Literary Theory - General & Miscellaneous, European Authors - Interviews, Poetic Theory, 20th Century French Literature - Literary Criticism

Toward a New Poetics

Name: Toward a New Poetics
Author: Serge Gavronsky
ISBN: 9780520080713

by Serge Gavronsky

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Overview

A quiet revolution is taking place in avant-garde French poetry and prose.
In this collection of twelve interviews with some of France's most important poets and writers, Serge Gavronsky introduces American readers to these exciting new developments.
As Gavronsky explains, a neolyricism is now replacing the formalism of the 1960s, '70s, and '80s.
In his substantial introduction, Gavronsky notes how the ideological definition of writing (écriture) has given way to more open forms of writing. Human experiences of the most ordinary kinds are finding a place in the text.
These interviews offer a view of the poets' and writers' creative processes and range over such topics as current literary theory, the impact of American poetry in France, and the place of feminism in contemporary French writing. Each interview is accompanied by samples of the writer's work in French and in Gavronsky's English translations.
Toward a New Poetics provides a highly informative cultural and critical perspective on contemporary writing in France, introducing us to works which are now transforming the idea of literature itself.

About the Author, Serge Gavronsky

Serge Gavronsky is Professor of French at Barnard College, Columbia University. He is the author of numerous creative and critical works and is a well-known translator of contemporary French poetry.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This anthology-of poetry, interviews, and ideas-is geared toward an American audience (Gavronsky is a professor at Barnard College) and traces the transformation of French poetry over the last few decades as witnessed and shaped by 12 contemporary French poets. The introduction sheds light on that most complex and revolutionary French poetic ethos of the late '60s, ecriture-poetry in which ``language and textuality become subject-matter''-as it relates to past aesthetic ideologies such as Surrealism and Structuralism, and discusses how French poets in the decades since have rejected ecriture's dogmatic anti-lyric stance while upholding its emphasis on play of language, resulting in a ``neolyricism'' that values emotion as much as form. In the interviews, conducted in the late '80s with writers ranging from Michel Deguy to American-born Leslie Kaplan, these issues are rigorously discussed. After each interview a reader finds well-chosen samples of the poet's work, the entire selection first in English, with the French following. Examining the facets of contemporary French poetry by going straight to the source-the poets themselves-Gavronsky has organized a book as important, fascinating and far-reaching as his subject matter. (Dec.)