La nature et l’art chez Giono de 1940 à 1944
Nature and Art in Jean Giono’s Texts (1940-1944)

Author(s): Krzysztof Jarosz
Subject(s): Studies of Literature, French Literature, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Nature; Art; Jean Giono; Melville; Virgil
Summary/Abstract: In the inter-war period Jean Giono was famous for his novels about humans struggling against the forces of Nature (this is why he referred to the state of panic caused by the fear of the powerful elements); thus he created the myth of returning to the earth. From our perspective he was on the one hand a precursor of ecocritical writing and, on the other, he was mainly interested in creation of the pre-industrial harmonious community of farmers, shepherds, and artisans, who were to inhabit villages where all people would know one another. The article analyzes three short texts that were created in the period in question: Fragments d’un paradis, Pour saluer Melville, and Virgile. Giono creates there an aesthetics that will be dominant in his post-war texts. This aesthetics is based on the personal, metaphorical vision of the world; the vision places the artist in the centre as a transformer and a poet, as Giono claims. The metaphor that summarizes the new vision is a “Spanish tavern”, hence a place where travelers could eat only what they brough twith them. This article is a survey of the transfer from the vision of Nature seen through the lens of panic to the vision of Nature as the subject matter of Art.

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