Le Renouvellement des formes poétiques au XIXe siècle, and: Lectures de la poésie française moderne et contemporaine (review)

L'Esprit Créateur the works of Primo Levi, Charlotte Delbo, Henri Raczymow, or Dan Pagis—reminds us mat pat criteria for literary value never get us very far. Dresden's diesis, finally, is that "quiconque aborde la littérature de guerre, pénètre dans un gouffre de silence, en proie à une émotion qui le submerge , et où il n'y a (provisoirement) pas de place pour des questions d'estiiétique" (113). Yet, Dresden also wishes to contest the plea mat silence is die only adequate response to die concentrationary universe. So me book's argument remains ramer muddled. Also muddled is Dresden's organization. Part I dwells on definitions of me literary better left to critical tiieory, though it also raises one of die most interesting questions of die book: "Ie lecteur lui-même ne deviendrait-il pas, lui aussi, en quelque sorte un témoin?" (70). But surely the answer to this question does not lie in Dresden's contention mat we suspend judgment as well as disbelief when we read Holocaust literature. Parts II and III make a detour into the histories of twentiedi-century anti-Semitism and fascism, histories better learned elsewhere. In the brief moments in which Extermination et littérature takes up particular texts (no text gets more than a paragraph or two), Dresden reveals a keen ear for language. But diese moments are too often obscured by smarmy reflections on human dignity and its discontents. Part IV takes up a disparate set of concerns about survivor memory, poetry and music. Dresden's disorganized book is, in the end, a collection of occasionally insightful and provocative but often radier redundant observations and readings, and it is badly in need of an editor. La Littérature des camps, by contrast, organizes itself around particular writings, as well as on die basis of the writers' temporal and experiential relation to die Shoah: camp survivors (from Anna Langfus to Primo Levi and Jorge Semprun); camp contemporaries who were not inmates (including Jabès, Yourcenar, and Céline); and the post-war generation (Georges Perec et al.). The volume asserts that all of diese writers wrote "en résistance" in order to bear witness (11); the editor argues, following Adorno and Wiesel, tiiat "Il n'y a pas peut-être de littérature de la Shoah; mais il y a une littérature autour de la Shoah" (13). In most of the essays collected here, two themes recur: the submission of literary to moral value, and die problematics of memory. This special issue of Les Lettres Romanes is inevitably uneven. Many of die contributions are brief and specific readings of texts, some not very well known (e.g., Raymond Guérin's Les Poulpes) or printings of archival documents (e.g., Arthur Haulot's letters from Mauthausen and Dachau). Omers, even when they start from a particular text, offer broader philosophical reflections on the nature of literature in the face of evil; a few take up controversial issues, such as Maurice Blanchot's contested pro-war relation to anti-Semitism. The strength of this volume lies in its specificity; the editor and die contributors remain cognizant of me enormity of me questions raised by Shoah writings, but acknowledge that the only way to advance scholarship and criticism on the subject is to examine closely the texts before us, empathically but also critically, never losing sight of our complex and belated role as interpreters of mis literature. Julia Epstein Haverford College Michèle Aquien & Jean-Paul Honoré. Le Renouvellement des formes poétiques au XIXe siècle. Paris: Nathan, 1997. Pp. 128. 49FF. Laurent Fourcaut. Lectures de la poésie française moderne et contemporaine. Paris: Nathan, 1997. Pp. 128. 49FF. The 128 series published by Ñaman and directed by Claude Thomasset provides compact and pertinent literary (and otiier) analysis of a fundamental nature. As such it performs a valuable service, especially for undergraduates. Michèle Aquien's book on evolving poetic form in nineteenth -century France, written in collaboration with Jean-Paul Honoré, centers firstly on modifi98 Fall 1998 Book Reviews cations coming about within traditional prosody; secondly on newly developing form (l'impair, free verse...