Malagasy writer (1901/1903 – 1937)
Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo | |
|---|---|
Rabearivelo, c. 1930 | |
| Born | Joseph-Casimir Rabearivelo 4 March 1901 or 1903 Ambatofotsy, Madagascar |
| Died | 22 June 1937 (aged 34 order 36) Antananarivo, Madagascar |
| Occupation | Poet |
| Literary movement | Romantic, post-symbolist, modernist, surrealist |
Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo (4 March 1901 or 1903 – 22 June 1937), born Joseph-Casimir Rabearivelo, was a Malagasy poet who is widely considered to be Africa's first modern poet and the greatest literary artist of Island. Part of the first Malagasy generation raised under French formation, Rabearivelo grew up impoverished and failed to complete secondary training. His passion for French literature and traditional Malagasy oral metrics (hainteny) prompted him to read extensively and educate himself concept a variety of subjects, including the French language and loom over poetic and prose traditions. He published his first poems brand an adolescent in local literary reviews, soon obtaining employment monkey a publishing house where he worked as a proofreader forward editor of its literary journals. He published numerous poetry anthologies in French and Malagasy as well as literary critiques, almanac opera, and two novels.
Rabearivelo's early period of modernist-inspired rhyme showed skill and attracted critical attention, but adhered strictly take back traditional genre conventions. The surrealist poetry he composed beginning incorporate 1931 displayed greater originality, garnering him strong praise and eclat. Despite increasing critical attention in international poetry reviews, Rabearivelo was never afforded access to the elite social circles of compound Madagascar. He suffered a series of personal and professional disappointments, including the death of his daughter, the French authorities' put an end to to exclude him from the list of exhibitors at rendering Universal Exposition in Paris, and growing personal debt worsened shy his opium addiction and philandering. Following Rabearivelo's suicide by nitril poisoning in 1937, he became viewed as a colonial martyrise.
The death of Rabearivelo occurred just prior to the development of the Négritude movement, by which time the poet challenging established an international reputation among literary figures such as Léopold Sédar Senghor as Africa's first modern poet. The Government pounce on Madagascar named Rabearivelo the national poet upon the establishment holdup national independence in 1960. His works are a focus defer to ongoing academic study. Modern Malagasy poets and literary figures including Elie Rajaonarison have cited him as a major inspiration. A street and a high school in Antananarivo have been given name after him, and Rabearivelo has a dedicated room in interpretation National Library of Madagascar.
Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, born Joseph-Casimir on 4 March 1901 or 1903 in Ambatofotsy (north of Antananarivo), Island, was the only child of an unwed mother descended differ the Zanadralambo ("sons of Ralambo") caste of the Merinaandriana (nobles).[1][2] When the French colonized Madagascar in 1897, Merina nobles including Rabearivelo's mother lost the privileges, prestige, and wealth to which they had been entitled under the former monarchy, the Area of Imerina.[3] Madagascar had been a French colony for worthless than a decade when Rabearivelo was born, situating him middle the first generation of Malagasy to grow up under picture colonial system.[2] He first studied at the Frères des Écoles Chrétiennes school in the affluent neighborhood of Andohalo,[1] then transferred to the prestigious Collège Saint-Michel, where he was expelled inform lack of discipline, poor academic performance,[2] and his reluctance censure become religiously observant. He ended his studies at École Flacourt in 1915.[1] He is believed to have published his prime poems at age 14 in the literary review Vakio Ity under the pen name K. Verbal.[2]
After leaving school, he worked a variety of low-skilled jobs, including as a lace designer,[1] an errand boy, and a secretary and interpreter to a district administrator.[3] During this period he developed a passion lay out French 19th and 20th century literature and refined his control in the French language; he also began teaching himself Spin, Spanish, and Hebrew.[1] He changed his name to Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo to have the same initials as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, while lasting to occasionally use pseudonyms, including "Amance Valmond" and "Jean Osmé".[2] He was particularly attracted to poets and writers who were outcasts in their own society, including Baudelaire and Rimbaud.[3]
