Saint-John Perse (31 May 1887–20 September 1975) was a French poet, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1960 "for the soaring flight and evocative imagery of his poetry." He was also a major French diplomat from 1914 to 1940, after which he lived primarily in the USA until 1967.

Biography

Alexis Leger was born in Pointe-à-Pitre

Pointe-à-Pitre

Pointe-à-Pitre is the largest city of Guadeloupe, an overseas région and département of France located in the Lesser Antilles, of which it is a sous-préfecture, being the seat of the Arrondissement of Pointe-à-Pitre....

, Guadeloupe

Guadeloupe

Guadeloupe is an archipelago located in the Leeward Islands, in the Lesser Antilles, with a land area of 1,628 square kilometres and a population of 400,000. It is the first overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. As with the other overseas departments, Guadeloupe...

. His great-grandfather, a solicitor, had settled in Guadeloupe in 1815. His grandfather and father were also solicitors; his father was also a member of the City Council. The Leger family owned two plantations, one of coffee (La Joséphine) and the other of sugar (Bois-Debout).

In 1897, Hégésippe Légitimus

Hegesippe Legitimus

Hegesippe Legitimus was a politician from Guadeloupe who served in the French National Assembly from 1898–1902 and from 1906-1914 .- References :...

, the first native Guadeloupan elected president of the Guadeloupe General Council, took office with a vindictive agenda towards colonists. The Leger family returned to metropolitan France in 1899 and settled in Pau. The young Alexis felt like an expatriate, and spent much of his time hiking, fencing, riding horses, and sailing in the Atlantic. He was awarded the baccalaureate with honors, and began studying law at the University of Bordeaux

University of Bordeaux

University of Bordeaux is an association of higher education institutions in and around Bordeaux, France. Its current incarnation was established 21 March 2007. The group is the largest system of higher education schools in southwestern France. It is part of the Academy of Bordeaux.There are seven...

. When his father died in 1907, the resulting strain on his family's finances led Leger to interrupt temporarily his studies, but he eventually completed his degree in 1910.

In 1904 he met the poet Francis Jammes

Francis Jammes

Francis Jammes was a French poet. Coming from an ancient family, he spent most of his life in his native region of Béarn and the Basque Country and his poems are known for their lyricism and for singing the pleasures of a humble country life...

 at Orthez

Orthez

Orthez is a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in south-western France.It lies 40 km NW of Pau on the Southern railway to Bayonne. The town also encompasses the small village of Sainte-Suzanne thus residents of the town are called either Orthéziens or Sainte-Suzannais...

, who became a dear friend. He frequented cultural clubs, and met Paul Claudel

Paul Claudel

Paul Claudel was a French poet, dramatist and diplomat, and the younger brother of the sculptor Camille Claudel. He was most famous for his verse dramas, which often convey his devout Catholicism.-Life:...

, Odilon Redon

Odilon Redon

Bertrand-Jean Redon, better known as Odilon Redon was a French symbolist painter, printmaker, draughtsman and pastellist.-Life:...

, Valery Larbaud

Valery Larbaud

Valery Larbaud was a French writer.-Life:He was born in Vichy, Allier, the only child of a pharmacist. His father died when he was 8, and he was brought up by his mother and aunt. His father had been owner of the Vichy Saint-Yorre mineral water springs, and the family fortune assured him an easy...

, and André Gide

André Gide

André Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars.Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide...

. He wrote short poems inspired by the story of Robinson Crusoe

Robinson Crusoe

Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe that was first published in 1719. Epistolary, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is a fictional autobiography of the title character—a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and...

 (Images à Crusoe) and undertook a translation of Pindar

Pindar

Pindar , was an Ancient Greek lyric poet. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian described him as "by far the greatest of the nine lyric poets, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich...

. He published his first book of poetry, Éloges, in 1911.

In 1914, he joined the French diplomatic service, and spent some of his first years in Spain, Germany, and the United Kingdom. When World War I broke out, he was a press corps attaché for the government. From 1916 to 1921, he was secretary to the French Embassy in Peking. In 1921 in Washington, while taking part in a world disarmament conference, he was noticed by Aristide Briand

Aristide Briand

Aristide Briand was a French statesman who served eleven terms as Prime Minister of France during the French Third Republic and received the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize.- Early life :...

