Capitale de la douleur

Paris, Gallimard, (September 8) 1926.
1 vol. (165 x 215 mm) of 151 p. and 1 f. Bradel paper, title piece, gilt head, preserved covers.

First edition.
One of the first 109 copies re-imposed on Lafuma-Navarre vergé (no. 85).

Presentation copy, inscribed: “à René Char qui n’a pas hésité une seconde à affirmer au péril de sa vie, que j’existais ; à René Char que j’aime au péril de ma vie, Paul Éluard”.
“[to René Char, who did not hesitate for a second to affirm at the risk of his life that I existed; to René Char whom I love at the risk of my life, Paul Éluard]”.

Mounted on top:
the autograph poem signed “L’Hiver sur la prairie” (Winter on the Prairie), included in the “Nouveaux poèmes” (New Poems) section (p. 116); 1 f. (225 x 280) on blue paper;
the original of the publishing contract for the collection under its initial title “L’Art d’être malheureux” [rectified to its definitive title in the hand of René Char], signed by Éluard and Gaston Gallimard and dated February 26, 1926.

At the end: the flyleaf on pink paper, with the presentation text by André Breton, illustrated with a photographic portrait of Eluard by Man Ray.

We apologize for the imperfect translation generated by Deepl for the purposes of the show.

In the history of French poetry, there are few books that can appear both as the revelation of an individual maturity and as the formal crystallization of an era – with its impulses, hesitations and tensions. Capitale de la douleur is without doubt the first major volume by Paul Éluard, a key collection that will remain one of the most widely read books of poetry of the twentieth century. In 1926, Éluard established himself as one of the supporters and practitioners of poetry linked to the nascent Surrealism. Breton was not mistaken when, in issue no. 1 of La Révolution surréaliste of December 1, 1924, he decided to include a poem by Eluard (whose manuscript is bound here): “the appearance of L’hiver sur la prairie among the Surrealist texts in the first issue can thus be considered a coup d’éclat. The singularity of this piece in the section literally jumps out at you: its typographical layout in verse, its italic composition and its absence of punctuation indicate indeed that we are dealing with a poem. A poem, what’s more, launched by a leonine verse that seems to be inspired by the memory of La Fontaine and his mountain that gives birth to a mouse, which has become proverbial: “Winter on the meadow brings mice” (Olivier Belin, Journée Eluard, ENS Lyon, 2013).

The fact that an autograph copy of the manuscript of this poem was given to René Char, and then kept by him for his copy, is not insignificant. This manuscript, “which belongs to the René Char collection”, is cited by Lucien Scheler in the notes of the edition he gave in 1968 for La Pléiade, because it contains four unpublished variants.

André Breton wrote the blurb – also kept and bound at the end of the volume: “Even more than the choice that Paul Éluard imposes on everyone, which is the marvelous choice of the words he assembles, in the order in which he assembles them – a choice that is exercised through him and not, strictly speaking, that he exercises – I would be ashamed, I, his friend, would be remiss if I did not praise the vast, the singular, the abrupt, the profound, the splendid, the heartbreaking movements of the heart in him without measure.”

The contract with Gaston Gallimard was signed on February 26, 1926: the aim was to publish a collection entitled L’Art d’être malheureux. Offered to René Char, who annotated it with the modified title, it teaches us a lot about the conditions under which the volume was published. One hundred and thirteen poems, divided into four independent sections, will be included. The first two follow up on poems from previous collections: some texts from Les Nécessités de la vie et les Conséquences des rêves (1921), from Répétitions (1922, thirty-five poems from the Dadaist period, illustrated with collages by Max Ernst), from Mourir de ne pas mourir (1924), then most of the booklet Au défaut du silence (1925, already composed for Gala). Éluard added Les Petits Justes (eleven short poems imitating Japanese haikai) and above all Nouveaux Poèmes (forty-five previously unpublished poems, mostly composed between 1924 and 1925 and dedicated to Gala). A priori, it is therefore a collection that does not present a historical unity or a unity of inspiration – except for the love for Gala, his wife, for whom he languishes: she is in love with the painter Max Ernst and is gradually moving away from him. It is for her that the last section is written, to form a song of misfortune, passion and revolt, he who has barely emerged from his “season in hell” and the despair that fueled Mourir de ne pas mourir. Purity, grace, absence, lack, desire and the fear of separation resurface: “With my forehead against the windows like the keepers of sorrow / I seek you beyond expectation / Beyond myself / And I no longer know how much I love you / Which of us is absent”. A sentimental and poetic journey that retraces the tribulations of the love triangle and the path that led Éluard from Dadaism to Surrealism. More broadly, it is a summary of all the evolution of poetic forms that Éluard had tested until then. It was during the summer of 1926 that the poet decided to change the title of his work from The Art of Being Unhappy to Capital of Pain, much to the regret of his friend Jean Paulhan, who wrote to him: “Gaston Gallimard is very unhappy that you want to change the title: the book has already been announced, subscriptions have already been received, etc. And I, for one, regret being unhappy. Won’t you agree to keep it?” (letter reproduced in Robert Valette, Éluard. Livre d’identité, Paris, Tchou, 1967). Éluard did not agree, and the collection was completed for printing on September 8, 1926.

The work was unanimously praised by the public and critics, and Éluard was hailed as one of the representatives of the Surrealist movement.
A wonderful copy; it is probably, along with the one given to André Breton, the finest copy available.

Bibliothèque nationale, En français dans le texte, 1990, nº 357; OEuvres complètes, La Pléiade, notes et variantes, p. 1380).