3 Review(s)

Through its unparalleled exploration of the trials of poetry from the early seventeenth to twentieth centuries, "Poetry Proscribed: Twentieth-Century (Re) Visions of the Trials of Poetry in France" opens a new line of inquiry into the present-day stakes of poetry through indepth investigations of the mishearing inherent to poetry's relation to philosophy, history, politics, and the law. By considering the literal and figural trials of Theophile de Viau, Andre Chenier, Charles Baudelaire, Andre Breton, and Louis Aragon, each chapter theorizes the twentieth-century fascination for the trials of poetry as key to the literary politics of French national identity and the unfulfilled promise of the commitment of literature. The impact of this book on the debate over the place of poetry in the cultural and political landscape will be a lasting one.