, the then-Prime Minister of France, who recruited him as his assistant. In Paris, he got to know the fellow intellectual poet Paul Valéry

Paul Valéry

Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. His interests were sufficiently broad that he can be classified as a polymath...

 who used his influence to get the poem Anabase, written during Léger's stay in China, published. Léger was warm to classical music, and knew Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....

, Nadia Boulanger

Nadia Boulanger

Nadia Boulanger was a French composer, conductor and teacher who taught many composers and performers of the 20th century.From a musical family, she achieved early honours as a student at the Paris Conservatoire, but believing that her talent as a composer was inferior to that of her younger...

, and les Six

Les Six

Les six is a name, inspired by The Five, given in 1920 by critic Henri Collet in an article titled "" to a group of six composers working in Montparnasse whose music is often seen as a reaction against the musical style of Richard Wagner and impressionist music.-Members:Formally, the Groupe des...

.

While in China, Leger had written his first extended poem Anabase, publishing it in 1924 under the pseudonym "Saint-John Perse", one he employed for the rest of his life. He then published nothing for two decades, not even a re-edition of his debut book, because he believed it inappropriate for a diplomat to publish fiction. After Briand's death in 1932, Leger served as the General Secretary of the French Foreign Office (Quai d'Orsay

Quai d'Orsay

The Quai d'Orsay is a quai in the VIIe arrondissement of Paris, part of the left bank of the Seine, and the name of the street along it. The Quai becomes the Quai Anatole France east of the Palais Bourbon, and the Quai de Branly west of the Pont de l'Alma.The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs is...

) until 1940, a period in which the French government experienced chronic instability and turmoil. He accompanied the French Foreign Minister at the Munich Conference

Munich Agreement

The Munich Pact was an agreement permitting the Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. The Sudetenland were areas along Czech borders, mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without...

 in 1938, where the cession of Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

 to Germany was agreed to. He was dismissed from his post right after the fall of France in May 1940, because he was a known anti-Nazi. In mid-July 1940, Leger began a long exile in Washington, D.C..

The Vichy

Vichy France

Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...

 government dismissed him from the Légion d'honneur

Légion d'honneur

The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...

 order and revoked his French citizenship (it was reinstated after the war.) He was in some financial difficulty as an exile in Washington until Archibald MacLeish

Archibald MacLeish

Archibald MacLeish was an American poet, writer, and the Librarian of Congress. He is associated with the Modernist school of poetry. He received three Pulitzer Prizes for his work.-Early years:...

, Director of the Library of Congress

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...

 and himself a poet, raised sufficient private donations to enable the Library to employ Perse until his official retirement from the French civil service in 1947. Perse declined a teaching position at Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

.

During his American exile, Perse wrote his long poems Exil, Vents, Pluies, Neiges, Amers, and Chroniques. He remained in the USA long after the end of the Second World War

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 ended, traveling extensively, observing nature, and enjoying the friendship of, among others, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...

's Attorney General Francis Biddle

Francis Biddle

Francis Beverley Biddle was an American lawyer and judge who was Attorney General of the United States during World War II and who served as the primary American judge during the postwar Nuremberg trials....

 and his spouse, author Katherine Garrison Chapin. Leger was on good terms with the UN Secretary General and author Dag Hammarskjöld

Dag Hammarskjöld

Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld was a Swedish diplomat, economist, and author. An early Secretary-General of the United Nations, he served from April 1953 until his death in a plane crash in September 1961. He is the only person to have been awarded a posthumous Nobel Peace Prize. Hammarskjöld...

. In 1957, American friends gave him a villa at Giens in Provence

Provence

Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...

, and from that time on, he split his time between France and the United States. In 1958, he married the American Dorothy Milburn Russell.

In 1960, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature

Nobel Prize in Literature

Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...

. After receiving the Nobel Prize, he wrote the long poems Chronique, Oiseaux, Chant pour un équinoxe, and the shorter Nocturne and Sécheresse. A few months before he died, he donated his library, manuscripts and private papers to Fondation Saint-John Perse, a research centre devoted to his life and work (Cité du Livre, Aix-en-Provence

Aix-en-Provence

Aix , or Aix-en-Provence to distinguish it from other cities built over hot springs, is a city-commune in southern France, some north of Marseille. It is in the region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, in the département of Bouches-du-Rhône, of which it is a subprefecture. The population of Aix is...

) that remains active down to the present day. Leger died in his villa in Giens and is buried nearby.

