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Enter Poem or Quote (Required) Back Door Side Door Front Door : Which door might a Confucian take ..................for René ETIEMBLE (Jan. 26, 1909 – Jan. 7, 2002)* In homage - dedicated to the Chair Professor of Comparative Literature .................at the prestigious pre-1968 Sorbonne University Barely a few speechless moments before your first words .............burned the « Coplas por la muerte de su padre » : ...................‘Nuestras vidas son los ríos .......que van a dar en la mar, .......que es el morir ; …………………………… .......y llegados, son iguales .......los que viven por sus manos .......y los ricos.’ .......Is the open back door which emboldens courage No untarnished name to be remembered by No selfless mate to lay by your honour .......No issue laying about themselves for your prize .......Decidedly it was a door of stealth As if choosing it.....you let it be known you were only merely passing by .......and stopped to hang your hat here for a while Yet you let your kin and callers believe ......your whims were worth putting up with ......your mischievous tantrums and gripes merely the mental athlete’s unwinding antics The poïetic birth pangs of imminent glory ......just the mounting stones in the monumental lighthouse that ages from hence would pick forth ......your works on Montesquiex.....Confucious your unfathomable literary resource You upheld dozens who did leave behind a name ......a lasting name...not quite torn from solitary pain Yet who could deny you could have bettered their fame ......What undisclosed pain you harboured in your brain Oh so strangely were you endowed with the intelligence ......of the Chun Tzu - that uncanny eagle’s scan To rout out of the mazes of your students’ past lives ......just that one passage through their Tierra del Fuego But then you who completely espoused the rigours ......of that step by step mounting of respectful steps Were unsparing in your demands of adherence ......to old Master Kung’s hierarchical obedience An open hand ready to sign any cheque ......to succour the caller’s needs ......was alas ! also the whip hand To keep the renegades in constant check You were possessed of a rare brand of anger ......which shook the land about you At those who bent justice to their unsavoury will ......such thunder boiled from within the guts of the earth Now you’re gone and empty lecture halls echo your ......uncontainable ire where forged resounding silence You said at the start of a seminal master-seminar : ......« Nul n’est prophète dans son pays ! » With the distaff side hanging on your every word ......wondering if your plans were for something yet undone No stray notes lie about to record your travail .....No visible correspondence to make it all credible Only books and books...files magazines and books .....and an overcrowdedly conquered mental pad jumbled words scratched into shaded inchoate sketches .....ganglia synapses ...... shot-up neurons ......no clues to a ragingly flailing mind .............none to record the lives you succoured .....................nor even the beneficiaries’ hurriedly scribbled thanks .......nor besides to the beclouding relations with one and all ...............not even a hint at why you may have refused .......................to forge a name beyond the beaten path of fame Would going by the front door in a fanfare of tv talkshows conference papers prize-giving ceremonies paper-interviews in ample studied poses and thoughts for future auto-memoirs volume one to seven the rest put-together posthumously in an omnibus expurgated version with prefaces notes introductions critiques eulogies ...............would it have been less like you ...............................................................to exit by the side-door the baywindow leading to reflected glory ........in a cool cloister of buffeted leaves stray poems in the tradition of your schooled masters or did you burn them all ..................................................................................in a fit of (cou)rage ......... tore them to bits...incinerated by your fiery mind ............................or squashed within yesterday’s leftovers not caring who thought what .................the mocking condescension ...............................................................towards qu’en-dira-t-on * The late Professor René Etiemble held the Chair of Comparative Literature at the old, pre-1968 Sorbonne University but retired in 1978 while a professor at the Sorbonne-Nouvelle University. In later life, he even refused nomination to the French Academy of Letters, though he did accept the Academy’s Prize. He was a prolific critic, essayist, and memorialist, having published some poetry (one book, he burned the rest) and three novels. Like most French greats, he finished schooling at the highly competive Louis le Grand Lycée which runs alongside the Sorbonne. A renowned linguist (he could either speak or do research into a dozen languages) and grammarian (a graduate of the prestigious and elite Ecole Normale Supérieure de rue d’Ulm, Paris), he remained until his very last days an inveterate Sinophile. He edited the Gallimard-instituted UNESCO oriental literary classics series, a fitting tribute to his encyclopaedic learning. He was also one of the editors of the Encyclopedia Universalis. His father died when he was four, and his mother did menial chores in rich homes to pay for his upkeep. During WWII, he taught at Chicago University and was co-opted into the State Department for the war effort. © T.Wignesan, 6 novembre 1997, Fresnes-94, France (from the collection : Poems Omega Minus, Paris, 2002: Poem revised.) Copyright © T Wignesan | Year Posted 2012
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