PAUL CLAUDEI: The Man and the Mystic

This is an interesting, but by no means inspired, life of Paul Claudel, that curious figure who was a poet and a diplomat, and a curious mixture of hard-headed peasant and old, pre-revolutionary aristerial. It is perhaps the religious element which was the basic and integrating which held his life together. Brought up in the supra-ratio-unlist school of the Claudel was one of the first to react violently against Renan. At deep religious conversion, mystical in Roman Catholicism for which he is best known. At one time he wanted to center the priest, but his superiors, sensing his not inconsiderable four or five major countries and his verse had propaganda value) would not permit it. ""Claudel was a mystic and a realist, both feudal and problem. He was royal and papal."" He is best known and probably will be long although his American audience is somewhat limited and unfamiliar with his other work,- poetry, plays, essays, nesthetics.