Looking For Laforgue: An Informal Biography

David Arkell, Carcanet Press, Manchester. Edition: First EditionCondition remarks:Book: Good Jacket: Worn/faded, no tearsPages: Good Markings: No markingsThis engaging literary biography chronicles the life of Jules Laforgue, the brilliant and tragically short-lived French Symbolist poet whose innovative verse profoundly influenced modernist writers from T.S. Eliot to Ezra Pound. David Arkell presents his research with a refreshingly informal and personal tone, tracing Laforgue's journey from his humble origins in Uruguay through his years as reader to Empress Augusta at the German imperial court, and on to his untimely death in Paris at just twenty-seven. Looking for Laforgue uncovers the man behind the melancholic, irony-laden poetry, painting a vivid portrait of a restless, witty, and deeply original artistic sensibility. Arkell's detective-like pursuit of his subject across archives and anecdotes gives the narrative a lively, almost novelistic quality that makes it as accessible to the general reader as to the dedicated scholar of French literature.…