do they stink so much?".

Juliette Greco made popular his song 'Si tu t'imagines.'

Even before the founding of the Ouvroir de littérature potentielle (Oulipo) Oulipo is a loose gathering of (mainly) French-speaking writers and mathematicians which seeks to create works using constrained writing techniques. It was founded in 1960 by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais. Other notable members include novelists Georges Perec and Italo Calvino, poet Oskar Pastior and poet/mathematician Jacques Roubaud in 1960, Queneau was attracted to mathematics Mathematics is the study of quantity, structure, space, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns, formulate new conjectures, and establish truth by rigorous deduction from appropriately chosen axioms and definitions as a source of inspiration. He became a member of la Société Mathématique de France Austria · Belarus · Belgium · Bosnia and Herzegovina · Bulgaria · Croatia · Cyprus · Czech Republic · Denmark · Estonia · Finland · France (Mathematical Society of France • Society of Applied & Industrial Mathematics • Société Francaise de Statistique) · Georgia · Germany · Greece · Hungary · Iceland · Ireland · Israel in 1948. In Queneau's mind, elements of a text, including seemingly trivial details such as the number of chapters, were things that had to be predetermined, perhaps even calculated. A later work, Les fondements de la littérature d’après David Hilbert (1976), alludes to the mathematician David Hilbert David Hilbert /ˈdaːfɪt ˈhɪlbʌt/ was a German mathematician, recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. He discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many areas, including invariant theory and the axiomatization of geometry. He also formulated the theory of, and attempts to explore the foundations of literature by quasi-mathematical derivations from textual axioms.

One of Queneau's most influential works is Exercises in Style, which tells the simple story of a man seeing the same stranger twice in one day. It tells that very short story in 99 different ways, demonstrating the tremendous variety of styles in which storytelling can take place. A graphical story adaptation of the book's concept, 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style, was published by Matt Madden in 2005.

Queneau is buried with his parents in the old cemetery of Juvisy-sur-Orge Juvisy-sur-Orge is a commune in the Essonne department in Île-de-France in northern France, in Essonne Essonne is a French department in the region of Île-de-France. It is named after the Essonne River outside Paris.

Queneau and Surrealists

In 1924 Queneau met and briefly joined the Surrealists Surrealist works feature the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and non sequitur; however, many Surrealist artists and writers regard their work as an expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost, with the works being an artifact. Leader André Breton was explicit in his assertion that Surrealism was above all a, but never fully shared in the methods of automatic writing Automatic writing is the process or production of writing material that proponents claim does not come from the conscious thoughts of the writer. Practitioners say that the writer's hand forms the message, with the person being unaware of what will be written. In some cases, it is done by people in a trance state. In others, the writer is aware of or Surrealist ultra-left politics. Like many surrealists, he entered psychoanalysis—however, not in order to stimulate his creative abilities, but for personal reasons, like Leiris, Bataille, Crevel.

Michel Leiris describes, in Brisees, how he first met Queneau in 1924, while vacationing in Nemours Nemours is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France with André Masson Masson was born in Balagny-sur-Thérain, Oise, but was brought up in Belgium. He studied art in Brussels and Paris. He fought for France in World War I and was seriously injured, Armand Salacrou and Juan Gris José Victoriano González-Pérez , better known as Juan Gris, was a Spanish painter and sculptor who lived and worked in France most of his life. His works are closely connected to the emergence of an innovative artistic genre—Cubism, creating several of the movement's most distinctive works. A common friend, Roland Tual, met Queneau on a train from Le Havre Le Havre is a city in the Seine-Maritime department of the Haute-Normandie region in France. It is situated in north-western France, on the right bank of the mouth of the river Seine on the English Channel. Le Havre is the most populous commune in the Haute-Normandie region, although the total population of the greater Le Havre conurbation is and brought him over. Queneau was just a couple years younger and felt less accomplished. He did not make a big impression on the young bohemians. After Queneau came back from the army, around 1926-7, he and Leiris met at the Café Certa, near L'Opera, a Surrealist hang-out. On this occasion, when conversation delved into Eastern philosophy, Queneau's comments showed a quiet superiority and erudite thoughtfulness. Leiris and Queneau became friends later while writing for Bataille's Documents.

Queneau questioned the Surrealist support to the USSR in 1926. He remained on cordial terms with André Breton André Breton (February 19, 1896 – September 28, 1966) was a French writer, poet, and surrealist theorist, and is best known as the principal founder of Surrealism. His writings include the Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism", although he continued associating with Simone Kahn, after Breton split up with her. Breton usually demanded that his followers ostracize his former girlfriends. It would have been difficult for Queneau to avoid Simone, however, since he married her sister, Janine, in 1928. The year that Breton left Simone, she sometimes traveled around France with Queneau and his wife.

By 1929, Queneau had separated himself significantly from Breton and the Surrealists. In 1930, the year Crevel, Eluard, Aragon and Breton joined the French Communist party, Queneau participated in Un Cadavre (A Corpse, 1930), a vehemently anti-Breton pamphlet co-written by Bataille Georges Bataille (10 September 1897 – 8 July 1962) was a French writer. Although several philosophers have been significantly influenced by his thought, Bataille tended not to refer to himself as a philosopher, Leiris, Prévert, Alejo Carpentier Alejo Carpentier y Valmont was a Cuban novelist, essay writer, and musicologist who greatly influenced Latin American literature during its famous "boom" period. He was among the first practitioners of magical realism and exerted a decisive influence on the works of younger Latin American writers, Jacques Baron, J.-A. Boiffard, Robert Desnos, Georges Limbour, Max Morise, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, and Roger Vitrac Born in Pinsac, Roger Vitrac moved to Paris in 1910. As a young man, he was influenced by symbolism and the writings of Lautréamont and Alfred Jarry, and he developed a passion for theatre and poetry. A year after his baccalauréat, he published a collection of poems, Le Faune noir.

For Boris Souvarine's La Critique sociale (1930-34) Queneau mostly wrote brief reviews. One characterized Raymond Roussel Raymond Roussel was a French poet, novelist, playwright, musician, and chess enthusiast. Through his novels, poems, and plays he exerted a profound influence on certain groups within 20th century French literature, including the Surrealists, Oulipo, and the authors of the nouveau roman as one whose ‘imagination combines passion of mathematician with rationality of the poet’. He wrote more scientific than literary reviews – on Pavlov, on Vernadsky (from whom he got a circular theory of sciences), and a review of a book on the history of equestrian caparisons by an artillery officer. He also helped with the passages on Engels and mathematical dialectic for Bataille's article "A critique of the foundations of Hegelian dialectic."

Bibliography

Novels

Poetry

Essays and articles

Other

In other art

External links

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Categories: 1903 births | 1976 deaths | People from Le Havre | University of Paris alumni | French novelists Categories: French fiction writers | French novels | Novelists by nationality | French poets This category is for poets who are citizens of France. For poets writing in the French language see Category:French-language poets | OuLiPo members | Pataphysicians | Surrealist writers

 

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