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Edgar Allan Poe: The Truth About the Case of Mr. Valdemar (France Culture / Saturday Black). Broadcast on France Culture on June 17, 2017. Illustration by Harry Clarke (1889-1931). Published in 1919. • Credits: Harry Clarke. The story of a (false) scientific experiment, carried out on a dying subject which, not without irony, takes us deep into terror: how to express a state — death — that before, we ignore, and that after, we are unable to name? Adaptation: Hélène Frappat, based on the translation by Charles Baudelaire. A production by Michel Sidoroff. Literary advisor: Caroline Ouazana. "“The Truth Concerning the Case of Mr. Valdemar,” published in 1845 by Edgar Allan Poe, is part of a triptych dealing with the effects of magnetism, in other words hypnosis, with “Morella” and “Magnetic Revelation.” Charles Baudelaire translated it into French, like all of the “Extraordinary Stories.” It is the most fascinating short story in the collection, because it reveals its poetic art. Through this account of a (false) scientific experiment, carried out on a subject in agony, Poe radicalizes, in a way that is unique in the history of literature, the potentialities, and simultaneously the limits, of human language. How to make a dead person speak? How to say what is not? With what words to give life to nothingness? How to express a state — death — that before, we ignore, and that after, we are unable to name? “The Truth about the Case of Mr. Valdemar” therefore expresses no other truth than that of the human condition: defined by language, and stumbling against it; struggling with all its strength against the unspeakable that corrodes all experience, and all nomination: death. For a human being, and a writer, this experience “between life and death”, according to Nathalie Sarraute’s title, takes us far into the terror, but also into the irony, of the prison where man struggles, and of which only literature can push back the walls. » Hélène Frappat With: Olivier Cruveiller (Oscar Preston) Igor de Savitch (Ernest Valdemar) Jean-Luc Debattice (Samuel Fisher) Laurent Lederer (Daniel de Moine) Caroline Breton (Theodora Langdon) Sound effects: Bertrand Amiel Sound recording, editing and mixing: Jehan-Richard Dufour and Lidwine Caron Assistant director: Léa Racine Poem by Edgar Allan Poe translated by Stéphane Mallarmé, read by Olivier Cruveiller Source: France Culture #EdgarAllanPoe #LeSémaphore #LaVéritéSurLeCasDeMValdemar #Writer #Poet #American #Literature #Fantasy #ExtraordinaryStories #Science #Magnetism #Experience #Horror #Death #Translation #CharlesBaudelaire #RadioCreation #SamediNoir #FranceCulture