Jacques Prevert

Les enfants qui s'aiment

Jacques Prévert was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, near Paris, in 1900. Passionate about reading and theater since his adolescence, in 1926 he joined the artistic and literary movement of Surrealism, which valued the dream and the unconscious as fundamental aspects of production artistic. Around 1930 he embarked on theatrical activity, worked as a screenwriter and began to compose song lyrics, intended to be interpreted by famous French singers, such as Juliette Gréco and Yves Montand. His most successful works date back to the second post-war period: the verses published in his main collections (Words, 1946; Show, 1951; The rain and the good weather, 1955) deal with the everyday aspects of reality with refined lightness and with a simple and communicative style. In the last years of his life, Prévert dedicated himself to writing texts for children and making collages. He died in Omonville-la-Petite, Normandy, in 1977.

Les enfants qui s'aiment
S'embrassent debout contre les portes de la nuit
Et les passants qui passent les désignent du doigt
Mais les enfants qui s'aiment
Ne sont là pour personne
Et c'est seulement leur ombre
Qui tremble dans la nuit
Exciting the rage of passers-by
Leur rage, leur mépris
Leurs rires et leur envie
Les enfants qui s'aiment
Ne sont là pour personne
Ils sont ailleurs bien plus loin que la nuit
Bien plus haut que le jour
Dans l'éblouissante clarté
De leur premier amour

Jacques Prevert
Spectacles (1951)

Boys who love each other kiss
Standing against the doors of the night
Passers-by who pass by point their fingers at them
But the boys who love each other
I'm not there for anyone
And if something shakes in the night
It's not them but their shadow
To anger passers-by
To anger contempt envy laughter
Guys who love each other aren't there for anyone
I'm elsewhere far farther than the night
Higher than the day
In the blinding light of their first love

Jacques Prevert, Poems, Guanda, Parma, 2012, transl. en. M. Cucchi, G. Raboni

Guys who love each other kiss standing up
Against the doors of the night
And the passers-by who pass by point their fingers at them
But the boys who love each other
I'm not there for anyone
And it is only their shadow
That trembles in the night
Arousing the anger of passers-by
Their anger, their contempt, their laughter, their envy
Guys who love each other aren't there for anyone
They are elsewhere much further away than the night
Much higher than the day
In the dazzling splendor of their first love.

Jacques Prevert, Poems, Guanda, Parma, 1968, transl. en. GD Giagni

Love is one of the main themes of Prévert's poetry: a simple and spontaneous love, like that experienced by adolescents, who in kisses exchanged on any given night realize the desire to be free and happy.

Love is characterized above all as "lightness" because it is able to make lovers fly in "dazzling splendor" who, for this reason, rise high, abstract themselves from reality, become strangers to everyday life, all intent on living their dominant feeling, absorbed in thoughts and emotions to chase a dream. Their life is elsewhere, and they don't care about people's reactions to their behavior: the irony, anger and even the contempt of those who have lost their dream or have never realized it.

Jacques Prevert (1900-1977)

Poète et scénariste français, il a publié plusieurs recueils de poèmes, parmi lesquels Paroles (1947), Spectacles (1951) et La Pluie and the Beau Temps (1955).

Prévert est surtout le poète des sentiments, de l'amour. Son style est apparamment simple et il utilise la langue de tous avec ironie et spontanéité. Grâce à son écriture pleine d'humor et de tendresse, il devient la figure emblématique de la poésie populaire française.

**Analyze du poème Les enfants qui s'aiment :**

Ce poème se compose de treize vers, qui ne sont pas divisés en différentes strophes. Les vers there sont libres, puisque des les deux premiers vers le nombre de syllabe est nettement différent. On note également la almost absence of rims.

The sujet du poème est le suivant : l'amour des jeunes et la relation des amoureux avec la réalité. L'amour entre garçons et filles est léger, sans prétention, transparent. Les jeunes sont éloignés du monde, rien et personne n'existe plus autour d'eux, parce qu'ils n'appariennent plus à ce monde, mais ils s'élèvent, immergés dans la puissance de leurs sentiments.

Le poème se fonda sur le contraste entre “les enfants qui s'aiment” et “les passants” qui les montrent du doigt, car ils les envient et se moquent d'eux, mais les enfants les ignorant.