February 1, 2011
Michel Briand, « « Ô mon âme, n'aspire pas à la vie immortelle … Sur les avatars de Pindare, Pythique III, 61-62, des scholiastes anciens à Saint-John Perse, Paul Valéry, Albert Camus, et à l'entour » », Rursus, ID : 10.4000/rursus.468
« Ô mon âme, n'aspire pas à la vie immortelle … About some various uses of Pindar's third Pythian Ode, 61-62, from ancient scholies to Saint-Johne Perse, Paul Valéry, Albert Camus, and around » In this study, I intend to describe the reception and interpretation of Pindar's third Pythian Ode, 61-62, from their first historical and performative context and their function in the general organisation of the ode, on the pragmatic, aesthetic, and ethical levels, to the translations by Hölderlin and Saint-John Perse and the epigraphs to Paul Valéry's Le Cimetière marin and Albert Camus's Le mythe de Sisyphe. The changing uses of these two verses help to examine various conceptions of hellenism and poetry, related to the primary subjects of human condition, between an essential joy of living and the refusal of immortality.