La Danse sous le Cèdre.

Klat (Hector)

La Danse sous le Cèdre.

Description: MANUSCRIPT, fair copy in author's attractive holograph, squared notebook, pp. 17, crown 8vo, original stapled self wrappers, a couple of spots front and rear, very good

Publication Details: [Alexandria,] [1931]

Notes: A long poem, dedicated to and evidently inspired by Paul Valéry, a quotation from whom is among four epigraphs used.Klat is an important author in our appreciation of early iterations of global modernism; born in Alexandria in 1888, but of Lebanese extraction, his diplomatic career returned him to the Lebanon at the beginning of the 1930s, subsequently taking him to São Paulo as the Lebanese Consul-general. Alongside the broad cultural perspective that his studies and subsequent career had fostered, the poetic imagery and themes of the francophone and francophile Klat richly evoke his homel...moreA long poem, dedicated to and evidently inspired by Paul Valéry, a quotation from whom is among four epigraphs used.Klat is an important author in our appreciation of early iterations of global modernism; born in Alexandria in 1888, but of Lebanese extraction, his diplomatic career returned him to the Lebanon at the beginning of the 1930s, subsequently taking him to São Paulo as the Lebanese Consul-general. Alongside the broad cultural perspective that his studies and subsequent career had fostered, the poetic imagery and themes of the francophone and francophile Klat richly evoke his homeland with a lyricism that is well captured by the present poem, which would go on to form a central part of his first published collection, 'Le cèdre et les lys' - and later republished with a Preface by Jean Cocteau in 'Du cèdre aux lys'.This copy was in the collection of Lady Roberts, née Celeste Leila Beatrix Shoucair, wife of diplomat Frank Roberts, and herself from a distinguished Lebanese family. HIDE