ABSTRACT
The Swiss writer Gustave Roud has always been called a "poet," although he wrote prose almost exclusively. The publication of three of his most important books—Air de la solitude , accompanied by Pour un moissonneur and Requiem —in a single volume of the popular Gallimard Poésie paperback series calls for a re-evaluation of this at once somber-minded and illuminating author who is, today, perhaps less read than simply cited as Philippe Jaccottet's mentor. Like Jaccottet , Roud remains tantalized by brief intuitions of an "elsewhere"—a sort of invisible realm somehow paralleling reality. As the years go by, Jaccottet's letters tend to be more detailed and self-revealing than Roud's. Roud, increasingly withdraws from the literary world. Beset with metaphysical and literary qualms, he continues his solitary nocturnal walks over the hilly roads, yet his creative wellsprings begin to dry. In 1959, he confesses that he feels "cut off" from his "essential being.".