Works

• Éloges (1911, transl. Eugène Jolas
  Eugene Jolas
  John George Eugene Jolas was a writer, translator and literary critic.-Biography:Eugene Jolas was born in Union City, New Jersey, but grew up in Forbach in Elsass-Lothringen , to which his family returned when he was two years old. He spent periods of his adult life living in both the U.S...
  
   in 1928, Louise Varèse in 1944, Eleanor Clark and Roger Little in 1965, King Bosley in 1970)
• Anabase (1924, transl. T.S. Eliot in 1930, Roger Little in 1970)
• Exil (1942, transl. Denis Devlin
  Denis Devlin
  Denis Devlin was, along with Samuel Beckett and Brian Coffey, one of the generation of Irish modernist poets to emerge at the end of the 1920s. He was also a career diplomat.-Early life and studies:...
  
  , 1949)
• Pluies (1943, transl. Denis Devlin in 1944)
• Poème à l'étrangère (1943, transl. Denis Devlin in 1946)
• Neiges (1944, transl. Denis Devlin in 1945, Walter J. Strachan in 1947)
• Vents (1946, transl. Hugh Chisholm
  Hugh Chisholm
  Hugh Chisholm was a British journalist, and editor of the 11th and 12th editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica....
  
   in 1953)
• Amers (1957, transl. Wallace Fowlie
  Wallace Fowlie
  Wallace Fowlie was an American writer and professor of literature. He was the James B. Duke Professor of French Literature at Duke University from 1964. Known for his translations of the poet Arthur Rimbaud and his critical studies of French poetry and drama, he also wrote about rock-poet Jim...
  
   in 1958, extracts by George Huppert in 1956, Samuel E. Morrison in 1964)
• Chronique (1960, transl. Robert Fitzgerald
  Robert Fitzgerald
  Robert Stuart Fitzgerald was a poet, critic and translator whose renderings of the Greek classics "became standard works for a generation of scholars and students." He was best known as a translator of ancient Greek and Latin...
  
   in 1961)
• Poésie (1961, transl. W. H. Auden
  W. H. Auden
  Wystan Hugh Auden , who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet,The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the OED is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England and America." See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or citizenship" in See also...
  
   in 1961)
• Oiseaux (1963, transl. Wallace Fowlie in 1963, Robert Fitzgerald in 1966, Roger Little in 1967, Derek Mahon in 2002)
• Pour Dante (1965, transl. Robert Fitzgerald in 1966)
• Chanté par celle qui fut là (1969, transl. Richard Howard
  Richard Howard
  Richard Howard is an American poet, literary critic, essayist, teacher, and translator. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio and is a graduate of Columbia University, where he studied under Mark Van Doren, and where he now teaches...
  
   in 1970)
• Chant pour un équinoxe (1971)
• Nocturne (1973)
• Sécheresse (1974)
• Collected Poems (1971) Bollingen Series, Princeton University Press.

• Œuvres complètes (1972) Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Gallimard. The definitive edition of his work. Leger designed and edited this volume, which includes a detailed chronology of his life, speeches, tributes, hundreds of letters, notes, a bibliography of the secondary literature, and extensive extracts from those parts of that literature the author liked. Enlarged edition, 1982.

Secondary Literature in English

1936

• S. A. Rhodes, "Poetry of Saint-John Perse", The Sewanee Review, vol. XLIV, n° 1, Jan.-March 1936

1944

• Paul Rosenfeld, "The Poet Perse", The Nation, New York, vol. CLVIII, n° 20, 15 May 1944
• John Gould Fletcher
  John Gould Fletcher
  John Gould Fletcher was an Imagist poet and author. He was born in Little Rock, Arkansas to a socially prominent family. After attending Phillips Academy, Andover Fletcher went on to Harvard University from 1903 to 1907, when he dropped out shortly after his father's death.Fletcher lived in...
  
  , "On the Poetry of Alexis Saint-Leger Leger", Quarterly Review of Literature, vol. II, Autumn 1944
• Edouard Roditi, "Éloges and other poems, Saint-John Perse", Contemporary Poetry, Baltimore, vol. IV, n° 3, Autumn 1944

1945

• Conrad Aiken
  Conrad Aiken
  Conrad Potter Aiken was an American novelist and poet, whose work includes poetry, short stories, novels, a play and an autobiography.-Early years:...
  
