Anjela
Duval,
A
Breton peasant-writer[i]
The
struggles
I
have always been faithful to my motto :
I do battle on every front[ii].
Life struggles
As Anjela
Duval writes in her poetry, farming is a never ending struggle. Her first fight
has always been the struggle against the elements. Alone on her farm, she
worked as hard as any man, with less physical strength and suffering from poor
health. She had no tractor, only a horse with which
to cultivate[iii]. Many of
her urban readers had, and still
have, no idea how demanding farming
can be. Peasant life is arduous, and most visitors to her farm did not
understand that taking some of her precious time made her life even more
difficult. When in addition to this they occasionally made fun of her
"brother peasants", her anger would overflow…
Out!
Yes out,
you!
I do not
want
I will
never tolerate
Hearing
insulted in my own house
My
hardworking Brothers
Servants of
the Soil
Sacred Soil
of my Country
Our Country.
Our Mother-Country!
My
Brothers. Peasants[iv].
Working the
earth was not her only daily struggle though : from a very early age she
had to fight to survive. A serious illness of the bones, which she developed at
the age of six, made it impossible for her to attend school before the age of
eight. For the rest of her life her health was unstable. The theme of sickness
and suffering appears frequently throughout her writings, particularly during
her later years when her health was declining and when her hardship worsened.
She also had to fight against herself.
A.
The
struggle against oneself
Remaining
alone to take care of her farm in Traoñ-an-Dour was Anjela Duval's own choice.
As a young woman she had had many admirers, one of which won her heart. He was
a marine officer, who, it is said, later became a sea captain. Right before the
wedding,
the couple suddenly fell apart. What happened ? We are uncertain. It seems
that the young seaman suggested that they set up a commerce together, but that
she refused to leave her farm. Thus, they separated.
In a corner
of my heart there's a scar
That I have
borne since I was young
For alas,
the one I cared for
Didn't love
what I loved
He only
loved cities
Distant
countries, deep seas
And I only
loved the fields
The fair fields
of my Brittany[v]
The scar of
this sentimental disappointment remained in Duval's heart during her entire
life. While she adored nature and lived in harmony with all that surrounded
her, when left alone after her parents' death, she sometimes felt a strong
feeling of melancholy.
Alone on
the earth, alone in a cruel World
I am about
to faint, overcome with grief[vi]
Her sadness
and regret were particularly pronounced during the fifties. Later, writing
helped her to overcome them. However, even after she began writing, Duval
sometimes failed in her struggle against such ills. But she hid this well…
One should
not load such burdens
On the
shoulders of the young.
When an old
person can
Carry them
himself.
One should
smile at their smile
Even when
tormented by the sharpest pain
One should
nurture their hope
In a Future
that will be theirs
And that
will redeem centuries of shame[vii]
Duval spent her life in poverty. It is not
that her farming activities did not permit her to live otherwise, but it
appears that such was her choice. This is difficult to comprehend. She said
that she did not want to change anything on the farm for fear of chasing away
the spirit of her dead parents. This she certainly believed, but there is also
reason to believe that her poverty was also a spiritual choice. She translated
a poem by the Catalan poet Ramon Soley Ceto entitled "The poor home",
in which the author praises the "spirit of poverty" and in which a
man asks a woman to marry him "if she appreciates the immense value of
poverty". Perhaps this is a reminder of Duval's lost love. Did she not
choose to translate this poem because she herself was moved by the "spirit
of poverty[viii]" ?
She deliberately chose to live as a hermit and held fast to her choices. In
this sense her life is exemplary. Who indeed is brave enough to take their
dreams to their limit ? And who, in today's consumer society, would be
capable of deliberately choosing poverty for the entire length of their
life ? To a certain extent Duval was ahead of her time. Choosing to live
alone and to become the master of one's destiny was not, and still is not, an
easy path for a woman, especially one living in the country. Obviously she was
not a mild person. This is also apparent in her political stands.
