Roparz Hemon

[Liam]

Roparz Hemon (1900-1978) is probably the most illustrious writer/activist that Brittany has ever produced. A poet, a novelist, a freedom-fighter and a political exile, Hemon's work can be found in every major anthology of Breton literature.

Like Liam O'Flaherty, on whom I have already posted, Hemon was full of inconsistencies and contradictions. A truthful admirer of the French language and culture, he nevertheless wished to eliminate all things Gallic within Brittany. While hating the French nation, Hemon also fought for it as a soldier in World War II. Having firsthand knowledge of the effects of intolerance and political discrimination against the Breton people, Hemon turned against another minority-group--the Jews--during the German occupation of France, and contributed a number of anti-Semitic articles to his newspaper. Forced to flee the country after the end of the war, Hemon voluntarily returned in 1945, and was imprisoned for one year. Upon his release, he was sentenced to ten years of "indignité nationale."

Subsequently settling in Dublin, Ireland, Hemon never againset foot in Brittany. A prolific writer of poetry, short-stories, novels, newspaper-articles, children's books, dictionaries, and Breton textbooks (his Breton Grammar is still in print and can be purchased at Amazon.com), some of Roparz Hemon's books include the following:


An Aotrou Bimbochet e Breizh (1927; reprinted 1942)--novel
Kleier Eured (1934)--short-stories
Santez Dahud (1935)--novel
Mari Vorgan (1962)--novel; possibly Hemon's best-known work; translated into French and Welsh
Ho Kervel a Rin en Noz (1970)--short-stories
War Ribl an Hent (1971)--short-stories
Tangi Kerviler (1971)--novel
Nenn Jani (1974)--novel


Some of Hemon's books, in the original Breton, can be purchased here:

http://www.arbedkeltiek.com/brezhoneg/levriou.htm (http://www.arbedkeltiek.com/brezhoneg/levriou.htm)

Hemon's anti-Semitic publications, in French, can be read here:

http://membres.lycos.fr/leguenne/etudes/arvor/arvor.htm (http://membres.lycos.fr/leguenne/etudes/arvor/arvor.htm)

I have included two of Hemon's poems below, translated by Jacqueline Gibson.

[Liam]

Pilgrim of the Sea (1933)

On your own!
Yes, get up and walk. From now on,
Between you and your brother, a cold fog
Will smother the faint flame of mutual affection
As soon as it is kindled.
Sweetness, affability,
Pure and patient gentleness, true magnanimity
Don't you know? They are nothing if your face remains
As lifeless as that of a statue with
Its everlasting frozen smile. The rule
Applies to all.
And so
This is your fate!
Pilgrim,
There is no man and no place in the world
To beckon you or make you stay.
So, walk!
On your own, through sorrow and through joy.

Your burden is light; the road is open and wide,
Your feet are firm on the ground.
When you catch sight of a face or a flower,
Don't look too closely.
They don't love you.

You got here on your own and, when you fall into
The clutches of death, you will be on your own.

But then, when your bones are fleshless and dry
In a cosy corner of a churchyard; when the world
Will have raced far, far away from your own time,
Who knows?
Maybe a gentle man, as quiet as yourself,
Will calmly come to sit beneath the light;
With his candid hands he will open
The old book yellowed by time.

And like a gust of wind ripping the clouds apart,
You will appear in front of him, in flesh as in spirit.
And he, so attentive and wise, will see
The Man you used to be.
And this stranger,
Will find, through strange and inadequate words,
Through unfulfilled desires and childish arrogance,
The way to his own heart and he will be
Astonished.

[Liam]

The Wandering Knight (1960)

My horse and I go along the road,
And across fields when the road leads nowhere.
Walking on, cutting across; what matters? We go on.
Every day our goal is as far as ever.

At night I sleep, sometimes in a castle,
Sometimes in a refuge, sometimes on the ground.
It does not matter to me where I lie,
On bare rocks, on wet straw, or in a girl's bed.

Valley or hill, fertile land or desert,
I no longer see them. To me they all look the same.
Winter or summer, rain or sunshine, fair wind or gale,
I have no future, no present, no past.

[lionel]

Liam, this is pretty obscure stuff, and therefore important! Great, I'm planning touring France for several weeks next year, so if you can throw any more non-canonical French writers like this my way I'd be grateful.

How about Antoinette de Salvan de Sali?s? The internet only gives about 200 hits for this fascinating proto-feminist writer, and although I lived for two years in Albi (where she was born) I don't think I heard her name mentioned once.

Back to Britain, you might consider a thread for the English writer Lionel Britton, although unfortunately most of the information available on him is by some crank.

Seriously, this is great stuff, although my Breton's a little rusty.

[Liam]

Lionel: I'm glad you think that "obscure" things deserve attention. I know certain people who beg to differ.

Hmm, unfortunately, my knowledge of the French belle lettres leaves much to be desired. The only reason why Hemon fell within the gravitational field of my attention was because he was a "Celtic" writer. (And you instantaneously fell into the trap of classifying him as French!)

I can list plenty of BRETON writers, by the way, many of whom deserve our time and attention, but somehow I don't think I'll ever succeed in interesting others in all these strange and weird names. Believe it or not, I was recently asked if Irish was a dead language. I mean, that would be FUNNY if it wasn't so SAD.

I have never heard of either Antoinette de Salvan de Salies or Lionel Britton--which was, methinks, precisely your point! Why don't you start a thread on Britton? After all, he's your namesake of sorts, isn't he? I mean, I did O'Flaherty... even included a picture...


my Breton's a little rusty

Are you being facetious? Nice!

It's a fascinating language, however, although I haven't had time to learn it "properly." I do have tons of material dealing with it, so nothing's lost yet.

[lionel]

Lionel: I'm glad you think that "obscure" things deserve attention. I know certain people who beg to differ.

Liam, most people can just stick to the canon if they like, but so many significant writers have been ignored by just doing that; women, the working classes, and the so-called 'regional' writers are among them.

D. H. Lawrence is in some ways a 'regional' writer, but he obviously has something more. Labels are significant, and one of my points is that minorities have been given the short straw for many years, mainly to canonise a small body of writers. By recognising forgotten authors, we disturb the canon, and perhaps risk screwing up the literary status quo in the process. That can't be bad.


I can list plenty of BRETON writers, by the way, many of whom deserve our time and attention, but somehow I don't think I'll ever succeed in interesting others in all these strange and weird names.

I shouldn't worry about that. Stewart believes every writer should have a thread.


I have never heard of either Antoinette de Salvan de Sali?s or Lionel Britton--which was, methinks, precisely your point!

Yeah.


Why don't you start a thread on Britton? After all, he's your namesake of sorts, isn't he? I mean, I did O'Flaherty... even included a picture...

Will do. Soon.


Are you being facetious? Nice!

Not just. Hemon was of course a speaker of Breton, but geographically he belonged to France, as did Frederic Mistral.

[Liam]

I shouldn't worry about that. Stewart believes every writer should have a thread.

Yeah, and so do I, but if you need further proof of what I mean, please see my Caradog Prichard thread: 0 responses (other than the customary textual samples provided by yours truly). Perhaps they have all of them rushed off to procure their copies of One Moonlit Night; I don't know.

Don't worry, Lionel, I WILL persevere. Eric seems to be getting on enviably introducing the rest of us to all these little-known or unknown Estonian authors; so I'll just have to use him as my role model.

I think I'll do John Cowper Powys next, ever heard of him? His historical novel Porius, of semi-divine proportions, was recently reprinted this side of the water.

[jackdawdle]

liam:

with regards to pilgrim of the sea, ineffable in a waord. i'm speechless, my tongue's tied, i'm...

regards,
i've forgotten who i am

[Stewart]

...my Caradog Prichard thread: 0 responses (other than the customary textual samples provided by yours truly). Perhaps they have all of them rushed off to procure their copies of One Moonlit Night
Canongate Books are republishing (http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1847671071/) One Moonlit Night next month.

The thing about creating threads, rather than not, is that it puts them out there, gives them to Google, Yahoo!, etc. Just because people now show little interest, doesn't mean the person dong a search at a later date doesn't. And if there is no thread, they don't have a doorway here.

[Eric]

Little-known, or unknown, authors could be rightly ignored, because they are mediocre, and therefore not worth translating. But there is a strong case for rescuing the good ones from oblivion, even if they write in languages that the average Brit or Yank has never heard of.

Remember, every time you use the expression "little-known or unknown", you should add "from a British or U.S. point of view". Because that is what mostly is meant.

If you read a Scandinavian, German, Bulgarian or Polish publisher's catalogue, apart from the inevitable translated authors from the USA and Britain, you will find ones from neighbouring countries, ones that have remained little-known or unknown in New York and London.

It is rather immature, even philistine, to pooh-pooh the efforts of everyone who has greater knowledge and breadth of vision than yourself, people who introduce a few new authors from their area of knowledge. Many people here appear to stick to the canon trotted out on the book pages of the British and U.S. daily newspapers. These publications are extremely limited when it comes to discovering new authors from Europe.

[lionel]

There's obviously a very strong case for rescuing many authors from literary fascists like Leavis & Co and their successors, added to which, 'mediocrity' is frequently a meaningless socio-cultural term.

[Liam]

Remember, every time you use the expression "little-known or unknown", you should add "from a British or U.S. point of view." Because that is what mostly is meant.

It seems my face has been rubbed in my very own chauvinistic poop yet again! Ugh, keeps happening!

However, I do agree with you, overall, Eric. At the same time, though, the Anglosphere is such a major powerhouse right now that anything NOT published in English is scarcely noticed. I wish this wasn't the case, but it is.

For example: last year, I came across a book of poems by an unknown (to me) Finnish poet named Pentti Holappa, who, upon further investigation, proved to be a major prose writer as well. Unfortunately, none of his works is available in English, although his novel Portrait of a Friend was recently translated into German and French. Now, I don't read German and my French is primitive; so no luck there. And most other people, from Mexico, say, or Bolivia, will probably know only English in addition to their native Spanish, what with English being the lingua franca of today; so those German and French translations are of no help; although it is better to have that, at least.

[Liam]

@ jackdawdle:

I'm glad you liked the poem. I agree--although he was younger when he wrote it (33-years-old, to be exact; the age of Christ), Pilgrim of the Sea is a much more powerful and gut-wrenching piece than The Wandering Knight of 30 years later. I think he was much-much angrier back then, that's why... all that youthful Breton exuberance really does come through in the earlier poem.