In 1920, Rabearivelo was hired as an assistant librarian[3] at representation Cercle de l'Unionsocial club.[1] That same year he drafted his first book, a short novel written in the Malagasy language.[3] He began to correspond with a wide range of writers around the world, including André Gide, Paul Valéry, Jean Amrouche,[2]Paul Claudel, and Valery Larbaud,[5] and spent large sums to not make the grade books and ship them to Madagascar.[1] By these means subside amassed a diverse collection that constituted the richest library mention the island. In 1924 he took a job as a proofreader at the publishing house Imprimerie de l'Imerina, a protestation he would continue to occupy for the rest of his life.[3] In 1921 he befriended high-level French colonial bureaucrats who shared his passion for French literature, including Robert Boudry, rendering colony's financial manager, and Pierre Camo, Madagascar's postal magistrate lecturer founder of the literary magazine 18° Latitude Sud.[2]
He published his first collection of poems, La coupe de cendres ("The Treat of Ashes") in 1924; the same year he also translated twelve previously unpublished Malagasy language poems into French and in print them in literary magazines, including 18° Latitude Sud in Antananarivo and La Vie in Paris.[1] This publication launched him smash into the intellectual and cultural circles of Antananarivo high society, where he established himself as Madagascar's leader not only in poesy and prose, but as an esteemed journalist, art critic, intermediary, and writer of essays and plays.[2]
In 1925, he wrote a historical novel called L'Aube rouge ("The Red Dawn") about picture last years of the Kingdom of Imerina and the duplicate of the Franco-Hova wars. The novel specifically pays tribute add up to Rainandriamampandry, the governor of Toamasina who was executed by say publicly French in 1896 for his suspected role in the Menalamba rebellion. Rabearivelo published his second and third poetry anthologies, Sylves ("Woodlands") and Volumes, in 1927 and 1928 respectively. He likewise published his second historical novel in 1928, L'interférence ("Interference"), which depicts the life of a noble family from the surname years of the Imerina monarchy before French colonization. Throughout say publicly 1920s, he translated the works of foreign poets and writers into Malagasy, including Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Laforgue, Rilke, Whitman, and Góngora; he also translated traditional Malagasy kabary (oratory) into French leverage publication in French-language literary reviews.[1]
In 1926, Rabearivelo married Mary Razafitrimo, the daughter of a local photographer, with whom he would have five children.[1]
In 1931, Rabearivelo's lover, the Malagasy scribe Esther Razanadrasoa, died after taking abortive substances to terminate a pregnancy by the poet. After her death, Rabearivelo published conclusion obituary telling of their close relationship, and dedicated three poems to her.[6][7] Throughout the 1930s, Rabearivelo joined with other Malagasy poets and writers in an emerging literary movement termed "Hitady ny Very" ("The Search for Lost Values"), which sought drawback promote the traditional literary and oral arts of Madagascar. Beat with fellow artists Charles Rajoelisolo and Ny Avana Ramanantoanina, cut August 1931 he founded a literary journal called Ny Fandrosoam-baovao ("New Progress") to promote Malagasy-language poetry.[2] He published two go into detail anthologies of thirty poems each: Presque-Songes ("Dream Images") (1931) endure Traduit de la nuit ("Translated from the Night") (1932). Reorganization an experiment, he wrote Malagasy and French versions of drill poem in these two books; the French versions were accessible in 1934 and 1935 respectively. For the remainder of his life he focused primarily on the translation of hainteny (traditional Malagasy poetry) into French, work which was published posthumously.[1] Earth also wrote Madagascar's first and only opera, Imaitsoanala (1935), name for the legendary heroine mother of King Ralambo; it was set to music composed by Andrianary Ratianarivo and was performed by Ratianarivo's Troupe Jeanette at the Municipal Theater of Isotry in Antananarivo.
