[In the following essay, Starr points out the obvious influences of Whitman's love of nature and the life-force on the works of Giono.]

The influence of Walt Whitman upon certain contemporary French writers, especially those who at one time composed the “groupe de l'Abbaye”, has been frequently mentioned.¹ Perhaps it is not so well known that he also had some influence upon Jean Giono, a writer whose ideas are generally different from those of Jules Romains and Georges Duhamel. Unlike these authors, Giono does not so much insist upon the relation of men to society, as upon the relation of the individual to nature. As an example of the various ways in which Whitman's influence has been felt in France it will be of interest to study this relationship between Giono and Whitman.

The author himself indicates his fondness for Whitman's poetry. In Présentation de Pan, in which he begins to explain his principal ideas as they had appeared, diffused in Colline, Un de Baumugnes, and Regain,² he says: “… Lure m'apparut au milieu du lointain pays. Je pense à Whitman et à Paumanok, l'île en forme de poisson”³ In Manosque des Plateaux, which is, in some respects, a continuation of the Présentation de Pan, he tells of the experiment of reading Whitman's Leaves of Grass to the inhabitants of a small mountain village. Despite his improvised rendering into French of the English edition, the villagers were delighted with the poetry. So keen was their sympathy and admiration that Giono later sent them a French translation.⁴ Finally, in Le Serpent d'étoiles appears on the fly-leaf the line from Whitman: “Votre œuvre peut-elle faire vis-à-vis à la pleine campagne et au bord de la mer?”⁵

Since Giono has expressly said, in this book of autobiographical sketches, that he was reading an English edition of Leaves of Grass, we have believed it permissible to ignore the question of French translations, and to refer only to the English edition.

We must first mention two important differences between these men. Giono does not yet pretend to the completeness of a philosophic system, as did Whitman. He is the first to admit this when he says that he has not, as some believe, found in the earth, in Nature, the explanation of everything; this, he says, is only a firm starting point.⁶ Another, and perhaps more important difference is in their attitude towards the state, and towards commercialism and industry. Whitman celebrates both, although it is true that they did not then exist in their present all absorbing form, as they face Giono. Although these differences are present, and must be kept in mind, certain striking similarities of thought and expression exist between the two writers.

Perhaps the most striking is their worship of life: the life of animals, plants, men, of the very earth and universe. In Song of Myself Whitman says:

In me the caresser of life wherever moving—backward as well as forward sluing;⁷

Giono, looking back over his works, writes:

J'aime la vie. Je n'aime même que la vie … j'ai voulu saouler tout le monde de vie. J'aurais voulu pouvoir faire bouillonner la vie comme un torrent et la faire se ruer sur tous ces hommes secs et désespérés … les assommer de fraîcheur, de santé et de joie …⁸

Such a love and such an aim are very similar to those diffused throughout Leaves of Grass.

Because it is part of the process of the life they celebrate, both poets accord great importance to the creation of life. The old narrator who relates the events of Un de Baumugnes felt this importance, as he watched Angèle's baby: “Monsieur Pancrace (the baby) mâchait la fleur du sein comme un éperdu. … C'était beau! C'était la leçon de la vie. Voilà ce que, malgré tout, vent et marée, elle avait fait. Quelle beauté!”⁹ Whitman expresses this idea in a similar way: “Singing the song of procreation, singing the need of superb children. …”¹⁰ Sexual relations, as symbols of creation, and as creation, play a prominent part in their works. Both writers see only the purity of sex, just as integral a part of nature as death, eating, or sleeping. Giono sees the beauty of the love gestures of women.

Je savais par intuition que ses gestes étaient beaux et naturels et que, rien dans ces gestes n'étaient défendu, que toute la rondeur du monde, depuis mes pieds jusqu'aux étoiles, tout le monde, tous ces fruits de lunes et de soleils étaient portés dans les rameaux des bras noués, des bouches jointes et des ventres assemblés. Je comprenais toute la beauté simple de ça, et que c'était juste, et que c'était bon.¹¹

Julia, the strong healthy farm wife, deprived too long of her soldier-husband, had illicit relations with a deserting soldier. In spite of her love for her husband she succumbed to the normal ways of nature. We feel however, that the author regards her action as innocent. The fault lies in the unjust social order which had separated man and wife. Whitman, especially in Song of Myself, From Pent-up Aching Rivers, and Spontaneous Me, repeatedly celebrates the sexual act, seeing it as a part of the natural order. As he says, “Whatever will be, will be well—for whatever is, is well.”¹²