  , "Rains, by Saint-John Perse. Whole Meaning or Doodles", New Republic, Washington, n° CXII, 16 April 1945.

1948

• David Gascoigne, "Vents by Saint-John Perse", Poetry, London, June–July 1948,

1949

• Valéry Larbaud
  Valery Larbaud
  Valery Larbaud was a French writer.-Life:He was born in Vichy, Allier, the only child of a pharmacist. His father died when he was 8, and he was brought up by his mother and aunt. His father had been owner of the Vichy Saint-Yorre mineral water springs, and the family fortune assured him an easy...
  
  , préface à Anabasis, translated by Jacques Le Clerq, in Anabasis, New York, Harcourt, Brace and C°, 1949.
• Hugo von Hofmannsthal
  Hugo von Hofmannsthal
  Hugo Laurenz August Hofmann von Hofmannsthal ; , was an Austrian novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist.-Early life:...
  
  , préface à Anabasis, translated by James Stern, ibid.
• Giuseppe Ungaretti
  Giuseppe Ungaretti
  Giuseppe Ungaretti was an Italian modernist poet, journalist, essayist, critic and academic. A leading representative of the experimental trend known as Ermetismo , he was one of the most prominent contributors to 20th century Italian literature. Influenced by symbolism, he was briefly aligned...
  
  , préface à Anabasis, translated by Adrienne Foulke, ibid.
• Archibald MacLeish
  Archibald MacLeish
  Archibald MacLeish was an American poet, writer, and the Librarian of Congress. He is associated with the Modernist school of poetry. He received three Pulitzer Prizes for his work.-Early years:...
  
  , "The Living Spring", Saturday Review, vol. XXXII, n° 24, 16 July 1949
• Hubert Creekmore, "An Epic Poem of the Primitive Man", New York Times Book Review, 25 December 1949

1950

• Allen Tate
  Allen Tate
  John Orley Allen Tate was an American poet, essayist, social commentator, and Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1943 to 1944.-Life:...
  
  , "Hommage to Saint-John Perse", Poetry, Chicago, LXXV, January 1950
• Harold W. Watts, "Anabase: The Endless Film", University of Toronto Quarterly, vol XIX, n° 3, April 1950
• Stephen Spender
  Stephen Spender
  Sir Stephen Harold Spender CBE was an English poet, novelist and essayist who concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle in his work...
  
  , "Tribute to Saint-John Perse", Cahiers de la Pléiade, Paris, Summer-Autumn 1950

1952

• Amos Wilder, "Nature and the immaculate world in Saint-John Perse", in Modern Poetry and the Christian tradition, New York, 1952
• Katherine Garrison Chapin, "Saint-John Perse. Notes on Some Poetic Contrasts", The Sewanee Review

1953

• Paul Claudel
  Paul Claudel
  Paul Claudel was a French poet, dramatist and diplomat, and the younger brother of the sculptor Camille Claudel. He was most famous for his verse dramas, which often convey his devout Catholicism.-Life:...
  
  , "A Poem by St.-John Perse", translation by Hugh Chisholm, in Winds, New York, Pantheon Books, Bollingen Series, n° 34, 1953.
• Gaëtan Picon
  Gaëtan Picon
  Gaëtan Picon was a French essayist and art crtitic. He was director of the Mercure de France and Director-General of Arts and Letters under André Malraux....
  
  , "The Most proudly free", translation by Willard R. Trask, ibid, 1rst edition in Les Cahiers de la Pléiade, n° 10, été-automne 1950.
• Albert Béguin, "A Poetry marked by scansion", translation by Willard R. Trask, ibid, 1rst edition in Les Cahiers de la Pléiade, n° 10, été-automne 1950.
• Gabriel Bounoure, "St.-John Perse and poetic ambiguity", translation by Willard R. Trask, ibid, 1rst edition in Les Cahiers de la Pléiade, n° 10, été-automne 1950.
• Wallace Fowlie
  Wallace Fowlie
  Wallace Fowlie was an American writer and professor of literature. He was the James B. Duke Professor of French Literature at Duke University from 1964. Known for his translations of the poet Arthur Rimbaud and his critical studies of French poetry and drama, he also wrote about rock-poet Jim...
  
