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Article: Six French poets of the Nineteenth Century: Lamartine, Hugo, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Mallarme.(Review)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- The Modern Language Review
- Article date:
- October 1, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 Modern Humanities Research Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Six French Poets of the Nineteenth Century: Lamartine, Hugo, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Mallarme. Ed. by E. H. and A. M. BLACKMORE. (Oxford World's Classics) Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2000. xlvii + 334 pp. 7.99 [pounds sterling].
What should an anthology such as this set out to achieve? Not, I think, the further entrenchment of critical prejudice, and yet the Introduction opens with, tumbling over themselves, 'elaborate rules', 'rigid', 'precise', 'complex and inflexible rules'. The 'rigidities' of classical French verse are only too likely to stand in for its expressive complexities, particularly if we are obliged to accept this orthodoxy on hearsay. It ...