An Introduction to the French Poets

The French poetry of some five centuries is here surveyed in a series of studies of the work and personality of individual poets from Villon to the present day. Each chapter is primarily concerned with establishing the ‘literary identity’ of the poet or poets with whom it deals: the work of each is outlined and related to the historical and biographical circumstances in which it was written; and its characteristics are then examined critically in terms relevant to the modern reader. Comparisons