A poet to be remembered ….Tristan Corbiere

 

 

 

France has issued a stamp commemorating the French poet with a tragic fate Tristan Corbiere. The poet who died at the young age of 29.

Tristan Corbiere  (18 July 1845 - 1 March 1875) was one of the greatest  original poets of the 19th century, was born in Coat-Congar, Ploujean, near Morlaix in Brittany, where he lived most of his life and where he died.

He was sickly, deformed by arthritis, and many of his poems express disgust at his own ugliness. He seems to have been spiritually ‘adopted’ (1871) by Count Rodolphe de Battin and his mistress, ‘Marcelle’, whom he worshipped. Les Amours jaunes (1873) were totally ignored by the public. In December 1874, transported to hospital by his friends, he writes to his mother: ‘Je suis à Dubois, dont on fait les cercueils.’ Recognition began only later when Verlaine wrote about him in Les Poètes maudits (1884).

The rhythms of popular speech are crammed into regular verse, giving it new life. Corbière senses the power and onward flow of the traditional French alexandrine strongly (e.g. ‘Bambine’), and in his hands its energy is so intense that it becomes disrupted, rather as magnifying the energy of waves causes them to break. This is one of the secrets of his brilliant sea poetry.

A self-ironist like Laforgue, Corbière's masks are intended to reveal rather than conceal. Unlike Laforgue, what is revealed is not facetious, but tragic and tormented. Sincerity is achieved through irony, subverting the conventional categories of emotion. The registers of popular speech are introduced, along with many different voices. The latter are often those of sailors—for the ordinary man's experience of life is more immediate, hence more poetic. ‘La Fin’, one of his greatest poems, is an outburst against the landsman's romantic clichés to be found in Hugo's ‘Oceano Nox’. What does Hugo know of the sailor's duel with death? Poetry, Corbière implies, needs above all reality.

His only published verse in his lifetime appeared in "Les amours jaunes" (Yellow love), 1873. Corbiere died of tuberculosis at the age of 29.

The stamp represents the profile of Tristan Corbiere and several verses from "Les amours jaunes"

Club News

Stamp of the Day

Phiatelic tributes to the great scientist

 

Today is the birth anniversary of  the great scientist Albert Einstein. He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect.

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

- Albert Einstein

Private Special Covers on Jainism Theme

Mr Sanjiv Jain of Dehradun has prepared special covers on Jainism theme. On these special covers, cancellations of INDIPEX 2011 have been given with co - related stamps. Mr Sanjiv Jain may be contacted at email : jainsanjiv@live.com 

 

 

SIMPEX 2011,  Shimla

A district level stamp exhibition concluded in Shimla on 12th March. It was organized at  Gaiety theatre from 10 - 12 March. Local philatelists and  school children participated  in the exhibition in different categories. Dr Ritu Kalra, Dheeraj Gupta,  Vineet Singh, Jatin Jaiswal, Aditya Gangotra, & Bhumika Sharma were awarded for their exhibits.

 

VIRTUAL INTERNATIONAL PHILATELIC EXHIBITION

View 674 on line exhibits from all worlds:
http://www.japhila.cz/exponet/pictures/newsletter07032011.htm