Nox Oculis

Conrad (Potter) Aiken (1889-1973)

Poète américain, romancier et critique. L'oeuvre d'Aiken reflète son intense intérêt pour la psychanalyse et la formation de l'identité. Comme éditeur des poèmes d'Emily Dickinson, il fut largement responsable pour l'assise de la réputation littéraire posthume de celle-ci. À partir des années 1920, Aiken partagea son existence entre l'Angleterre et les États-Unis, et fit connaître les poètes américains aux Britanniques.

Né à Savannah, en Géorgie. Enfant, il faut traumatisé par l amort de ses parents lorsqe son père médeçin assassina sa mère et se suicida. À partir de l'âge de 7 ans, il fut élevé par sa grand-tante. Avant d'entret à Harvard, Aiken fut éduqué dans des écoles privées et au Middlesex School, à Concord. À Harhard, il suivit des cours avec T. S. Eliot, avec qui il édita The Advocate et dont la posée l'influença. Il gradua en 1912, en même temps qu'Eliot, Walter Lippman, Van Wyck Brooks, et E. E. Cummings. Après avoir travaillé comme journaliste, Aiken se consacra entièrement à l'écriture, n'ayant pas besoin de travailler pour vivre puisqu'il disposait d'une rente. Ses principales influences furent : Freud, Havelock Ellis, William James, Edgar Allan Poe, et les symboliste français.

Le premier recueuil de poèmes, Earth Triumphant (1914) le fit connaître comme poète. Par la suite, et tout au cours de sa vie, Aiken fit de nombreux voyages transatlantiques. En 1921, il quitta le Massachusetts pour l'Angleterre, et s'installa à Rye, dans le Sussex. En 1927-28, il fut professeur d'anglais à Harvard. Il maria Clarissa M. Lorentz, qu'il divorça en 1937. Il retourna à New York et Boston, puis visita le Mexique, où il maria l'artiste Mary Hoover. Ils retournèrent ensemble à Rye en 1937, puis repartirent aux États-Unis au début de la seconde guerre mondiale.

En 1930, Aiken fut récompensé par le Prix Pulitzer pour son recueil Selected Poems. C'est dans les années 1920 et 30 qu'Aiken écrivit la plupart de ses romans. En 1947, Aiken s'installa à Brewster, au Massachusetts. Il fut consultant en poésie pour la Bibliothèque du Congrès de 1950 à 1952. En 1953, il publia ses Collected Poems, contenant ses chef d'oeuvre "Preludes to Definition" et "Morning Song of Senlin".

Aiken mourut à Savannah le 17 août 1973. Parmi les prix qui lui furent décernés, on peut compter le Prix Bollinger en 1956, la Médaille d'or en poésie d'Académie américaine des Arts et des Lettres en 1958, la Médaille Nationale pour la littérature en 1969.

---

Morning Song of Senlin

It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning
When the light drips through the shutters like the dew,
I arise, I face the sunrise,
And do the things my fathers learned to do.
Stars in the purple dusk above the rooftops
Pale in a saffron mist and seem to die,
And I myself on a swiftly tilting planet
Stand before a glass and tie my tie.


Vine leaves tap my window,
Dew-drops sing to the garden stones,
The robin chirps in the chinaberry tree
Repeating three clear tones.


It is morning. I stand by the mirror
And tie my tie once more.
While waves far off in a pale rose twilight
Crash on a white sand shore.
I stand by a mirror and comb my hair :
How small and white my face ! -–
The green earth tilts through a sphere of air
And bathes in a flame of space.
There are houses hanging above the stars
And stars hung under a sea...
And a sun far off in a shell of silence
Dapples my walls for me...


It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning
Should I not pause in the light to remember god ?
Upright and firm I stand on a star unstable,
He is immense and lonely as a cloud.
I will dedicate this moment before my mirror
To him alone, for him I will comb my hair.
Accept these humble offerings, cloud of silence !
I will think of you as I descend the stair.


Vine leaves tap my window,
The snail track shines on the stones,
Dew-drops flash from the chinaberry tree
Repeating two clear tones.
It is morning, I awake from a bed of silence,
Shining I rise from the starless waters of sleep.
The walls are about me still as in the evening,
I am the same and the same name still I keep.


The earth revolves with me, yet makes no motion,
The stars pale silently in a coral sky.
In a whistling void I stand before my mirror,
Unconcerned, and tie my tie.


There are horses neighing on far-off hills
Tossing their long white manes,
And mountains flash in the rose-white dusk,
Their shoulders black with rains...
It is morning. I stand by the mirror
And surprise my soul once more ;
The blue air rushes above my ceiling,
There are suns beneath my floor...


