The Limits of Narrative: Essays on Baudelaire, Flaubert, Rimbaud and Mallarme (Paperback)

Nathaniel Wing

ISBN 10: 0521114152 / ISBN 13: 9780521114158

Published by Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010

About this Item

Paperback. This book examines the problematic area of narrative structure under conditions of severe stress. Each of the four authors is shown to be concerned with the tension between narrative coherence as a desirable goal and an unfortunate check placed on the 'free' play of fantasy. This tension produces powerful disruptions of literary form in the lyric (Baudelaire, Mallarme), prose poetry (Baudelaire, Rimbaud) and the novel (Flaubert) which are examined here. A final chapter draws out some of the historical implications of these readings in a discussion of Baudelaire's and Flaubert's trials for obscenity and of Marx's writings on France from 1848 to 1871. Professor Wing demonstrates that all these texts retain an unstable balance between earlier modes of thought, feeling and expression and the depersonal, fragmented modern text. He revises notions of modernity and invites us to reconsider traces of earlier forms of writing in more canonically modern texts. This book examines the problematic area of narrative structure under conditions of severe stress. Each of the four authors, Baudelaire, Flaubert, Rimbaud and Mallarme, is shown to be concerned with the tension between narrative coherence as a desirable goal and an unfortunate check placed on the 'free' play of fantasy. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780521114158

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Limits of Narrative: Essays on Baudelaire, Flaubert, Rimbaud and Mallarme (Paperback)
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
• Publication Date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521114152
• ISBN 13: 9780521114158
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

This book examines the problematic area of narrative structure under conditions of severe stress. Each of the four authors is shown to be concerned with the tension between narrative coherence as a desirable goal and an unfortunate check placed on the 'free' play of fantasy. This tension produces powerful disruptions of literary form in the lyric (Baudelaire, Mallarmé), prose poetry (Baudelaire, Rimbaud) and the novel (Flaubert) which are examined here. A final chapter draws out some of the historical implications of these readings in a discussion of Baudelaire's and Flaubert's trials for obscenity and of Marx's writings on France from 1848 to 1871. Professor Wing demonstrates that all these texts retain an unstable balance between earlier modes of thought, feeling and expression and the depersonal, fragmented modern text. He revises notions of modernity and invites us to reconsider traces of earlier forms of writing in more canonically modern texts.

Book Description

This book examines the problematic area of narrative structure under conditions of severe stress. Each of the four authors, Baudelaire, Flaubert, Rimbaud and Mallarmé, is shown to be concerned with the tension between narrative coherence as a desirable goal and an unfortunate check placed on the 'free' play of fantasy.