Comment l’imaginaire de Claudel transforme l’univers poétique chinois

Claudel’s publication of Petits poèmes d’après le chinois was inspired by a collection of Chinese poems entitled Rêve d’une nuit d’hiver: Cent quatrains de Thang, translated by Tsen Tsonming. The Chinese poetic landscape that is deployed in this collection undergoes a series of transformations at Claudel’s hands. Throughout Petits poèmes d’après le chinois, it can be seen that the originality of Claudel’s rewriting of the poems is manifested precisely in this modification with regard to the original. These processes of rewriting are indicative of the soul and landscape of Claudel’s work.