Between Baudelaire And Mallarm

As the status of poetry became less and less certain over the course of the nineteenth century, poets such as Baudelaire and Mallarmé began to explore ways to ensure that poetry would not be overtaken by music in the hierarchy of the arts. Helen Abbott examines the verse and prose poetry of these two important poets, together with their critical writings, to address how their attitudes towards the performance practice of poetry influenced the future of both poetry and music. Central to her analysis is the issue of 'voice', a term that remains elusive in spite of its broad application. Acknowledging that voice can be physical, textual and symbolic, Abbott explores the meaning of voice in terms of four categories: (1) rhetoric, specifically the rules governing the deployment of voice in poetry; (2) the human body and its effect on how voice is used in poetry; (3) exchange, that is, the way voices either interact or fail to interact; and (4) music, specifically the question of whether poetry should be sung. Abbott shows how Baudelaire and Mallarmé exploit the complexity and instability of the notion of voice to propose a new aesthetic that situates poetry between conversation and music. Voice thus becomes an important process of interaction and exchange rather than something stable or static; the implications of this for Baudelaire and Mallarmé are profoundly significant, since it maps out the possible future of poetry.

As the status of poetry became less and less certain over the course of the nineteenth century, poets such as Baudelaire and Mallarmé began to explore ways to ensure that poetry would not be overtaken by music in the hierarchy of the arts. Helen Abbott examines the verse and prose poetry of these two important poets, together with their critical writings, to address how their attitudes towards the performance practice of poetry influenced the future of both poetry and music. Central to her analysis is the issue of 'voice', a term that remains elusive in spite of its broad application. Acknowledging that voice can be physical, textual and symbolic, Abbott explores the meaning of voice in terms of four categories: (1) rhetoric, specifically the rules governing the deployment of voice in poetry; (2) the human body and its effect on how voice is used in poetry; (3) exchange, that is, the way voices either interact or fail to interact; and (4) music, specifically the question of whether poetry should be sung. Abbott shows how Baudelaire and Mallarmé exploit the complexity and instability of the notion of voice to propose a new aesthetic that situates poetry between conversation and music. Voice thus becomes an important process of interaction and exchange rather than something stable or static; the implications of this for Baudelaire and Mallarmé are profoundly significant, since it maps out the possible future of poetry.

The central theme here is the constant confrontation of theory and practice in the work of Baudelaire, Mallarmé and Valéry.

The book assesses the influence of music on the ideas and poetic practice of a number of late nineteenth-century poets. Particular attention is paid to the effect that the musical model supposedly had on the traditional ways of writing poetry, especially in the key areas of rhythm, sound-repetition and imagery. The chapters on Baudelaire and Mallarme relate their ideas on music to their more general theories of art and poetry and at the same time provide a suitable framework for a critical and evaluative discussion of the Symbolist poets' contribution to the music-poetry debate in the 1880s and 1890s."

Rhythm, Illusion and the Poetic Idea explores the concept of rhythm and its central yet problematic role in defining modern French poetry. Forging innovative lines of inquiry linking the detailed analysis of poetic form to the evolution of fundamental aesthetic principles, David Evans offers extensive new readings of the literary and critical writings of the three major poets at the centre of France’s most important poetic revolution. The volume is of interest to all students and readers of Baudelaire, Rimbaud and Mallarmé, since here is presented for the first time a thorough comparative study of developments in each writer’s poetic form and theory, focusing on the themes of illusion, deception and the musical metaphor. The book is also intended to stimulate wider critical debate on the interpretation of metrical verse, prose poetry and vers libre, and offers original analytical methods which facilitate the study of poetic form. The author proposes a radical shift in our understanding of the role and mechanisms of poetic rhythm, suggesting that its very resistance to definition and fixity provides a conveniently opaque veil over the difficulties of defining poetry in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.