Verlag:
Oxford University Press, Incorporated, Oxford
This book contains illuminating critical readings of some major French authors in the light of the evolving relations between biography and literature. It offers not just a history of French literature over a 300-year period, but also a discussion of...
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This book contains illuminating critical readings of some major French authors in the light of the evolving relations between biography and literature. It offers not just a history of French literature over a 300-year period, but also a discussion of biography - its forms, history, and functions - relevant to anyone with an interest in biography. Intro -- Contents -- Note on Translations -- Introduction -- Biographical approaches to literature and literary approaches to biography -- Literature as a question -- Literature against itself -- Biography and literariness -- The pragmatics of biography -- Principles, parameters, and procedures -- I . 'LIVES' AND THE INVENTION OF 'LITERATURE' -- 1. Literature and the Use of 'Lives': A Prehistory -- 'Lives' -- 'Literature' -- 2. Rousseau's Life-Story and the Experience of Literature -- Sensate discourse and unwritten works -- Time and discontinuity -- Literature repudiated -- Writing without example -- 3. Literary History and the Biography of Literature: Madame de Staël and Victor Hugo -- Genius -- Collectivities and individuals -- Literary history: retrospect and prospect -- Madame de Staël's De la littérature: perfectibility and the development of literature -- Madame de Staël's De l'Allemagne: literature and nation -- Victor Hugo's Préface de Cromwell: poetry and the life cycle -- II . THE 19TH-CENTURY CULTURE OF BIOGRAPHY -- 4. Biographical Business in the Century of Biography: Dictionaries and the Press -- Biographical monuments -- Biography versus history: Victor Cousin and Ernest Renan -- Biographical dictionaries and collective transcendence -- Biography and the press -- Barbey d'Aurevilly and the culture of biography -- 5. Biography Reclaimed: Gautier, Verlaine, and Mallarmé and the Biographical recueil -- Literary portraits and literary authorship: Gautier and others -- Biography at the fin de siècle: Verlaine and Rémy de Gourmont -- Mallarmé's Médaillons and literary apotheosis -- 6. Sainte-Beuve: Biography and the Invention of Literary Criticism -- The life of the poet and the reading of poetry -- Literature and the necessity of criticism -- The critical perspective -- III. POETRY AND THE LIFE OF THE POET.
