Jouve’s translations of Ungaretti The Jouvian laboratory

Different versions exist of Pierre Jean Jouve’s translation of canto six of Ungaretti’s La Morte meditata: one from 1931 and one from 1944. The first one is often regarded as the less faithful of the two, and Jouve himself would distance himself from it. Its analysis allows us to identify some of Jouve’s stylistic and metaphysical obsessions in 1931.