Although many practice the art, contemporary French women poets generally have been vastly underrepresented in periodicals and anthologies. In the only anthology to feature avant-garde French women poets exclusively, Gavronsky shows how Kaplan, Grangaud, Portugal, Lapeyrère, Giraudon, and Risset differ from their American counterparts. Before presenting his translations of the poems, Gavronsky gives each poet the opportunity to define herself in terms of major influences on her poetry, distinctive traits in her writing, major themes in her work, and the influence of gender on her art. The poets also speculate about the relative underrepresentation of women poets in French periodicals and anthologies as well as about the form poetry might take in the twenty-first century. The poems in this volume are simultaneously delightful, informative, and combative. They typify, according to Gavronsky, some of the main currents of a poetics in the making, a poetics little known in the United States. In reaffirming women's involvement with poetry, Gavronsky believes that he has "reconnected today's work with an immemorial tradition that, in France, clearly goes back to [the] Middle Ages."

Contemporary French Women Poetsoffers the first full-length study, divided into two volumes, of a wide range of women's poetry in France written over the past forty years. Volume I provides a broad Introduction, eight chapters devoted to individual critical assessments of the work of Andrée Chedid, Heather Dohollau, Denise Le Dantec, Janine Mitaud, Jacqueline Risset, Anne Teyssiéras, Esther Tellermann and Marie-Claire Bancquart, followed by a provisional Conclusion and Bibliography. Volume II recentres the overall analysis via a brief Introduction, then proceeds to offer eight more individual critical evaluations of the work of Jeanne Hyvrard, Jeannine Baude, Françoise Hàn, Céline Zins, Vénus Khoury-Ghata, Denise Borias, Marie Etienne and Anne-Marie Albiach. An overall Conclusion is then developed, followed by a Bibliography.

Contemporary French Women Poets offers the first full-length study, divided into two volumes, of a wide range of women's poetry in France written over the past forty years. Volume I provides a broad Introduction, eight chapters devoted to individual critical assessments of the work of Andrée Chedid, Heather Dohollau, Denise Le Dantec, Janine Mitaud, Jacqueline Risset, Anne Teyssiéras, Esther Tellermann and Marie-Claire Bancquart, followed by a provisional Conclusion and Bibliography. Volume II recentres the overall analysis via a brief Introduction, then proceeds to offer eight more individual critical evaluations of the work of Jeanne Hyvard, Jeannine Baude, Françoise Hàn, Céline Zins, Vénus Khoury-Ghata, Denise Borias, Marie Etienne and Anne-Marie Albiach. An overall Conclusion is then developed, followed by a Bibliography.

Contemporary French Women Poetsoffers the first full-length study, divided into two volumes, of a wide range of women's poetry in France written over the past forty years. Volume I provides a broad Introduction, eight chapters devoted to individual critical assessments of the work of Andrée Chedid, Heather Dohollau, Denise Le Dantec, Janine Mitaud, Jacqueline Risset, Anne Teyssiéras, Esther Tellermann and Marie-Claire Bancquart, followed by a provisional Conclusion and Bibliography. Volume II recentres the overall analysis via a brief Introduction, then proceeds to offer eight more individual critical evaluations of the work of Jeanne Hyvard, Jeannine Baude, Françoise Hàn, Céline Zins, Vénus Khoury-Ghata, Denise Borias, Marie Etienne and Anne-Marie Albiach. An overall Conclusion is then developed, followed by a Bibliography.

Contemporary French Women Poets offers the first full-length study, divided into two volumes, of a wide range of women's poetry in France written over the past forty years. Volume I provides a broad Introduction, eight chapters devoted to individual critical assessments of the work of Andrée Chedid, Heather Dohollau, Denise Le Dantec, Janine Mitaud, Jacqueline Risset, Anne Teyssiéras, Esther Tellermann and Marie-Claire Bancquart, followed by a provisional Conclusion and Bibliography. Volume II recentres the overall analysis via a brief Introduction, then proceeds to offer eight more individual critical evaluations of the work of Jeanne Hyvrard, Jeannine Baude, Françoise Hàn, Céline Zins, Vénus Khoury-Ghata, Denise Borias, Marie Etienne and Anne-Marie Albiach. An overall Conclusion is then developed, followed by a Bibliography.

Marie de France, Mme. De Sävignä, and Mme. De Lafayette achieved international reputations during periods when women in other European countries were able to write only letters, translations, religious tracts, and miscellaneous fragments. There were obstacles, but French women writers were more or less sustained and empowered by the French culture. Often unconventional in their personal lives and occupied with careers besides writing?as educators, painters, actresses, preachers, salon hostesses, labor organizers?these women did not wait for Simone de Beauvoir to tell them to make existential choices and have "projects in the world." French Women Writers describes the lives and careers of fifty-two literary figures from the twelfth century to the late twentieth. All the contributors are recognized authorities. Some of their subjects, like Colette and George Sand, are celebrated, and others are just now gaining critical notice. From Christine de Pizan and Marguerite de Navarre to Rachilde and Häl_ne Cixous, from Louise Labe to Marguerite Duras?these women speak through the centuries to issues of gender, sexuality, and language. French Women Writers now becomes widely available in this Bison Book edition.

"Original texts and translations are presented on facing pages, allowing readers to appreciate the vigor and variety of the French and the fidelity of the English versions. Divided into three chronological sections spanning the Middle Ages through the sixteenth century, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the volume includes introductory essays by noted scholars of each era's poetry along with biographical sketches and bibliographical references for each poet."--BOOK JACKET.

This book finds its origin partly in the International Colloquium on French and Francophone Literature in the 1990's at Dalhousie University, September 1998. number of the papers, since reworked, take their place here alongside other studies subsequently invited. They form a broad and varyingly focused set of cogent and pertinent appraisals of very recent French, and francophone, poetic practice and its shifting, becoming conceptual underpinnings.

A selection of modern French poems with critical commentary, glossary of literary terms, biographies and bibliography.

France entered the twentieth century as a powerful European and colonial nation. In the course of the century, her role changed dramatically: in the first fifty years two World Wars and economic decline removed its status as a world power, whilst the immediate post-war era was marked by wars of independence in its colonies. Yet at the same time, in the second half of the century, France entered a period of unprecedented growth and social transformation. Throughout the century and into the new millennium France retained its former international reputation as a centre for cultural excellence and innovation and its culture, together with that of the Francophone world, reflected the increased richness and diversity of the period. This 2003 Companion explores this vibrant culture, and includes chapters on history, language, literature, thought, theatre, architecture, visual culture, film and music, and discuss the contributions of popular culture, Francophone culture, minorities and women.