Exeter Textes Littéraires – serie

The poems in Rythmes pittoresques, first published in 1890, present not only a poet searching for a voice, but also a female poet searching for a voice while breaking down rules of both versification and gender-determined source of expression. They went straight to the heart of the male-dominated poetry of the time and effectively threatened its existence.Of the group of poets who were the first to write free-verse poetry in French – Marie Krysinska, Arthur Rimbaud, Jules Laforgue, Gustave Kahn – only Marie Krysinska (1857-1908) has not received critical recognition. Although it was quickly dismissed by critics simply because it was written by a female poet, Krysinska’s poetry gives insight into the creation of a new form of feminine expression as well as the persecution of the female artist viewed by her largely male peers, readership and competitors.

Jean Paulhan’s Lettre aux directeurs de la Résistance was an important and contentious statement about the influence of communism in intellectual and literary circles. On publication in 1952, the pamphlet revived debates over collaboration with the Nazi authorities that had dominated French society since the Liberation, and that still have important echoes today.In this new edition, John Flower provides a full contextualising introduction. He also examines Paulhan’s evolution during the period and assesses his postion alongside that of other key figures: in particular Mauriac and Camus. The volume makes an important contribution to our understanding of this turbulent period and provides a documentary history of the post-war political and literary debates in Paris.

Grégoire Le Roy was at school in Ghent with Maeterlinck and Van Leberghe, and grew up in the same atmosphere of intellectual ferment. His first collection of published verse just pre-dates Maeterlinck’s Serres chaudes. His fin-de-siècle poetry was highly considered at the time of its first appearance, and was widely published in reviews. He treats all the major themes of the period, with special emphasis on a melancholy tone, half-tint landscapes, overt musicality, and (almost obsessively) the destructive nature of time.This is the first edition since their original publication in 1889 and 1907 of the three collections of poems by a significant member of the Belgian Symbolist school.Republishing Le Roy’s early work is an important step in recreating an accurate intellectual portrait of an important and influential movement.

Pastiche, imitation but also a continuation of Voltaire’s most celebrated tale, Candide, seconde partie, picks up many of the original’s themes. Leibniz, Descartes and Newton are gently mocked; Pascal is accused of trying to make us hate humankind. If it cannot begin to compare with Voltaire’s masterpiece, the tale is nonetheless an amusing and instructive imitation.

La Matronne Chinoise is a new critical edition of a two-act comedy by Pierre-René Lemonnier, first performed in paris in 1765. Lemonnier adapted a theme which dates back to the Latin writer Petronius, and is also present in an old Chinese story, which had recently been taken up by Voltaire, that of the apparently inconsolable widow who rapidly finds consolation in the arms of another.The edition is accompanied by a full introduction setting out the play’s historical and thematic context, along with an analysis of its versification, and by an appendix reproducing earlier versions of the tale from Petronius to Voltaire.