... It is morning, Senlin says, I ascend from darkness
And depart on the winds of space for I know not where,
My watch is wound, a key is in my pocket,
And the sky is darkened as I descend the stair.
There are shadows across the windows, clouds in heaven,
And a god among the stars; and I will go
Thinking of him as I might think of daybreak
And humming a tune I know...


Vine-leaves tap at the window,
Dew-drops sing to the garden stones,
The robin chirps in the chinaberry tree
Repeating three clear tones.

Conrad Aiken

---

Evening Song of Senlin

It is moonlight. Alone in the silence
I ascend my stairs once more,
While waves, remote in a pale blue starlight,
Crash on a white sand shore.
It is moonlight. The garden is silent.
I stand in my room alone.
Across my wall, from the far-off moon,
A rain of fire is thrown...
There are houses hanging above the stars,
And stars hung under a sea :
And a wind from the long blue vault of time
Waves my curtain for me...
I wait in the dark once more,
Swung between space and space :
Before my mirror I lift my hands
And face my remembered face.
Is it I who stand in a question here,
Asking to know my name ? ...
It is I, yet I know not whither I go,
Nor why, nor whence I came.
It is I, who awoke at dawn
And arose and descended the stair,
Conceiving a god in the eye of the sun, --
In a woman's hands and hair.
It is I whose flesh is gray with the stones
I builded into a wall :
With a mournful melody in my brain
Of a tune I cannot recall...
There are roses to kiss : and mouths to kiss ;
And the sharp-pained shadow of death.
I remember a rain-drop on my cheek, --
A wind like a fragrant breath...
And the star I laugh on tilts through heaven ;
And the heavens are dark and steep...
I will forget these things once more
In the silence of sleep.

Conrad Aiken

---

Références :

• Academy of American Poets - Conrad Aiken : https://poets.org/poet/conrad-aiken
  

---

Bibliographie :

• Jay Martin, Aiken : A Life of His Art (1962)
  
• F. W. and F. C. Bonnell, Aiken : A Bibliography, 1902-1978 (1982)
  
• Clarissa M. Lorenz, Lorelei Two : My Life with Aiken (1983)
  
• Edward Butsche, Conrad Aiken (1988)
  
• Edward Butscher, Aiken: Poet of White Horse Vale (1988)
  
• H. Martin, The Art of Knowing : The Poetry and Prose of Conrad Aiken (1988)
  
• Joan Aiken and Jane Aiken Hodge, Conrad Aiken, Our Father (1989)
  
• Ted R. Spirey and Arthur Waterman (eds.), Aiken : A Priest of Consciousness (1989)
  
• C. F. Seigel, The Fictive World of Conrad Aiken (1993)
  

---

Oeuvres poétiques :

• Earth Triumphant and Other Tales in Verse (1914)
  
• The Jig of Forslin: A Symphony (1916)
  
• Turns and Moves and Other Tales in Verse (1916)
  
• Nocturne of Remembered Spring and Other Poems (1917)
  
• The Charnal Rose, Senlin, and Other Poems (1918)
  
• The House of Dust: A Symphony (1920)
  
• Punch : The Immortal Liar (1921)
  
• Priapus and the Pool (1922)
  
• The Pilgrimage of Festus (1923)
  
• Prelude (1929)
  
• Selected Poems (1929)
  
• Gehenna (1930)
  
• John Deth, A Metaphysical Legacy, and Other Poems (1930)
  
• Preludes for Memnon (1931)
  
• The Coming Forth by Day of Osiris Jones (1931)
  
• Preludes for Memnon (1931)
  
• And in the Hanging Garden (1933)
  
• Landscape West of Eden (1934)
  
• Time in the Rock: Preludes to Definition (1936)
  
• And in the Human Heart (1940)
  
• Brownstone Eclogues (1942)
  
• The Soldier : A Poem (1944)
  
• The Kid (1947)
  
• The Divine Pilgrim (1949)
  
• Skylight One : Fifteen Poems (1950)
  
• Wake II (1952)
  
• Collected Poems (1953)
  
• A Letter from Lí Po and Other Poems (1955)
  
• The Fluteplayer (1956)
  
• Sheepfold Hill: Fifteen Poems (1958)
  
• Selected Poems (1961)
  
• The Morning Song of Lord Zero (1963)
  
• A Seizure of Limericks (1964)
  
• Collected Poems (1970)
  

---

| Poésie | Page d'accueil | Bibliographie | Glossaire | Hyperliens |
© 2020 Mario Tessier - Tous droits réservés.
Adresse URL : https://noxoculi.neocities.org/aiken.html