  , "The Poetics of Saint-John Perse", Poetry,, Chicago, vol. LXXXII, n° 6, September 1953
• Hayden Carruth, "Winds by Saint-John Perse... Parnassus stormed", The Partisan Review, vol. XX, n° 5, September-October 1953
• Henri Peyre, "Exile by Saint-John Perse", Shenandoah, Lexington, vol. V, Winter 1953

1956

• "Tribute to Saint-John Perse", The Berkeley Review (Arthur J. Knodel, René Girard, Georges Huppert), vol. I, n° 1, Berkeley, 1956

1957

• Archibald MacLeish, "Saint-John Perse. The Living Spring", in A continuing journey. Essays and Addresses, Boston, 1957
• Wallace Fowlie, "Saint-John Perse", in A Guide to Contemporary french Literature, from Valéry to Sartre, New York, 1957
• Anonymous, "Saint-John Perse, poet of the Fare Shore", Tmes Literary Supplement, London, 2 March 1957
• Paul West, "The Revival of Epic", The Twentieth Century, London, July 1957

1958

• Conrad Aiken
  Conrad Aiken
  Conrad Potter Aiken was an American novelist and poet, whose work includes poetry, short stories, novels, a play and an autobiography.-Early years:...
  
  , A Reviewer's A.B.C., Collected criticism from 1916, New York, 1958
• Jacques Guicharnaud, "Vowels of the Sea: Amers", Yale French Studies, n° 21, Spreing-Summer 1958
• Martin Turnell, "The Epic of Saint-John Perse", The Commonweal, LXX, 17 July 1958
• W. H. Auden
  W. H. Auden
  Wystan Hugh Auden , who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet,The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the OED is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England and America." See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or citizenship" in See also...
  
  , "A song of life's power to renew", New York Times Book Review, vol. LXIII, n° 30, 27 July 1958
• Melvin Maddocks, "Perse as Cosmologist", Christian Science Monitor, 4 September 1958
• John Marshall, "The greatest Living French Poet", The Yale Review, XLVIII, September 1958
• Katherine Garrison Chapin, "Perse on the sea with Us: Amers", The New Republic, Washington, CXXXIX, 27 October 1958

1959

• H.-J. Kaplan,"Saint-John Perse: The Recreation of the World", The Reporter, XV, 22 January 1959
• Raymond Mortimer, "Mr Eliot and Mr Perse: Two fine Poets in tandem", Sunday Times, London, May 1959
• Philip Toynbee
  Philip Toynbee
  Theodore Philip Toynbee was a British writer and communist. He wrote experimental novels, and distinctive verse novels, one of which was an epic called Pantaloon, a work in several volumes, only some of which are published...
  
  , "A great modern Poet", The Observer, London, 31 May 1959
• Charles Guenther, "Prince among the Prophets", Poetry, Chicago, vol. XCIII, n° 5, 1959

1976

• Joseph Henry McMahon, A Bibliography of works by and about Saint-John Perse, Stanford University, 1959

1960

• Stanley Burnshaw, "Saint-John Perse", in The Poem Itself, New York, 1960
• Joseph MacMahon, "A question of Man", Commonweal, LXXIII, 13 January 1960
• Byron Colt, "Saint-John Perse", Accent, New York, XX,3, Summer 1960
• Joseph Barry, "Science and poetry merge in the crucial stage of creation", New York Post, 12 December 1960

1961

• Bernard Weinberg, The Limits of Symbolism. Studies of Five modern French Poets. Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Mallarmé, Valéry, Saint-John Perse, Manchester, 1961
• Anthony Hartley, "Saint-John Perse", Encounter, London, n° 2, Feb. 1961
• Octavio Paz
  Octavio Paz
  Octavio Paz Lozano was a Mexican writer, poet, and diplomat, and the winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature.-Early life and writings:...
  
  , "Saint-John Perse as Historian", The Nation, New York, 17 June 1961
• Donald Davis, "Chronique by Saint-John Perse", New Statesman, London, LXII, 26 July 1961
• John Montague, "The Poetry of Saint-John Perse", Irish Times, Dublin, 25 August 1961
• Léon-S. Roudiez, "The Epochal Poetry of Saint-John Perse", Columbia University Forum, New York, vol. IV, 1961

1962

• Anthony Curtis, "Back to the Elements", The Sunday Telegraph, London, 7 January 1962
• Amos Wilder, "St-John Perse and the future of Man", Christianity and Crisis, New York, vol. XXI, n° 24, 22 January 1962
• Ronald Gaskell, "The Poetry of Saint-John Perse", The London Magazine, vol. I, n° 12, March 1962
• Peter Russel, "Saint-John perse's Poetical works", Agenda, London, May–June 1962
• Cecil Hemley, "Onward and Upward", Hudson Review, XV, Summer 1962

