Beschreibung:
What were the roles of music and memory in the creation of a new aesthetics of poetry in French from the 1860s to the 1930s? Why did music gradually disappear from early twentieth-century poetic discourse? These are among the questions Joseph Acquisto poses in his lively study of the ways in which major figures Baudelaire and Mallarmé and neglected poets Ghil and Royère question the nature and function of the lyric.
Contents: Introduction; Baudelaire in Wagner's forests, or the persistence of the lyric; Mallarmé and the spectacle of musical poetry; René Ghil and Stéphane Mallarmé between Crise de Vers and the Traité du Verbe; Performing the ends of symbolism with Jean Royère; Conclusion: literary history and the invention of symbolism; Notes; Works cited; Index.