A Neo-Formalist Approach to Nineteenth-Century French Poetry

Abstract

The proposed approach is applied to a wide variety of poems by major authors from Hugo and Desbordes-Valmore to Lautréamont and Mallarmé. It does not represent a return to a 'good old days', when literary form was widely supposed to be the only legitimate topic of critical activity, to the exclusion of historicity. The theoretical overview presented in the opening section proves, in fact, that rarely, if ever, has there been such a time. The argument serves instead as a strong reminder that before students of French poetry analyse more substantive issues related to the world 'outside' texts themselves, they should first take into account their specific lexical, rhetorical, and stylistic dimensions through ever closer readings of them, to support newer varieties of critical commentary. Despite being a relatively open-ended discipline, 'cultural studies' therefore ignores or underestimates the continuing power and pertinence of textual form at its own peril.