1963

• Eugenia Maria Arsenault, Color imagery in the Vents of Saint-John Perse, Catholic University of America, Washington, 1963

1964

• Arthur J. Knodel, "Towards an Understanding of Anabase", PMLA, June 1964
• Eugenia Vassylkivsky, The Main Themes of Saint-John Perse, Columbia University, 1964

1966

• Arthur J. Knodel, Saint-John Perse. A Study of his Poetry, Edimburg, 1966
• R. W. Baldner, "Saint-John Perse as Poet Prophet" in Proceedings of the Pacific Northwest Conference on Foreign Languages, vol. XVII, n° 22, 1966

1967

• Roger Little, Word Index of the Complete Poetry and Prose of Saint-John Perse, Durham, 1966 and 1967
• M. Owen de Jaham, An Introduction to Saint-John Perse, University of South Western Louisiana, 1967

1968

• Kathleen Raine, "Saint-John perse, Poet of the Marvellous", Encounter, vol. IV, n° 29, October 1967; idem in Defending Ancient Springs, Oxford, 1968

1969

• Roger Little, "T. S. Eliot and Saint-John Perse", The Arlington Quarterly Review, University of Texas, vol. II, n° 2, Autumn 1969

1970

• Charles Delamori, "The Love and aggression of Saint-John Perse's Pluies", Yale French Studies, 1970
• Richar O. Abel, The Relationship between the Poetry of T. S. Eliot and Saint-John Perse, University of Southern California, 1970

1971

• Roger Little, Saint-John Perse. A Bibliography for Students of His Poetry, London, 1971
• Ruth N. Horry, Paul Claudel and Saint-John Perse. Parallels and Contrasts, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1971
• Pierre Emmanuel
  Pierre Emmanuel
  Noël Mathieu better known under his pseudonym Pierre Emmanuel, was a French poet of Christian inspiration...
  
  , Praise and Presence, with a Bibliography, Washington, 1971
• Candace Uter De Russy, Saint-John Perse's Chronique: a study of Kronos and other themes through imagery, Tulane University, 1971
• Marc Goodhart, Poet and Poem in Exile, University of Colorado, 1971

1972

• René Galand
  René Galand
  René Marie Galand is a writer and Professor of French. He was born in Châteauneuf-du-Faou in Brittany.- Biography :...
  
  , Saint-John Perse, New York, 1972
• Richard Ruland, America as metaphor in modern French Letters. Celine, Julien Green and Saint-John Perse, New York, 1972

1973

• Roger Little, Saint-John Perse, University of London, 1973
• Carol Nolan Rigolot, The Dialectics of Poetry: Saint-John Perse, University of Michigan, 1973

1974

• Richard-Allen Laden, Saint-John Perse's Vents: From Theme to Poetry, Yale University, 1974

1976

• Elizabeth Jackson, Worlds Apart Structural Parallels in the Poetry of Paul Valéry, Saint-John Perse, Benjamin Perret and René Char, The Hague, 1976
• Arthur J. Knodel, Saint-John Perse: Lettres, Princeton, 1979
• Edith Jonssen-Devillers, Cosmos and the Sacred in the poetics of Octavio Paz and Saint-John Perse, San Diego, University of California, 1976
• John M. Cocking, "The Migrant Muse: Saint-John Perse", Encounter, London, XLVI, March 1976
• Elizabeth Jennings, "Saint-John Perse: the worldly seer", in Seven Men of Vision: an appreciation, London, 1976
• Roger Little, "A letter about Conrad by Saint-John Perse", Conradiana, Lubbock, Texas, VIII, n° 3, Autumn 1976
• Anonymous, "An Exile for Posterity", The Times Literary Supplement, London, n° 3860, 5 March 1976

1977

• Roger Little, "The Eye at the Center of Things", Times Literary Supplement, London, n° 3941, 7 October 1977
• Roger Little, "Saint-John Perse and Joseph Conrad: some notes and an uncollected Letter", Modern language Review, Cambridge, LXII, n° 4, October 1977
• Roger Little, "The World and the Word in Saint-John Perse", in Sensibility and Creation: Essays in XXth Century French Poetry, London and New York, 1977
• John D. Price, "Man, Women and the Problem of Suffering in Saint-John Perse", Modern language Review, Cambridge, LXII, n° 3, July 1977