The passionate militant
As we have
said, self-denial made Anjela Duval angry. Cowardice in general was very
distasteful to her. One senses this often in her works, in particular when she
blames the Bretons for their lack of courage regarding their country and their
language.
My compatriots
are asleep
And our
Country is drowning[ix]
Ever
faithful to her ideas, she always had the courage to say and write what she
believed, no matter what most people thought. She did not count her efforts and
did not fear malicious gossip. Neither did she withhold her temper :
Such a Fate
is ours!
There's no
more living in the Country
One must
extend one's hand to the French
And kneel
before them[x]
She never
refused to help Breton political activists, even those who fought with illegal
means and who were frowned upon by the majority of Bretons. Such is the case in
the following writing, in which she expresses her support for the accused
members of Brittany's National Liberation Front ;
In front of
the Judge of the Masters
Lambs
before the wolves-
Twenty-five
accused
Defenders
of Brittany's Honor and Life
Will be
insulted before the People
That People
with Brains addled
By School,
Radio, TV and media of the French[xi]
This
courage and generosity bring us to Duval's last lesson.
II.
The
gift of self
You
will receive as you have given to others[xii]
Writing
It seems
that already as a child Anjela Duval wanted to write. Indeed, in one of her
last school notebooks, I found a short poem dated August 9, 1920, in which she
asks God to help her become a “poetess”:
I want to become
a little poetess
This is my
heart's wish in this world.
Forty years
later her wish came true. Through her creative activity she was able to
overcome her suffering, as she herself explained. She believed that everyone
was made to love and that since she had no children or family, writing was a
means for her to express her love for others. For her, as for many others,
writing became a way to overcome the frustration of childlessness. She wrote a
lot and left many poems and texts in prose. It seems that she composed her
poems in the same manner as rural bards composed their songs : all day
long, as she was working the soil, she meditated. As soon as she had some free
time she wrote down her thoughts on any available piece of paper : an
envelope, a piece of newspaper, a flyer… I found many such bits of papers in
her archives. Many words were crossed out and replaced by others. But it was
surprising to see how beautiful even her uncorrected drafts were. She composed
her poems in her mind and not on paper. (This differs somewhat from ordinary
writing procedures today, by which writers immediately set their text on paper,
or on screen, and later modify it, without relying on their memory.) Later,
when she was satisfied with the text, Duval copied it over on a small notebook,
as modest as herself. I found about forty of these notebooks, and there may be
more in the homes of the poet's friends.
The themes
in Duval's poetry are similar to those in her life : the earth, nature,
animals, faith, prayer, love of the Breton people and the fight against
sickness are the most frequent ones. Other themes are equally important, though
less explicit. Love and a certain form of erotic mysticism have not for example
been discussed by commentators of her work. She did however write or translate
several love poems such as this one :
Bring me
that Love that tries to lose itself
In the
depths of Being and from there to ascend
Rising
invisibly along the branches of the tree of Life[xiii].
One cannot
say that she wrote openly erotic poems. Yet if one sheds a psychoanalytic light
on her work, certain texts reveal a new dimension. This is the case of "Va
barzhonegoù", in which she says that she writes poems…
But on the
bare breast of the One I love,
On the bare
skin of the country I love.
I don't
write them with a pencil stub
But with
steel tools[xiv]
Besides
this, she translated various poems which have a certain erotic overtone, such
as "Barzhoniezh Bro-Indez", in which the author writes :
I'm dying,
but I remember the joy of my first emotion
Before your
face so beautifully silhouetted graceful and pure
I remember
the trembling of my Being before the subtle Beauty
That
enveloped you like a delicate ether.
I remember
your rounded bosom so soft
Oh the
fresh enchantment of Love! In dying
I remember
this and that marvel of your beauty in bloom
Your deep
eyes resembling lotuses under dew[xv].
The desire
for children, or rather the regret of not having any, is also very present in
her work. In "Trivliad", for example, she describes the emotions she
felt upon seeing objects moving in the wind when she stood up from her work to
rest her back. She realized that they were baby diapers drying in the sun…
And now,
bent again
Over my
work,
My
eyelashes are moist
I, the old
maid[xvi]!
