Approaches to Teaching Baudelaire's Prose Poems ed. by Cheryl Krueger (review)

Constructing an entire volume around essays on the teaching of one French writer could be considered an exercise in over-specialization, even more so when the focus is on only one part of the writer's work. On the other hand, literary researchers should always be commended for seeking to relate their work to language pedagogy. This volume does just that. In addition, even though the book considers only his prose poems, Baudelaire has long been and probably always will be one of the most important French poets and merits in-depth study. Works like this provide helpful material, then, for both Baudelaire specialists and language teachers who want to go deeper in their incorporation of literature in their classrooms. The volume boasts an impressive lineup of 18 Baudelaire scholars, all except one from North American universities. Krueger divides the book into two parts. Part One, Materials, is written entirely by her and presents a helpful overview of Baudelaire, the genre of prose poems, previous works on Baudelaire's prose poems, and approaches to literature and language teaching. This section is only about 10 pages, however, and could be much more interesting if it were more than a literature review, particularly the section (of half a page) on "Teaching Literature in Foreign Language Programs." The vast bulk of the work (about 175 pages) is Part Two, Approaches, subdivided according to the themes of Reading Strategies, Literary and Aesthetic Currents, Social and Cultural Intersections, The Prose Poems across the Curriculum, and Print and Digital Culture. The contributors make a point of directly relating their work to pedagogy, even in the more philosophical and esoteric essays. The pedagogical focus, however, tends not to be in direct contact with language pedagogy but rather the benefits of studying Baudelaire in the broader context of the humanities. For example, in his article "(Post-)Romantic Vision in Le spleen de Paris, Stamos Metzidakis presents as "an important task for serious students of Baudelaire" the question of classifying the poet "within the general artistic milieu of his time" (64). Some contributions are even narrower in their focus, such as Aimée Boutin's "The Glazier's Cry: Dissonance in Baudelaire's Prose Poems," or much more technical and specialized, such as Françoise Lionnet's "Worlding Baudelaire: Geography, Genre, and Translation." The most promising section of the book is the second-to-last section, "The Prose Poems across the Curriculum." It contains articles on using Baudelaire's prose poems in courses on advanced writing, translation, and journalism. The book is designed for those teaching upper-level literature courses, and as such it is a valuable contribution to Baudelaire studies. It would be helpful to relate the teaching of literature more directly to language pedagogy and language acquisition, especially since Krueger does very briefly address teaching literature in foreign language courses in her introduction. But overall the volume is well researched and well written, and the contributors make an admirable effort to link literary research to literary pedagogy.