• Liberté by Paul Éluard: Poem Print, "I Write Your Name", framed poster in an elegant interior, dried grasses and a rattan cha
  • Liberté by Paul Éluard: Poem Print, "I Write Your Name", poster in an oak frame leaning on a textured wall
  • Liberté by Paul Éluard: Poem Print, "I Write Your Name", framed poster standing on the floor, light wood frame
  • Liberté by Paul Éluard: Poem Print, "I Write Your Name", framed poster on a beige wall, window shadows
  • Liberté by Paul Éluard: Poem Print, "I Write Your Name", framed poster above a stack of books
  • Liberté by Paul Éluard: Poem Print, "I Write Your Name", framed poster in a Parisian Haussmann living room
  • Liberté by Paul Éluard: Poem Print, "I Write Your Name", framed poster on a beige wall, pampas grass in the foreground
  • Liberté by Paul Éluard: Poem Print, "I Write Your Name", framed poster on a light wall
  • Liberté by Paul Éluard: Poem Print, "I Write Your Name", the print alone, thick matte eco-friendly paper
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Liberté by Paul Éluard: Poem Print, "I Write Your Name"

Liberté by Paul Éluard: Poem Print, "I Write Your Name"

€35,00 EUR
€35,00 EUR
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  • Designed in France
  • 100% eco-friendly paper
  • Delivery in 5 business days.

"Et par le pouvoir d'un mot / Je recommence ma vie / Je suis né pour te connaître / Pour te nommer // Liberté." And by the power of a word I start my life again. The last stanza of Paul Éluard's poem, set like a page from a book.

What is Paul Éluard's poem Liberté about?

Liberté is a litany of 21 quatrains. Twenty times the poet lists the places where he writes a name, "on my school notebooks", "on the sand on the snow", and each stanza closes on the same line: "J'écris ton nom", I write your name. The last stanza finally reveals the name: Liberty. That is the stanza this print reproduces, in the original French.

When did Paul Éluard write Liberté?

In 1942, under the German occupation of France. The poem appeared in the clandestine collection Poésie et vérité 1942, published by the surrealist group La Main à plume. Reprinted in London by the review La France libre, thousands of copies were dropped over France by Royal Air Force planes.

Who was the poem first written for?

Éluard told the story himself: he meant to end on the name of the woman he loved, then realized the only word in his mind was "Liberté". A love poem became the poem of the French Resistance, and one of the most memorized texts in France.

How is this print designed?

Like a page from a book: cream paper, a double rule, "Édition Heure d'été" at the top, the stanza in the center and its source at the bottom. The text is typeset as vector art, crisp at every size.

Where should you hang it?

Above a desk, in an entryway, a library or a teenager's room. It is a gift for a French teacher, an Éluard reader, a new graduate, or anyone starting over: "I start my life again".

Details

  • 12x16, 16x20 or 20x28 in (30x40, 40x50 or 50x70 cm), frame not included
  • Thick matte eco-friendly paper, 170 gsm, FSC certified
  • Print medium: art print on matte paper
  • Theme: poetry, Paul Éluard, French Resistance
  • Printed and shipped from a studio near you: most orders arrive in 5 business days.

When to give this print

"And by the power of a word I start my life again." This print is a gift for a fresh start : a graduation, a first home, a move, a birth or a birthday. It is also an end-of-year gift for a French or history teacher, and a Christmas gift for an Éluard reader.

Posters sold individually

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We choose standard formats that are easy to frame!

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Close-up of the grain of our thick eco-friendly matte 170 gsm paper

Heure d'été Editions

Beautiful words deserve beautiful paper

These verses are set to be hung: a chosen typeface, measured margins, white space worked around the text. The paper, an uncoated matte 170 gsm, stays slightly fibrous: it reads like the page of a book.

There is a quiet pleasure in living with French literature in the original. The poem keeps the language it was written in, and with it the sound the writer chose, which no translation quite carries over. On an English-speaking wall it stops being decoration and becomes something with a little cachet: a piece of France you can read on your way past, every morning. It earns the large format. At 50x70 cm the text is read from across the room, and the page holds a wall the way a painting does.

  • Matte paper, 170 gsm
  • Eco-friendly, FSC certified
  • Printed close to you

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  • Exclusive creations, curated art

    Exclusive creations, curated art

    Our illustrations are created in our studio and found nowhere else. The poems and masterpieces are hand-picked, one by one: a curated collection, not a catalogue.

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