Zaharoff Lectures – serie

French poetry and painting are inextricably connected; one cannot be understood without reference to the other. Baudelaire, Mallarmé, and Apollinaire in particular were deeply interested in the visual arts and themsleves influenced many painters. Alan Bowness explores the chain of personal contacts which underlie the evolution of modernist art and literature from 1850 to 1920, notably Manet's close friendship with Baudelaire and Mallarmé, and Apollinaire's with Picasso.

The French are present throughout Mme de Staël's works, so much so that scholars do not think of studying them in their own right, in the way that the Germans and Italians and other peoples have been studied. Simone Balayé has chosen to consider the social and political development of French society as Mme de Staël experienced and observed it, from the Ancien Régime, the Revolution and the Empire down to the Restoration.