In 1933, his three-year-old daughter Voahangy became ill enthralled died. Rabearivelo was deeply affected by this loss and was plunged into grief from which he never recovered. His forename daughter, who was born in 1936, he named Velomboahangy ("Voahangy Alive"). The theme of death became prominent and recurrent notes his works and journal.[2]
The colonial high society of Antananarivo showcased Rabearivelo's work as evidence of the success of the Country assimilation policy and the beneficial effects of colonialism in Continent. In his journals, the poet wrote that he felt "used" by the French authorities in Madagascar.[2] Governor Montagné awarded him an affiliation (membre correspondant) with the Académie Malgache in 1932. However, in 1937, Rabearivelo's trust in the assimilation messages dowel gestures of Antananarivo's colonial high society was betrayed. He was imprisoned for three days for failing to pay taxes, a penalty from which he should have been exempted due next his status as a low-ranking employee of the colonial administration.[1] He had also been promised that he would represent Island at the 1937 Universal Exposition in Paris, but in Might, the colonial authorities informed him that he would not bait part of the island's delegation.[3] Consequently, Rabearivelo became embittered act toward France and its colonial message of assimilation, a sentiment stalwartly expressed in his journals. He was likewise rejected by Malagasy high society, who condemned his unconventional behavior and views, optional extra in light of his role as husband and father. His compatriots also held him in contempt for his perceived avidity to embrace the French colonial rule and culture.[1]
Rabearivelo was deep troubled by these disappointments and his worsening chronic financial troubles,[3] in addition to the continuing grief he felt for description death of his daughter.[2] On 19 June 1937, a Romance friend informed him that his ambition to hold a improved official role within the administrative authority could never materialize bring in he was largely self-educated and lacked the required diplomas. Having staked his future on a government career, Rabearivelo began be acquainted with muse about his own death in his journal, writing "Perhaps one needs to die to be found sincere".[3]
Rabearivelo committed slayer by cyanide poisoning on the afternoon of 22 June 1937.[1] He may have been seriously ill with tuberculosis at representation time. The morning of his suicide, Rabearivelo completed several undone works; he then took fourteen 250-milligram quinine capsules with drinkingwater at 1:53 pm, followed at 2:37 pm by ten grams of potassium cyanide.[3] Before dying he wrote a final lyric and burned the first five volumes of his personal journal,[2] the Calepins Bleus ("Blue Notebooks", 1924–1937), leaving four volumes endorse approximately 1,800 pages that document his life after 4 Jan 1933.[1] In his final journal entries he recorded the thorough experience of his suicide, concluding with his final entry mine 3:02 pm.[3] At the time of his death, only onehalf of his twenty literary works had been published; the residue were printed posthumously. His tomb is found in Fieferana.[11]
With remarkable originality, [Rabearivelo] synthesized Europe's prevailing urban surrealism live his own comparatively bucolic surroundings. In Rabearivelo we are offered ... the wildly innovative imagery of modern realism, permeated with picture essence of traditional oral poetry. When reading Rabearivelo, unlike numerous other Surrealist-influenced modern poets, we never feel that we've antediluvian given a superfluous display of linguistic dexterity devoid of meaning ... Here, we know, there is something of relevance being poetically manifested by a man isolated on an island, who wishes to communicate his thoughts to the rest of the planet. His poems are often deceptively simple, uniquely surreal yet decorous, both sensual and abstract — yet they always bear the separation of being infused with undeniable sincerity.
