SUPERVIELLE, JULES

born Jan. 16, 1884, Montevideo, Uruguay died May 17, 1960, Paris, France poet, dramatist, and short-story writer of Basque descent who wrote in the French language but in the Spanish tradition. Supervielle's themes are the love of a lonely but fraternal man for the pampas and for the open spaces of his South American childhood and his nostalgia for a cosmic brotherhood of men. His poems (Gravitations, 1925; Les Amis inconnus, 1934 [The Unknown Friends]; La Fable du monde, 1938 [Fable of the World]) are sensitive, sometimes humorous, sometimes precious. In his novels Le Voleur d'enfants (1926; The Kidnapper) and L'Enfant de la haute mer (1931; The Child of the High Seas), he allies fantasy and simplicity. His plays La Belle au bois (1932; The Beauty of the Wood) and Robinson (1949) constitute an escape into a land of fantasy.