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In an interview with Mathilde Vischer (Grignan, 2000), Philippe Jaccottet called translating the experience of place into poetry and prose an ‘adventure’. It is an adventure that he has undertaken ever since La Promenade sous les arbres, one of the first books he wrote in the countryside of the Provençal Drôme, where he has lived and worked for fifty years. He explains that in his writing he tries to define, in words, moments that he has experienced as small epiphanies: “often very modest ones but which seemed to me to contain a kind of essential truth”; adding, with characteristic modesty, that he keeps realizing that what he is trying to do is extremely difficult. The word epiphany might suggest a religious view of the world. He may see a hand or hear a voice; or feel a breath emanating from a cherry tree or a flock of sheep. But these epiphanies have more the original Greek meaning of “manifestation,” a “becoming evident.” Jaccottet discerns and reveals an immanent, not a transcendental, beauty and significance in the world around him.

   This questing and striving to understand and convey the phenomena of the natural world is particularly evident in Jaccottet’s prose pieces. Poems may be to a certain extent “given” but prose allows a greater reflectiveness; the prose piece ‘Rising by Degrees’ from Cahier de verdure (Gallimard, 1990) is a good example of such writing. He often ponders, and attempts to understand, the significance of a natural event, in this case the phenomenon of the rising skylarks on the Lance mountain, and to share with his readers the sense of wonder and the intensity of emotion it inspires.

   Another such text, also contained in Cahier de verdure, is ‘Apparence des fleurs’. There the writer tries to come to terms with the degeneration and impending death of an old friend. In the naming of the flowers, in reflecting on their significance in relation to other writers and in Greek mythology, as well as on their personal associations, he almost convinces himself that they are in some way an answer, by their very existence, to his despair. The manner of describing, the exactness of the writing, is one way, and perhaps the only way, for him to combat the awfulness and inevitability of death. And to the question whether it is legitimate to accord so much importance to a flower or a field, Philippe Jaccottet answers that he needs to make their significance apparent in order to counter the threat of meaninglessness and nihilism.

   I made an unsuccessful attempt to translate that text; unsuccessful,
for one thing, because the linguistic associations Jaccottet derives from the names of the flowers and birds in French are extraordinarily difficult to render into English. The word berce (cow-parsley) was a stumblingblock, because of its association in French with the word meaning ‘cradle’( had the poet connected the flower with its other name, patte d’ours, the translation might have been easier!) Likewise the word for a bluetit, mésange, which contains within it the word for an angel (ange). Jaccottet’s expertise in identifying flowers, birds and trees is unusual among French writers, less so perhaps amongst Swiss, which he is, of course, by birth. And as someone who has occasionally accompanied him on his “promenades sans but”, his wanderings in the Provençal countryside, I know at first hand how detailed and close that knowledge is.

   Many writers return to and are inspired by the country of their childhood. Not so Philippe Jaccottet. Grignan is “le lieu avant tous les autres”, the place where, as he says, his eyes were first opened. The nature he describes is therefore that of this region in particular, a
countryside rich in spring flowers, summer lavender, autumn vines, where the changing seasons can be unbearably hot or bitterly cold. It is also a country where, for all the cultivation, much land and many stone farmhouses have been abandoned. Such lost places have a quite peculiar appeal.

   Philippe Jaccottet has never, in his poetry, involved himself in
political, social or other contemporary matters, a fact commented upon, sometimes disapprovingly, by many critics. (This subject is fully discussed in Hervé Ferrage’s study, Philippe Jaccottet: le pari de l’inactuel.) Jaccottet averts his poetic gaze from the nuclear power station just across the mountains, or from the chicken battery on the other side of the river. But there is an undeniable saying yea to life, a kind of assertiveness in his writing; a quiet affirmation of the things which he believes to be important and which we must not let go of. He knows as well as anyone what threatens any humane existence nowadays; and if he does not name and engage with these ills, he nonetheless, by his writing, intrinsically opposes them.

   Reading his poems and prose pieces you have the glad feeling that
the phenomena he describes are eternal, whether it is the colour of an orchard in Le Cerisier (The Cherry Tree) or the singing of skylarks in Sur les degrés montants. His task he sees as translating those natural manifestations into words in the purest possible way: “Il y a pour chaque expérience à décrire des mots qui sont plus vrais que d’autres.” (“For every experience to be described there are words which are more true than others.”) Jaccottet seeks constantly in his writing to find the most truthful expression for his apprehension of the world.