In Exile
While in the USA, Wahl with Gustave Cohen and backed by the Rockefeller Foundation founded a 'university in exile', the École Libre des Hautes Études, in New York. Later, at Mount Holyoke where he had a position, he set up the Décades de Mount Holyoke, also known as Pontigny-en-Amérique, modelled on meetings run from 1910 to 1939 by Paul Desjardins at the site of the Cistercian abbey of Pontigny in Burgundy. These successfully gathered together French intellectuals in wartime exile, ostensibly studying the English language, with Americans including Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens and Roger Sessions. Wahl, already a published poet, made translations of poems of Stevens into French.
Read more about this topic: Jean Wahl
Famous quotes containing the word exile:
“The exile is a singular, whereas refugees tend to be thought of in the mass. Armenian refugees, Jewish refugees, refugees from Franco Spain. But a political leader or artistic figure is an exile. Thomas Mann yesterday, Theodorakis today. Exile is the noble and dignified term, while a refugee is more hapless.... What is implied in these nuances of social standing is the respect we pay to choice. The exile appears to have made a decision, while the refugee is the very image of helplessness.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“Ha, banishment? Be merciful, say “death”;
For exile hath more terror in his look,
Much more than death. Do not say “banishment!””
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)