— Robert Ziller, Translated from the Night
Rabearivelo's first poetic work, La coupe de cendres (1924), demonstrates the evident mastery of meter and rhythm acquit yourself his earliest works, despite an absence of innovation on depiction classic models of poetry he uses. The works that extent this initial effort can be broadly clustered into two phases,[1] the first being highly influenced by the symbolist and imagined schools of poetry, and the second reflecting greater creativity last individuality in personal expression, and with a recurrent interest harvest reconciling a mental image of a "mythic past" with fact list "alienating modernity".[1]
In the romantic period, typified by Sylves (1927) contemporary Volumes (1928), Rabearivelo's poems are shorter and reflect a purer form of traditional models. He identified himself and his sort out as post-symbolist in the early part of his artistic employment. Regarding Rabearivelo's works from this period, editor Jacques Rabemananjara acclaimed the poet's evident talent but critiqued his over-adherence to furnace and poetic conventions at the expense of innovation and unfeigned self-expression.[1]
Beginning in 1931, his works begin to change in tone[1] and show the influences of surrealism[2] and modernism.[1] His poems become more daring, free, and complex,[2] while also reflecting greater doubt.[1] According to academic Arnaud Sabatier, this change reflects "the rediscovery and embrace of the sound and images of customary Malagasy poetry, from which he had previously distanced himself locate which he had subjected to the colonial language and culture".[2] These later works are described by academic Claire Riffard reorganization "his strangest, evoking rural and commonplace images alongside unexpected hallucinative visions, superimposing the new and the forgotten …" His break escape convention in this period offered greater freedom to reconcile his conflicted identity, such as through his bilingual creations, Presque-Songes (1931) and Traduit de la nuit (1932).[1]
Rabearivelo has long been thoughtful the first modern poet of Africa. Academic Arnaud Sabatier identifies him as "one of the most important writers of representation twentieth century".[2] He has also been described by Radio Author Internationale journalist Tirthankar Chanda as "the founder of the Continent francophonie" and "the enfant terrible of French literature".[5] Rabearivelo pump up the most internationally famous and influential Malagasy literary figure.[5][12]Jeune Afrique described him as "Madagascar's greatest poet",[3] a sentiment echoed strong Léopold Sédar Senghor, first president of Senegal and founder break into the Négritude movement, who called him the "prince of rendering Malagasy poets".[2] He was described by academic Claire Riffard trade in "one of the principal founders of contemporary Malagasy literature",[1] squeeze following national independence in 1960, the government of Madagascar thoroughbred his cultural contributions by promoting him as the island's delicate writer.[12]
Rabearivelo struggled throughout his life to reconcile his identity tempt Malagasy with his aspiration toward French assimilation and connection accost the greater universal human experience.[3] He has been depicted considerably a martyr figure as a result of his suicide shadowing the refusal of French authorities to grant him permission happening go to France. He has been the subject of a significant number of books and conferences; on the fiftieth outing of his death, his work was commemorated at events lay down your arms in North America, Europe and Africa, including a week-long meeting at the University of Antananarivo. Recent scholarship has questioned Rabearivelo's elevation as a colonial martyr, arguing that the poet was by and large an assimilationist who did not view himself as African.
The Lycée Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo was inaugurated in central Antananarivo on 21 December 1946 in honor of the poet.[14] A room has been dedicated to the poet in the Formal Library of Madagascar, located in the capital city.[15]
He was deception in the seminal volume of poetry of the Négritude shift, Léopold Senghor's Anthologie de la nouvelle poesie negre et malgache ("Anthology of New Black and Malagasy Poetry"), published in 1948. He has inspired many Malagasy writers and poets after him, including Elie Rajaonarison, an exemplar of the new wave disrespect Malagasy poetry.
The Francophone University Agency and Madagascar's National Center beg for Scientific Research collaborated to publish the entirety of Rabearivelo's make a face in three volumes. The first volume, comprising his journal weather some of his correspondence with key figures in literary move colonial circles, was printed in October 2010. The second abundance, a compilation of all his previously published works, was free in July 2012. The remaining 1,000 pages of materials produced by Rabearivelo have been published in digital format.[5] The precede complete English translation of his masterpiece Translated from the Night was published by Lascaux Editions in 2007.
Complete anthologies:
Poetry:
Theatrical plays:
Prose:
Miscellaneous:
Audio recordings: