Bernard Vargaftig

Aaron Prevots

Bernard Vargaftig

Gestures toward the Sacred

Peter Lang

Oxford • Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • New York • Wien

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ISSN 1422-9005

ISBN 978-1-78997-357-0 (print) • ISBN 978-1-78997-358-7 (ePDF)

ISBN 978-1-78997-359-4 (ePub) • ISBN 978-1-78997-360-0 (mobi)

© Peter Lang AG 2019

Published by Peter Lang Ltd, International Academic Publishers,

52 St Giles, Oxford, OX1 3LU, United Kingdom

oxford@peterlang.com, www.peterlang.com

Aaron Prevots has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this Work.

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This publication has been peer reviewed.

About the author

Aaron Prevots is Associate Professor of French at Southwestern University. He received his PhD from Brown University. He has published articles on French poetry, a monograph on Jacques Réda and numerous translations.

About the book

The French poet Bernard Vargaftig (1934–2012), first known in 1960s literary circles as a writer mentored by Aragon, published regularly and served on the editorial boards of Action poétique and Europe. His poetry foregrounds identity and alterity, eros and notions of self, an immediate present and an onrushing past. This book examines Vargaftig’s evolution and aims. It explores his postwar search for self-acceptance, ontological rootedness and shared forward paths. Using close readings of his poetry and prose, complemented by his comments in interviews, the book particularly considers his emphasis on the sacredness of words. His spiritual yearnings, as well as a need to heal due to lingering trauma from wartime hiding, are shown to underlie his focus on allusive imagery, recurring motifs and compact structures, where silence and sound interweave. Comparative analyses are used to show how his enthusiasm for the female Other attunes us to interpersonal bonds and to the outer world’s creative surge. The study of Vargaftig through the lens of gestures toward the sacred thus highlights poetry as a healing ritual, one that facilitates not only immersion in emotion and sensation, but also a continual process of renewal and self-discovery.

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Identity, Alterity, Childhood

Chapter 1

Early Poems: Finding a Voice

Chapter 2

The Influence of Jouve: Poetry as a Spiritual Vocation and the Trembling of Words

Chapter 3

Self-Awareness and Feminine Presence: Aveu, distance, ouverture, nudité

Chapter 4

Sacred Gestures and Talmudic Traditions: The Eros of Unknowing in Comme respirer

Chapter 5