Urge, and urge, and urge,
Always the procreant urge of the world.
Out of the dimness opposite equals advance—
Always substance and increase, always sex;
Always a knit of identity—always distinction—
Always a breed of life.(13)

In the same poem he sings:

Blind, loving, wrestling touch! …
Did it make you ache so leaving me?
Parting, track'd by arriving—perpetual payment of perpetual loan;
Rich, showering rain, and recompense richer afterward.(14)

“Copulation is no more rank to me than death is,” he says.¹⁵ These examples are significant when compared to Giono's words: “Si l'on a l'humilité de faire appel à l'instinct, à l'élémentaire, il y a dans la sensualité une sorte d'allégresse cosmique.”¹⁶

Both poets chant the love of the outdoors, but it seems certain that both received this love through intimate contact with outdoor life. Giono explains how his father provided for this part of his rearing. Moreover, as various critics point out,¹⁷ Giono's withdrawal into the world of nature may be a revolt and retreat from the confusion of today's society, and a means of protecting the work of art. Consequently, although their works are full of this love of the outdoors, there is little reason to seek in it an influence of Whitman. However, neither writer is content with the mere love of the outward beauty of nature. They see nature as an organic whole, of which all that exists, man, animals, plants, the earth, is an exterior manifestation. Whitman symbolizes this conception as the ocean in Elemental Drifts. In “Aux sources mêmes de l'espérance” Giono speaks of the life of granite, a life whose pulsations are the same as those of plants and animals, differing only in tempo. For both writers this greater whole is a vital force that animates all living things: Whitman calls it the soul; Giono, life, or Pan. The American poet chants:

I swear I think now that everything without exception has an eternal Soul!
The trees have, rooted in the ground! the weeds of the sea have! the animals!(18)

In Colline, the first of Giono's longer works, the “Hill” symbolizes all nature. Jaume says, after hearing old Janet talk of this mysterious, universal life: “Là, où avant, je voyais un arbre, une colline, … il y avait toujours un arbre, une colline, mais je voyais, au travers, leur âme terrible.”¹⁹ Gondran, too, became aware of this life-force, and it frightened him: “… si c'était une créature (the world) vivante, un corps?”²⁰ In Le Serpent d'étoiles, the author speaks in his own name, and more precisely.

On était là … dans cette grande saumure de la vie totale, aux sources mêmes de la vérité dans cette épaisse boue de vie qu'est le mélange des hommes, des bêtes, des arbres et de la pierre. Sous la paume de ma main je sentais battre les pulsations lentes du granit, j'entendais les charrois des ruisseaux de sève …²¹

Man is merely another manifestation of this greater unity: soul, or life-force. Consequently, there is no essential difference between man and animals, between man and plants. This is the meaning of Whitman's verses:

The sharp hoof'd moose of the north, the cat on the house-sill, the chickadee, the prairie dog, …
The brood of the turkey hen, and she with her half spread wings;
I see in them and myself the same old law.(22)

Grenier quotes Giono as having said, while he was looking at the photograph of a woman's torso and a photograph of stars at the same time:

Entre l'univers et l'individu s'opérait la symbiose: la condition humaine est la condition universelle … entre l'étoile la plus lointaine et moi, pas d'intermédiaire.(23)

So far, Whitman's expression is the more precise. However, Giono's works are pervaded by this idea, and the following quotations from Whitman and Giono are strikingly similar:

I find I incorporate gneiss, coal, long-threaded moss, fruits, grains, esculent roots,
And am stucco'd with quadrupeds and birds all over,
And have distanced what is behind me for good reasons,
And call anything close again, when I desire it.(24)

La vie m'ensevelissait si profondément au milieu d'elle, sans mort ni pitié que parfois, pareil au dieu je sentais ma tête, mes cheveux, mes yeux remplis d'oiseaux, mes bras lourds de branches, ma poitrine gonflée de chèvres, de chevaux, de taureaux, mes pieds trainant des racines et la terreur des premiers hommes me hérissait comme un soleil.²⁵

Whitman believes that we should endeavor to approach closer to nature, to her pulsating mystery. Each person has, he says, the power of bringing about this cosmic communion.²⁶ All are components of this unity; hence none is barred. A certain similarity between the expressions of this idea may be seen in the following quotations from Whitman's prose works and from Giono.

