The Crisis of French Symbolism

by Laurence M. Porter

Challenging traditional histories of the nineteenth-century French lyric, Laurence M. Porter maintains that from 1851 to 1875 Symbolism constituted neither a movement nor a system, but rather represented a crisis of confidence in the powers of poetry as a communicative act. The Crisis of French Symbolism offers a provocative reinterpretation of the four acknowledged masters of Symbolist Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, and Mallarm.

286 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1990