1978

• Reino Virtanen, "Between Saint-John and Persius: Saint-John Perse and Paul Valéry", Symposium, Summer 1978
• Roger Little, "Saint-John perse and Denis Devlin: a compagnonage", Irish University Review, Dublin, VIII, Autumn 1978

1979

• Roger Little, "Claudel and Saint-John Perse. The Convert and the Unconvertible", Claudel Studies, VI, 1979

1982

• Steven Winspur, "Saint-John Perse's Oiseaux: the Poem, the Painting and beyond", L'Esprit Créateur
  L'Esprit Créateur
  L’Esprit Créateur is a quarterly academic journal established in 1961 and published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. The journal is dedicated to the study of French literature, and the theory and criticism surrounding it. Each issue focuses on a specific theme and includes reviews and...
  
  , Columbia University, XXII, n° 4, Winter 1982

1983

• William Calin
  William Calin
  William Compaine Calin is a senior scholar of Medieval French literature and French Poetry at the University of Florida. His work has focused on Breton and Occitan Studies and on Franco-British literary relations....
  
  , "Saint-John Perse", in A Muse for heroes: Nine Centuries of the Epic in France, University of Toronto Press, 1983
• Steven Winspur, "The Poetic Signifiance of the Thing-in-itself", Sub-stance, n° 41, 1983
• Joseph T. Krause, "The Visual Form of Saint-John Perse's Imagery", Aix-en-Provence, 1983
• Peter Fell, "A Critical Study of Saint-John Perse's Chronique" . MA dissertation, University of Manchester, 1983

1984

• Saint-John Perse: Documentary Exhibition and Works on the Poem Amers, Washington, 1984–1985

1985

• Erika Ostrovsky, Under the Sign of Ambiguity: Saint-John Perse/Alexis Leger, New York, 1985

1988

• Steven Winspur, Saint-John Perse and the Imaginary Reader, Geneva, 1988
• Peter Baker, "Perse on Poetry", The Connecticut Review, Willimantic, XI, n° 1, 1988
• Peter Baker, "Saint-John Perse, Alexis Leger, 1960", The Nobel Prize Winners: Literature, April 1988

1990

• Peter Baker, "Exile in Language", Studies in 20th century Literature, Manhattan (Kansas) and Lincoln (Nebraska), XIV, n° 2, Summer 1990
• Judith Kopenhagen-Urian, "The voyage chronotop and other dynamic topoi in Saint-John Perse's Work", American Comparative Literature Association, Pennsylvania State University, annual meeting Marc 29-31 1990 (unpublished)
• Erika Ostrovsky, "Saint-John Perse", The Twentieth Century, New York, 1990

1991

• Luigi Fiorenzato, Anabasis/Anabase: T. S. Eliot translates Saint-John Perse, Padova, 1991–1992
• Peter Baker, "Metric, Naming and Exile: Perse, Pound, Genet", in The Scope of Words in Honor to Albert S. Cook, New York, 1991
• Peter Baker, Obdurate Brilliance: Exteriority and the Modern Long Poem, University of Florida Press, 1991

1992

• Josef Krause, "The Two Axes of Saint-John Perse's Imagery", Studi Francesi, Torino, XXXVI, n° 106, 1992
• Carol Rigolot, "Ancestors, Mentors and 'Grands Aînés': Saint-John perse's Chronique", Literary Generations, Lexington, 1992

1994

• Richard L. Sterling, The Prose Works of Saint-John Perse. Towards an Understanding of His Poetry, New York, 1994

1996

• Richard A. York, "Saint-John Perse, the diplomat", Claudel Studies, XXIII, 1-2, 1996

1997

• Judith Urian, The Biblical context in Saint-John Perse's work, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1997

1999

• Mary Gallagher, "Seminal Praise: The Poetry of Saint-John Perse", in An Introduction to caribbean fracophone writing, Oxford, 1999
• Carol Rigolot, "Saint-John Perse's Oiseaux: from Audubon to Braque and beyond", in Resonant Themes: literature, history and the arts in XIXth - and XXth - century Europe, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1999
• Judith Urian, "Delicious abyss: the biblical darkness in the poetry of Saint-John Perse", Comparative literature studies, XXXVI, n° 3, 1999

