"Sartre
as literary critic was never better than in this posthumous work." —Hazel
E. Barnes, author of Sartre & Flaubert
"Mallarme, like Baudelaire, always maintained that works of criticism should be written with as much commitment and force as poetry. Too few are; this one is." —French Studies
This is the first
translation of a major text by Sartre on one of the greatest modern French
poets, Stephane
Mallarme, whom Sartre hailed as a "hero, prophet, wizard, and tragedian." Written
in 1953, Sartre's text provides not only an invigorating and convincing interpretation
of Mallarme by also an original overview of French literature in the nineteenth
century.
"Ernest Sturm's
work is a distinguished and laudable contribution of Anglo-Saxon understanding
of
Sartre's thinking, and captures the very strength of Sartre's most powerful
style. It has the lucidite used in the subtitle of the French edition." —Annie
Cohen-Solal, author of Sartre
"Mr. Sturm has
translated an extremely difficult text into lucid English and has
provided an introduction which interprets this long essay acutely
and perceptively." —Rene Wellek
Ernest
Sturm is Professor of French at the University of California,
Santa Barbara.
