Le Professeur Froeppel

by Jean Tardieu

"Le présent ouvrage rassemble tout ce que l'on sait actuellement du Professeur Froeppel : le journal de sa folie, le récit de sa mort, ses oeuvres théâtrales, scientifiques, poétiques et pédagogiques connues, mais revues corrigées et augmentées de nombreux inédits.La première découverte de ses oeuvres se situe entre 1944 et 1947. Leur première publication, aux Éditions Gallimard, date de 1951, sous le titre : Un mot pour un autre.Outre les ouvrages publiés il y a plus de trente ans, comme le Journal intime, la célèbre comédie Un mot pour un autre, Le Dictionnaire des Mots Sauvages de la Langue Française, les Petits problèmes et travaux pratiques, l'édition que voici comporte de nombreux inédits récemment retrouvés, tels que les esquisses comiques : Finissez vos phrases et De quoi s'agit-il ?, La Poésie usuelle, un essai mnémotechnique : Au chiffre des grands hommes, diverses adjonctions aux oeuvres pédagogiques, ainsi que la principale oeuvre plastique du Professeur : les Variations sur une ligne."

200 pages, Paperback

First published February 2, 1978

About the author

He earned a degree in literature and worked for a publishing house. He published several poetry collections in the 1930s before starting to write for the stage. After World War Two, Tardieu entered the world of radio and worked his way to head of dramatic programming and then director of programs at France-Music. The quality and success of French National Public Radio after World War Two has been attributed largely to Jean Tardieu.
Tardieu's works mingled with the ideals of the French New Theatre and used comedy to pick apart more traditional theatre. He is often associated with the Theatre of the Absurd.
Some of his work has been translated into English, including:
The Underground Lovers, and other experimental plays
Going...Going...Gone! The Client Dies Twice: Three Plays (Black Apollo Press, ISBN 1-900355-21-3)
The River Underground: Selected Poems & Prose
Some of his work is present in Julio Cortázar's 1963 novel Rayuela (Hopscotch). Tardieu's work is included in Chapter 152, entitled "The Abuse of Consciousness".
The French composer Germaine Tailleferre of Les Six, who was a harp student of Tardieu's mother Caroline Luigini and who first met Tardieu as a child, set several of Tardieu's poems to music notably in the "Concerto des Vaines Paroles" for Baritone Voice, Piano and Orchestra and in the cycle "Trois Poèmes de Jean Tardieu" for Voice and Piano.
He was a great friend of Jean René Bazaine who turned his poem L'Ombre, la branche into a fine illustrated art book.( Maeght Éditeur, 1977: 150 ex. with 16 colored litho's, 50 ex. with three added litho's.)