Self-Portrait In Fondane's Poetry

Abstract

The poetic work of Benjamin Fondane appears in our view as representative of the embodiment of the ambiguous relationship between the Jewish writer and Western literature. Through his works, we can retrace the course followed by the Jew-poet in the Western world. Indeed, for Benjamin Fondane, born Benjamin Wechsler, the conquest of identity was harsh: it was to be a lifetime achievement, gained through the existential experience of the man, the Jew, and the poet. Born in lassy, Moldavia, in 1898, Benjamin Wechsler chose the name of Fundoianu when he made his entry in literature. He belongs to the generation of Romanian writers like Tzara, Voronca, and Sernet who were fascinated by the prestige of French literature. A precocious writer, he left many writings in the Romanian language: poems, critical essays, chronicles, plays for the theatre, etc. As an adolescent, he was already fluent in several languages and, in addition to Romanian, he knew French, German, English, and Yiddish. In 1923, at the age of 25, he arrives in Paris. From then on, Benjamin Wechsler becomes Benjamin Fondane. It does not take him more than a few years to master perfectly the French language and to use it as his tool for poetic expression. At the age of 35, he is in fact a real French writer. In 1933, two of his works are simultaneously published: the poem Ulysse and the essay Rimbaudle voyou ("Rimbaud the Hoodlum"). He has another ten years left before dying in the gas chamber at AuschwitzBirkenau.2