Originally published in 1947, this book presents a comprehensive study regarding the Poemes barbares (1862) of Leconte de Lisle. Two key areas are explored: 'what attracted Leconte de Lisle to the history and mythology of the barbarian races, by what methods and in accordance with what ideas he transformed his material into poetry'. The text is organised in reflection of the different ethnic and tribal groups contained within the poems. Detailed notes are incorporated throughout and a bibliography is also included. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in French poetry and literary criticism.

Innumerable scholars have looked to Alison Fairlie for guidance in locating important areas for research and in choosing productive and provocative critical questions to ask about nineteenth-century French literature. These essays contain not simply practical guidance, but intellectual stimulus far richer than that provided by many of the full-length critical volumes that others have devoted to Constant, Baudelaire, Nerval and Flaubert. The essays in this volume, which was originally published in paperback in 1984, fall into four sharply characterised groups, one on each author. In each group, Alison Fairlie explores a recurrent set of critical problems and describes a series of exemplary encounters between language and the artistic imagination. Also containing a previously unpublished essay on Nerval and a bibliography of Professor Fairlie's critical writings, this is a volume readers of all kinds will find a work of exceptional depth and coherence.