Gendered Lyric: Subjectivity and Difference in Nineteenth-Century French Poetry

Contents

Contents ix Preface xiii Acknowledgments 1 Introduction 1 Does Poetry Have a Gender? 6 Gendered Forms, Lyric Subjects 19 Part 1 Romanticism's Genders 21 Chapter One Femininity and the Renewal of the Lyric 22 The Lyrical Lexicon 29 The Poet's Masculinity 36 The Exclusion of Femininity 43 Chapter Two "Women's Poetry": The Case of Marceline Desbordes-Valmore 45 Critical Ambivalence 55 Tearful Beginnings 61 A Watery Landscape 72 Gender and Form 81 Part 2 Parnassian Impassivity and Frozen Femininity 83 Introduction 87 Chapter Three Leconte de Lisle's Hardening Arteries 88 Crystallized Criticism 98 Poesis perfecta 111 Chapter Four Parnassian Obsessions 112 Theophile Gautier 125 Sculpted Femininity 133 Frigid Form 140 Chapter Five Moving Statues: Les Parnassiennes 141 Cherchez la femme 145 Les Parnassiennes par elles-memes Contents 147 Louise Colet 154 Nina de Villard 162 Leocadie Penquer 169 Part 3 Symbolist Fluidity 171 Introduction 178 Chapter Six Baudelaire's Frontiers 180 Poetic Affiliations 188 Vaporization and Centralization 195 "La musique" 208 Chapter Seven Loose Ends 209 Verlaine's Sexualities 232 Krysinska's Women 247 Conclusion Poetry Matters 251 Appendix Poems 281 Notes 301 Bibliography 321 Index viii ...