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Unacknowledged Legislators - The Poet as Lawgiver in Post-Revolutionary France (Hardcover)
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Unacknowledged Legislators - The Poet as Lawgiver in Post-Revolutionary France (Hardcover)
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What is the public value of poetry? How do poets envisage their own
role and function within society? How do we? Do poets seek to shape
public opinion and behaviour? Should they? Or do they offer
alternatives-perhaps sacred alternatives-to political and religious
ideologies? Are they what Shelley in 1821 called 'the
unacknowledged legislators of the World'? And what might that mean?
During the decades immediately preceding the Revolution of 1789 the
status of contemporary poetry in France was at its lowest ebb. At
the same time the perceived power of the writer to influence public
events reached a high-water mark with Voltaire's triumphant return
to Paris in 1778. In the course of the next century French poetry
enjoyed an extraordinary renaissance and flowering, perhaps its
greatest. But what of the poet's public influence? In 1881 the
people of Paris processed for six hours past the home of Victor
Hugo on the occasion of his 79th birthday, and in 1885 an estimated
two million people witnessed his state funeral. But who or what
were they acknowledging? Poetry or republicanism? Or perhaps their
own power? For with each Revolution that passed-1789, 1830,
1848-French poets themselves felt increasingly marginalised. This
study addresses the first part of this story and focuses on the
role and function of the poet during the so-called Romantic Period.
Beginning with an account of the literary climate in
pre-revolutionary France it then maps the changes in that climate
wrought by the events of the 1789 Revolution. It describes the new
politico-literary agendas set by Chateaubriand and others on the
monarchist Right, and by Stael and others on the liberal Left.
Against this background it then analyses in detail the poetic
output and public exploits of the three major French poets of the
period: Lamartine, Hugo, and Vigny. The Romantic figure of the poet
as prophet and magus is habitually dismissed as a cliche. But by
focusing on the role of the poet as lawgiver this book reveals the
rich and complex terms in which the public function of poetry was
debated in post-revolutionary France - and how amidst the centenary
celebrations of 1889, as Romanticism gave way to Symbolism, the
poet as lawgiver continued to play a central part in that debate.
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