FREN 373 - Alchemies of the Verb: Experiments in French Poetry

In this course, we explore the staggering diversity of formal experiments undertaken by French poets in the wake of Romanticism. Alongside close-readings of poems and philosophical essays on poetry, we will declaim, translate, and write poems in order to develop a broad understanding of French versification and prosody as well as the cultural and artistic encounters that transformed how poets composed, read, and thought about their craft in the nineteenth century. Readings will include works by Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, Victor Hugo, Gérard de Nerval, Charles Baudelaire, Edgar Allan Poe, Louisa Siefert, Judith Gautier, Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Lautréamont, Stéphane Mallarmé as well as a selection of contemporary poets.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group I
Prerequisite(s): FREN 212
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Not offered: 2026-27
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).