Studies in Modern French Poetry

Catalog description

How does one approach the modern poetic text which ever since the Mallarmean "crise de vers" appears to have cut loose from all referential anchoring and traditional markers (prosody, versification, etc.)? This course will present an array of possible methodological answers to this question, focusing on poetic forms and manifestations of brevity and fragmentation. In addition to being submitted to precise formal and textual inquiries, each text or work will be the point of departure for the analysis of a specific theoretical issue and/or an original practice - e.g., genetic criticism, translation theory, the poetic "diary", aphoristic modes of writing, quoting and rewriting practices, etc. Texts by key modern poets (Ponge, Chazal, Du Bouchet, Jourdan, Jabes, Michaux).