… Perhaps the inner never lost rapport we hold with earth, light, air, trees, etc., is not to be realized through eyes and mind only, but through the whole corporeal body, which I will not have blinded or bandaged any more than the eyes.²⁷

Giono makes Clara, the blind wife of Antonio, say:

Toutes les choses du monde arrivent à des endroits de mon corps—elle toucha ses cuisses, ses seins, son cou, ses joues … c'est attaché à moi par de petites ficelles tremblantes.²⁸

Whitman feels that man and the universe are complementary, that they are made for each other.

Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me;
Afar down I see the huge first Nothing—I know I was even there;
I waited unseen and always, and slept through the lethargic mist …
Immense have been the preparations for me …(29)

Giono does not follow Whitman closely in this idea, but there is in one place a somewhat similar expression:

Maintenant, je comprends pourquoi nous sommes le sel de la terre. Les grands champs immobiles ne peuvent pas exprimer tout seuls leurs intentions profondes: ils soufflent silencieusement une écume de végétaux. L'extraordinaire de notre condition d'homme n'est pas cette intelligence que nous nous sommes composée. … L'extraordinaire est notre puissance de mélange, cette partie divine de nous-même, toujours insoumise, et qui fait de nous l'expression du monde.³⁰

Since the body is the material manifestation of the soul, the incorporation of a fragment of the sea of life, since we are given the body, both writers feel that we must make the best of it, and that it is not inferior to the soul. How could it be, since it is merely another aspect.

Il est facile d'acquérir une joie intérieure en se privant de son corps. Je crois plus honnête de rechercher une joie totale, en tenant compte de ce corps, puisque nous l'avons … puisque c'est lui qui supporte notre vie. …”³¹

Whitman wrote:

I have said that the soul is not more than the body,
And I have said that the body is not more than the soul;(32)

All of Giono's works sing the purity of the body, when in a natural, simple life. We have already seen this idea expressed in regard to sexual relations. A further similarity lies in the importance accorded to descriptions, or praise of the naked human body, especially the male figure, by both writers.³³

In this life of the body, both find animals worthy examples for men. Animals live in complete harmony with the rhythm and laws of the universe, and in this they are superior to men. Both writers admire their simplicity, the natural way in which sexual functions are accomplished; both feel ashamed of humanity, at times. Giono once calls men, “les animaux inférieurs.”³⁴ This feeling is expressed in Giono's works by the importance he accords to animals, his loving and sympathetic attitude towards them. In Un de Baumugnes, the narrator reflects about Albin and Angèle, on their way to Baumugnes to set up a home.

La vie était devant eux parce qu'ils s'aimaient et surtout parce qu'ils s'aimaient comme des gens libres. Vous me direz: “Comme des bêtes”; et puis après?

J'y ai bien réfléchi, à ça: Baumugnes, c'était un endroit où on avait refoulé des hommes hors de la société. On les avait chassés; ils étaient devenus sauvages avec la pureté et la simplicité des bêtes. Ils n'étaient pas compliqués: ils étaient sains, ils étaient justes. …³⁵

One of Whitman's expressions is very similar.

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self contain'd;
They do not sweat and whine about their condition;
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins;
Not one is dissatisfied—not one is demented with the mania of owning things;(36)

In his own name, Giono says:

Une fois, j'avais regardé un serpent de très près. Je n'ai jamais eu peur des serpents. Je les aime comme j'aime les belettes, les fouines, les perdreaux, les hases, les petits lapins, tout ce qui n'a pas la hantise de la mort et l'hypocrisie de l'amour”³⁷

Notice how this compares with the following lines from Whitman:

The continence of vegetables, birds, animals,
The consequent meanness of me should I skulk or find myself indecent, while birds and animals never once skulk or find themselves indecent;(38)

Both poets are deeply immersed in the contemplation of the material universe, and both, instead of pessimism, find reasons for optimism in it. Particularly noticeable is the similarity of their attitude towards death. Giono's follows that of Whitman so closely, in reasoning and expression, that it is impossible not to conclude that the older poet influenced the younger man. Although Whitman is overweeningly concerned with himself, and although Giono says: “Je ne veux me sacrifier qu'à mon bonheur et au bonheur des autres,”³⁹ both men look upon death without fear, and indeed, deny its veritable existence. Giono explains death in the same way as Whitman:

Où est la place de votre mort? Moi, je vois une goutte d'eau tomber du nuage, bue par la terre, sucée par les racines, montant dans le tronc de l'arbre, suée par les feuilles, emportée en vapeur par le vent, haussée par la chaleur et, de nouveau, lancée dans la roue par le froid. Rien ne peut sortir de la roue. Où est dans tout ça la place de votre mort, quand il est sûr que le monde s'écroulerait de fond en fond, si le plus petit parasite du plus petit microbe pouvait mourir.⁴⁰

In Song of Myself Whitman sings:

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?
They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death;
And if ever there was, it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,
And ceas'd the moment life appear'd.
All goes onward and outward—nothing collapses;(41)

How could death be destruction? Nature must keep a balance, say both writers.