Later, in
"Piv ?", she wonders--as do many elderly farmers--what will
become of her farm once she is gone.
And at the
end of my time
At the end
of my strength
I sigh !
Who will
take my motto
After me ?
Who will
take my arms ?
When they have
fallen from my hands
When I have
not borne a son[xvii]…
Death is
equally present in her work. We can mention "† Tekla", in which
she speaks to her former hospital roommate in Lannion, asking her :
Where
are you Tekla ?
Where
is your soul[xviii] ?
Most
importantly, one should cite the numerous poems dedicated to her parents, to
her sister, and to activists dead for Brittany, as well as poems about the day
of the Dead, and "Va c'halon"…
My heart is
a Cemetery
In it are
countless graves.
In it
always a new grave,
Graves of
friends and relatives,
My heart is
a Cemetery[xix] !
Duval's style of writing is not uniform. Some
of her texts reveal flashes of inspiration. Others seem weaker, perhaps because
she did not take the time to work on them. Whatever the inspirational quality
of her works, all are written in admirable Breton. Duval mastered her language
perfectly. Her syntax is irreproachable; her very rich vocabulary mingles older
terms - "polished, caressed and saved from rust" - and neologisms -
"the jingle of light metal" - to express her emotions and to play
upon various sounds. The Breton language flowed from her pen energetically and
she produced numerous lively expressions. But Duval was not only a great
writer, she was also a preacher.
Preaching
In 1971,
André Voisin, a producer at ORTF[xx],
created a television series on popular storytellers. While passing through
Brittany he asked Roger Laouenan, a reporter at the Télégramme[xxi], to recommend people for him to
interview. He sent him to see a certain Louis Mercier… and of course to see
Anjela Duval with whom he was friendly. However, he worried somewhat about how
Duval would welcome the television crew and about what she might say in front
of the cameras and projectors. It is true that at first she was a little
frightened by so many people arriving in her old farm with all their equipment.
Yet, especially when the filming took place outside, she relaxed and revealed
herself. What did she say ?
Reproach of
the land deserted
Longing of
a subject People
For its
rights, its Freedom
Anger of
the young
Who were
denied their language :
Soul of a
race[xxii].
Several
times after that she wrote that if she had accepted the interview in a sense it
was in order to act as an apostle. The impact of the show was much greater than
she and Roger Laouenan had expected. Duval was an enormous success on the
evening that her interview came on the air. All of France was impressed by her
performance. The same was true in other countries that aired the show. It seems
the viewers everywhere were moved by the strength of the poet's convictions.
After years of silent meditation followed by ten years of writing, her ideas
were clear and she knew how to express them in simple terms and vivid images
that hit the spot. The lack of any discrepancy between her thoughts, her words
and her actions was no doubt obvious. After the first showing of the interview
on December 28 1971, she received thousands of letters and visitors.
Thus, like
a prophet dedicated body and soul to her sacred mission, Duval went to the end
of her task. She personally answered all the letters, one by one, even though a
friend offered to copy a form letter to be sent to all her new admirers. But
she refused. At the time, this friend did not understand. Only ten years later,
at the time of her death he realized that : "today I understand that
you wanted to accomplish your vocation, and to make known the mission that was
yours in this world…[xxiii]"
In addition
to the letters, she had a never-ending stream of visitors. All were welcomed in
accordance with the traditional rules of Breton hospitality, that is so say
almost as members of her family, with coffee, bread, butter, crepes and cakes…
She set everything she had on the table for her guests, who nonetheless were
sometimes condescending or curious to observe her as one would a circus animal.
However, in each letter and to each visitor Duval offered a message. She
preached in defense of Brittany and of her language, not like a preacher from
his pulpit, but with humor and vitality. Thanks to her work, it appears that
she had a certain influence on the evolution of Breton society. For her
visitors were very numerous and were certainly affected by her intelligence and
her sharp responses. Thus, in preaching as in other aspects of her life, Duval
went very far, to the point of sacrifice.
