Inspired by Antiquity, Pierre de Coubertin believed it was essential to associate writers and artists with sporting events. The poet Louis Chevaillier recounts these failed Olympics.
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Exactly one hundred years ago, a certain Géo-Charles won a gold medal at the Paris Olympic Games. Cycling? Swimming ? Athletics ? Nothing of that. The young Frenchman comes first in literature. His work Olympic Games, a play mixing dance, poetry and music, won over a jury made up of great literary figures. A quick quarter of an hour of glory before sinking, like many other winners in the discipline, into oblivion.
The test The Literature Olympics, published by Editions Grasset on March 13, traces the history of the artistic Olympics which accompanied the Summer Games from 1912 to 1948. Created at the will of Pierre de Coubertin, these events never met with success.
Coubertin’s failure
Pierre de Coubertin, who revived the Olympic Games ten years earlier, intended to revive the ancient spirit. In 1906, the baron affirmed his desire to organize events in literature, painting, architecture, sculpture and music in order to hold Olympics “more than just world championships”. The works presented must therefore highlight sport and praise athletes.
Low number of participants, mediocre productions, medals not awarded or awarded for reasons less noble than the quality of the work… Launched at Stockholm in 1912, these new tests ended in a first failure. In 1920, in Antwerp, the pattern repeated itself.
While the Games were organized in Paris in 1924, Pierre de Coubertin hoped for real enthusiasm around the artistic events. It brings together a prestigious jury on which Paul Claudel, Paul Valéry and Anna de Noailles sit. But the quality of the jury does not equal that of the competitors. With precision and humor, Louis Chevaillier delves into the archives of these Olympics and makes accounting notebooks with extracts from the works in competition, the story of a failure.
An Olympic panorama
By retracing the brief journey of the Cultural Olympics, Louis Chevaillier offers a transversal look at the history of the Games. Each chapter addresses a different sport and returns to the great figures of the time. A French boxer who bites a British man, a swimmer who became an underwear model… Casting for Tarzan (a certain Johnny Weissmuller) to ancient tests (including a flute competition), the essay is also crossed by delightful anecdotes.
Alongside these cheerful remarks, Louis Chevaillier makes a point of evoking the racist and misogynistic foundations of the modern Olympic Games. It reports on the virilist ideology of Pierre de Coubertin and highlights various events, notably women’s sports tournaments, treated with disdain, and games established by workers’ unions, which were born in opposition to the official Olympic Games.
The author also implicitly addresses the organizational problems and conflicts surrounding the Parisian edition of 1924. “Change the names and dates and it will seem like you’re reading The Parisian this morning on the Olympic Games in Saint-Denis”, writes Louis Chevaillier. A taste of 2024? Perhaps, but first place in literature, never having been sparkling, is now unattainable.
“The Olympic Games of Literature” by Louis Chevaillier (Grasset, 266 pages, 20 euros).
Extract : “This forgotten poet was the winner of the literature competition with his play Olympic Games. Have the controversies surrounding paradise in the shadow of swords tired the jurors? Did they want to reward a less celebrated book, not yet published? To Montherlant’s warlike dissertations, they preferred an apology for peace; to its claimed classicism, an art of the image heir to the symbolists: the Cocteau vein, this other great source of inspiration of the inter-war generation.
This French victory was added to the thirteen gold medals won by the French in cycling, fencing, weightlifting… France did not win any other artistic event. No titles were awarded in architecture and music. Alongside the Greek Dimitriadis in sculpture, a Luxembourg artist, Jean Jacoby, won the painting competition.” (“The Literature Olympics”, pages 220-221)