… la terre entière, l'air entier, les océans entiers grouillent de morts autant que de vie. A chaque seconde se dépense autant d'énergies mortelles que vivantes.

Croyez-vous que la nature, reine de l'équilibre, serait tant dépensière, si la mort était vraiment une destruction?⁴²

Before him Whitman had written:

Not a day passes—not a minute or second, without an accouchement!
Not a day passes—not a minute or second, without a corpse!
The living look upon the corpse with their eye sight,
But without eye sight lingers a different living, and looks curiously on the corpse.(43)

The last lines recall the belief of both poets that death is a transformation rather than a destruction. “Elle est un passage. Elle est une force de transformation comme la force qui hausse, abaisse et balance les vagues de la mer.”⁴⁴ For both writers, death is a sort of mysticism in which are mingled notions of Christianity and Science; the principle of immortality held by them is that of the persistence, through time and space, of forms of evolution.⁴⁵

And as to you, Corpse, I think you are good manure—but that does not offend me;
I smell the white roses sweet-scented and growing,
I reach to the leafy lips—I reach to the polish'd breasts of melons.
And as to you, Life, I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths;(46)

To this may be compared the quotation from Giono, taken from the unpublished ending of Que ma joie demeure. Bobi had been killed by lightning on the mountain side.

A côté, dans la terre, les liquides de Bobi mouillent les racines d'une sarriette, d'un serpolet et les derniers restes vivants d'un morceau de racine de genêt arraché. Déjà des sucs plus riches montent dans les petites tiges. Préparations des feuilles, des fleurs. Le morceau de racine reprend vie.⁴⁷

However, both are more concerned with the living, with bringing help, love, and joy to the living. They are characterized by a deeply human sympathy which causes them to identify themselves with their fellow men. One expression of this identity is curiously similar. In the Carol of Occupations Whitman says:

If you stand at work in a shop, I stand as nigh as the nighest in the same shop;
If you bestow gifts on your brother or dearest friend, I demand as good as your brother or dearest friend;
If your lover, husband, wife, is welcome by day or night, I must be personally as welcome;
If you become degraded, criminal, ill, then I become so for your sake;
If you remember your foolish and outlaw'd deeds, do you think I cannot remember my own foolish and outlaw'd deeds?
If you carouse at the table, I carouse at the opposite side of the table;(48)

Giono, watching people on their way to their daily work, wrote:

Tous ceux qui passent dans la rue du Dragon de sept heures du matin à neuf heures, je les suis dans leur voyage et je ne les abandonne jamais. Maintenant je pense à eux. Je suis le camarade à côté d'eux. Je suis le compagnon qui ouvre la porte, entre et m'asseois à côté de celui qui est assis et qui travaille. Debout à côté de celui qui est debout. Courbé à côté de celui qui est courbé … je suis le compagnon qui a travaillé comme toi, avec les mêmes gestes et le même désespoir, et le même vide, et la même mort dans ma chair. Le patron ne me voit pas. …⁴⁹

It is true that some of these ideas are current among various writers, and may have come in part from them, or they may be part of the times. Such, for example, is the celebration of Life, which may be found throughout Romain Rolland's Jean-Christophe, and in Georges Duhamel's Chronique des Pasquier.⁵⁰ The celebration of creation, physical or spiritual, is also found in these works, but the similarity between the expressions of this idea by Whitman and Giono seems to point to a direct influence. As we have endeavored to point out, certain ideas are important in the works of both men. Such are their ideas concerning life and the place of death and creation in the process of life; the interior unity of all existing things; the relations between man, animals, and the less conscious world; the need for close communion between man and nature. These ideas exist in various forms throughout their writings, and we have found expressions so similar that they cannot fail to suggest some influence of the older poet. In the case of the expression of the identity of the poet with humanity, of their attitude towards death, and towards animals, the similarity is still greater. These comparisons seem to point rather conclusively to the importance of the American poet in the writings of Jean Giono. However, it is a selective influence, and Giono appears to have been particularly attracted by those ideas in Whitman's poetry which were congenial to his temperament, his character, his surroundings in Provence, and his experience with men and society, especially during and after the World War.

