Paul Claudel; 1868-1955

By Sister Irene Hartman, OP

A French poet, dramatist, and diplomat, Paul Claudel was born in Villeneuve-sur-Fere, France on Aug. 6, 1868, into a family of farmers and gentry. His father, Louis-Prosper, dealt in mortgages and bank transactions; his mother came from a family of Catholic farmers and priests. When Paul was 13, his family moved to Paris where Paul was educated.

As a teenager, religion and faith meant nothing to him and he called himself an unbeliever. On Christmas Day in 1886, the 18-year-old Paul experienced a conversion while listening to a choir sing Vespers in the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. He described the event: “In an instant, my heart was touched and I believed.” Catholicism remained an integral part of all the rest of his life and inspired his many writings with lyrical inspiration and prophetic tones.

For a while, Paul considered becoming a Benedictine monk, but in the end began a career in the French diplomatic corps where he served from 1893 until his retirement in 1936. His work enabled him to see much of the world as he served in New York, Boston, China, Shanghai, Prague, Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg, Tokyo, Washington, D.C., Rio de Janeiro, Copenhagen, and Brussels. His time in Brazil during the First World War gave him the opportunity to assist in providing food supplies from South America to France.

Claudel will be best remembered for his writings. In all he wrote, he rejected the idea of a mechanical universe where things just happen; instead he proclaimed the deep spiritual meaning of human life founded on God’s all-governing grace and love. Part of his writing style could be likened to the Latin psalms of the Vulgate. He included scenes of passionate human love to convey with great power God’s infinite love for humanity.

A controversial figure in his lifetime, Claudel remains so today. For some he was “too Catholic,” and his right-wing political views were not fashionable in his day. He was free enough to show his consistent contempt for Nazism, calling it demonic and wedded to Satan. Moved by his own belief in all of God’s creation and in the dignity of all human life, he spoke and wrote fearlessly about the mistreatment of the Jews who suffered so terribly during the Holocaust.

Claudel ranks as one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century in any language, because of the extraordinary artistic power and beauty with which he presented a Catholic worldview. Some of his plays are: The Break of Noon, The Tidings Brought to Mary, The Satin Slipper, and Joan of Arc at the Stake.