2000

• Jeffrey Mehlman, Émigré New York. French Intellectuals in Wartime, Manhattan, 1940–1944, Baltimore and London, 2000
• Zeyma Kamalick, In Defense of Poetry: T. S. Eliot's translation ofAnabase by Saint-John Perse, Princeton, 2000

2001

• Emmanuelle Hériard Dubreuil, Une certaine idée de la France: Alexis Leger's views during the occupation of France June 1940-August 1944, London School of Economics, 2001
• Pierre Lastenet, Saint-John Perse and the Sacred, University of London, 2001
• Marie-Noëlle Little, The Poet and the Diplomat [Correspondence Saint-John Perse/Dag Hammarskjöld], Syracuse University Press, 2001
• Marie-Noëlle Little, "It is the same land: Poetry and Diplomacy for Dag Hammarskjöld and Alexis Leger", Uppsala, 7 September 2001, in Dag Hammarskjöld and the XXIst Century (Unpublished work)
• Marie-Noëlle Little, "Letters written, read and translated: The Corresdpondance of Dag Hammarskjöld and Alexis Leger", Uppsala, 8 September 2001, in Dag Hammarskjöld and the XXIst Century (Unpublished work)
• Marie-Noëlle Little, "Travellers in two Worlds: Dag Hammarskjöld and Alexis Leger", in evelopment Dialogue, Uppsala, 2001

2002

• Carol Rigolot, Forged Genealogies: Saint-John Perse's Conversations with Culture, The University of North Carolina Press, 2002

2003

• Mary Gallagher, "Re-membering Caribbean childhoods, Saint-John Perse's Éloges and Patrick Chamoiseau's Antan d'enfance", in The Francophone Caribbean today-literature, language, culture, The University of West Indies Press, 2003

2004

• Colette Camelin, "Hermes and Aphrodite in Saint-John Perse's Winds and Seemarks", in Hermes and Aphrodite Encounters, Birmingham, 2004
• Patrick Chamoiseau, "Excerpts freely adapted from Meditations for Saint-John Perse", Literature and Arts of the Americas, XXXVII, n° 1

2005

• Henriette Levillain, Saint-John Perse, Ministère des Affaires étrangères, Paris, 2005
• Joseph Acquisto, "The Lyric of Narrative: Exile, Poetry and Story in Saint-John Perse and Elisabeth Bishop", Orbis Litterarum, n° 5, 2005
• Xue Die, "Saint-John Perse's Palm Trees", American Letters and Commentary, n° 17, 2005
• Valérie Loichot, "Saint-John Perse's Imagined Shelter: J'habiterai mon nom, in Discursive Geographies, Writing Space and Place in French, Amsterdam, 2005
• Carol Rigolot, "Blood Brothers: Archibald MacLeish and Saint-John Perse", Archibald MacLeish Journal, Summer 2005
• Carol Rigolot, "Saint-John Perse", in Transtlantic relations, France and the Americas, Culture, Politics, History, Oxford and Santa Barbara, 2005

2007

• Valérie Loichot, Orphan Narratives: The Postplantation Literature of Faulkner, Glissant, Morrison and Saint-John Perse, University of Virginia Press, 2007
• Harris Feinsod, "Reconsidering the 'Spiritual Economy': Saint-John Perse, his translators and the limits of internationalism", "Benjamin, Poetry and Criticism", Telos, New York, n° 38, 2007
• Peter Poiana, "The order of Nemesis in Saint-John Perse's Vents", Neophilologus, vol. 91, n° 1, 2007
• Jeffrey Meyers, "The Literary Politics of the Nobel Prize", Antioche Review, vol. 65, n° 2, 2007

See also

• Le Mondes 100 Books of the Century
  Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century
  The 100 Books of the Century is a grading of the books considered as the hundred best of the 20th century, drawn up in the spring of 1999 through a poll conducted by the French retailer Fnac and the Paris newspaper Le Monde....
  
  , a list which includes Amers

External links

• Fondation Saint-John Perse, Aix-en-Provence, official website of the poet and diplomat (in French)
• Saint-John Perse biography from the official Nobel Prize website
• Nobel acceptance speech
• Saint-John Perse, le poète aux masques, site devoted to the author (in French)
• Liste de diffusion SJPinfo (news) devoted to Saint-John Perse