[Antoine de SAINT-EXUPÉRY ]- 3 autographed... - Lot 416 - Morel de Westgaver

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  3. [Antoine de SAINT-EXUPÉRY ]- 3 autographed... - Lot 416 - Morel de Westgaver
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Lot n° 416
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[Antoine de SAINT-EXUPÉRY ]- 3 autographed... - Lot 416 - Morel de Westgaver
[Antoine de SAINT-EXUPÉRY ]- 3 autographed sonnets (one unpublished?) unsigned. [Buenos Aires, 1930 ?]. 3 ff. in-4°, 1 p. each, pen and brown ink on buff paper watermarked "Johannot & Cie/ Extra Strong". Folds. Excellent condition. In Buenos Aires, where he was one of the French pioneers of l'Aéropostale from 1929 to 1931, Saint-Exupéry found the pleasures of Boulevard Saint-Germain during his evenings at the home of his friend Paul Dony, treasurer of l'Aéropostale, and his wife, who had a well-stocked library. He would play literary games, notably by asking his guests to suggest "subjects on which he would spontaneously compose sonnets. Sometimes, too, he would choose a volume from the shelves, pick up a second-rate sonnet, and within fifteen minutes give a new version of the poem that respected not only its themes but its rhymes. "I am starting French literature again," he would announce when he was done" (D. Lablanche, S. de La Bruyère, F. Bouillot, Saint-Exupéry: Une vie à contre-courant, Paris, 2013, pp. 200-201). Our autographed sonnets, almost without erasures but whose writing is characteristic of the author's hand, are precious testimonies of these brilliant poetic exercises. All three have a title preceded by the mention "Proposed subject", with a list of "proposed rhymes" noted in the left margin. The first one, apparently unpublished and entitled "Romantic sonnet", begins with this quatrain: "I strangle you tonight at last near the basin/ I transmute your perishable flesh into a statue/ I let with reason my heavy tetu hands/ On your delicate neck play the harpsichord [...]. The second, "Amours juveniles", begins thus: "I like of the new negroes the dark bacchanals/ Their bellies more shining than skins of drum/ And their ripailles when - after three nights of love -/ Their devorant kisses become cannibals [...]". The third one, "l'Abîme", is inspired by the eponymous sonnet of Henri Rouger (cf. pencil note at the bottom of the sheet). of which he gives a completely hallucinated version. Rouger's first stanza, "Have you seen the sea foaming in the harbor/ Among the fine sands that the smoky flood gnaws at,/ In front of the nocturnal sea have you had a dream/ Alone, sitting on the beach at the hour when everything falls asleep?", becomes under the pen of Saint-Exupéry: "Happy city what threat in the hollow of the ports/ I balance moored to the ring which gnaws/ Thanks to me your captive children form dreams/ Infidel: I am a boat which sleeps [...]" (sonnet of Rouger and "remake" quoted in D. Lablanche, S. de La Bruyère, F. Bouillot, op. cit., p. 201). ATTACHED: Microfilm reproducing a fourth leaf with an autograph sonnet entitled "Sujet proposé : L'aventure", in the same hand and with the same presentation, but signed "A. de Saint Exupéry" and dated "Après quelques pots au Richmond le 8-2-30". The famous Richmond café in Buenos Aires was frequented by great names in literature such as Jorge Luis Borges, Graham Greene and Saint-Exupéry.
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