Baudelaire and the Poetics of Craft [Paperback]

Graham Chesters analyses the works of Baudelaire and examines the structure of poetry.This book is a study of how Baudelaire shapes the raw material of the French language within the formal framework of French versification. Graham Chesters analyses the sounds, metrical units, rhymes, syntax and overall structure to show the tension between irony and harmony inherent in this poets work.This book is a study of how Baudelaire shapes the raw material of the French language within the formal framework of French versification. Graham Chesters analyses the sounds, metrical units, rhymes, syntax and overall structure to show the tension between irony and harmony inherent in this poets work.This book is a study of how Baudelaire shapes the raw material of the French language within the formal framework of French versification. Graham Chesters analyses the sounds, metrical units, rhymes, syntax and overall structure of a range of texts to show the tension between irony and harmony inherent in the craft of the poet. This is particularly noticeable in Baudelaire's urban poetry, in which traditional expectations of poetic form clash with the pulsating freshness, difference and energy of modern Paris. As well as offering close stylistic analysis, the book explores Baudelaire's theoretical concerns.Preface; Acknowledgements; Note on the text; 1. The poetics of craft; 2. A singular clarity of timbre, I: sound repetition and conventional form; 3. A singular clarity of timbre, II: sound repetition and units of sense; 4. Sound patterns and the secrets of composition; 5. Rhymes; 6. Pattern, expectation, surprise; 7. 'Lapse' and recuperation; 8. Experimentation and urban poetics, I: the limits of poetry; 9. Experimentation and urban poetics, II: the transformation of a prose-poem; Notes; Bibliography; Index.