Notes

1. See F. Baldensperger, “Walt Whitman in France”, Columbia University Quarterly, 21 (1919), 298-309, and P. M. Jones, “Whitman in France”, Modern Language Review, X (1915), 1-27.

2. Colline, Paris; Grasset, 1928; Un de Baumugnes, Paris: Grasset, 1929; Regain, Paris: Grasset, 1930.

3. Paris: Grasset, 1930, 18. The italic are Giono's.

4. Emile-Paul Frères, 1930.

5. Grasset, 1933.

6. Les vraies richesses, Paris: Grasset, 1936, III.

7. Canto 13.

8. Refus d'obéissance, Paris: Gallimard, 1937, 14 and 15.

9. 202.

10. From Pent-up Aching Rivers, lines 5-6.

11. Jean le Bleu, Paris: Grasset, 1932, 168.

12. To Think of Time, Canto 6.

13. Song of Myself, Canto 3.

14. Ibid., canto 29.

15. Ibid., canto 24.

16. Jean le Bleu, 168; cf. also Song of Myself, canto 7, line 15.

17. See Wladimir Weidlé, “20 ans après”, Nouvelles Littéraires, November 12, 1938; A. Rousseaux, Littérature du XX^e siècle, Paris: Albin Michel, 1938, I, 198-199; Jean Grenier, “Réflexions sur la pauvreté et la paix”, Nouvelle Revue Française, July 1, 1939, 116-121.

18. To Think of Time, Canto 11; cf. also Starting from Paumanok, Canto 13.

19. 178-180.

20. Colline, 52-54. Similarly it frightened Whitman, when he thought of the earth's great power of turning the leavings of man and animals into clean and beautiful plants; see The Compost, in Leaves of Grass.

21. P. 26; cf. also Jean le bleu, 172.

22. Song of Myself, canto 14.

23. Op. cit., 117.

24. Song of Myself, canto 31; see also Mornet, “Introduction à l'étude des écrivains français d'aujourd'hui”, Revue des Cours et Conférences, 39 part I (1937-1938), 560.

25. Les vraies richesses, IV; cf. also Le Serpent d'étoiles, 63.

26. See H. B. Reed, “Heraclitan obsessions of Walt Whitman”, The Personalist, 15 (1934), 125-138; and Song of Myself, canto 21.

27. Specimen Days, “A Sun-bath—Nakedness”, Complete Prose Works, Philadelphia, 1892, 104. To both writers this inner relation to nature is the real truth. See Song of Myself, canto 14.

28. Le Chant du monde, Paris: Gallimard, 1934, 301. Cf. also Les vraies richesses, 14, where he compares man linked to nature to Gulliver, linked by the Lilliputians. Man's lesson, he says, consists in learning this.

29. Song of Myself, canto 44. Cf. also I Sing the Body Electric, 7.

30. Les vraies richesses, 75.

31. Les vraies richesses, IV.

32. Song of Myself, canto 48; cf. also canto 24.

33. Especially the description of Antonio in Le Chant du monde, of Panturle in Regain, of Albin in Un de Baumugnes. It is particularly frequent in Song of Myself.

34. “Ravins dans la montagne”, Revue Bleue: Revue Politique et Littéraire, 72 (Sept. 1, 1934), 681-687.

35. 203-204. Cf. also “Ravins dans la montagne”.

36. Song of Myself, canto 32.

37. Jean le bleu, 141-142. See also “Au pays des coupeurs d'arbres”, in the volume Solitude de la pitié, Paris: Gallimard, 1932.

38. Spontaneous Me; cf. also To Think of Time, canto 10.

39. Refus d'obéissance, 19-20.

40. “Aux sources mêmes de l'espérance”, Revue Bleue: Revue Politique et Littéraire, 75 (1937), 217-225. Cf. also Que ma joie demeure, Grasset, 1935, 75, “La mort n'existe pas. …”

41. Canto 6.

42. “Aux sources mêmes de l'espérance”, 222.

43. To Think of Time, canto 2.

44. “Aux sources mêmes de l'espérance”, 222.

45. See Jean Catel, Walt Whitman: La naissance du poète, Paris: Rieder, 1929.

46. Song of Myself, canto 49; cf. also canto 52.

47. Les vraies richesses, Appendice à la préface, X.

48. Canto 2.

49. Les vraies richesses, 6-7.

50. See Pierre Moreau, “L'obsession de la vie dans la littérature moderne”, Revue des Cours et Conférences, 40, parts I and II (1938-1939).