French Poets

French Poets is a single-volume reference that contains selected essays from Critical Survey of Poetry, Fourth Edition. Every article in this set was carefully selected by our editors to provide the best information available about the topic covered. The essays in French Poets discuss such influential poets as Samuel Beckett, Paul Verlaine, Francois Villon, and Victor Hugo. See below for the complete Table of Contents.

French Poets Table of Contents

French Poetry to 1700
French Poetry Since 1700
French Symbolists
Apollinaire, Guillaume
Baudelaire, Charles
Beckett, Samuel
Belloc, Hilaire
Breton, André
Celan, Paul
Éluard, Paul
Heine, Heinrich
Hugo, Victor
La Fontaine, Jean de
Mallarmé, Stéphane
Marie de France
Nerval, Gérard de
Rilke, Rainer Maria
Rimbaud, Arthur
Verlaine, Paul
Charles d'Orléans
Cocteau, Jean
Gautier, Théophile
Villon, François
Aragon, Louis
Arp, Hans
Boileau-Despréaux, Nicolas
Bonnefoy, Yves
Breytenbach, Breyten
Char, René
Chartier, Alain
Christine de Pizan
Claudel, Paul
Corbière, Tristan
Du Bellay, Joachim
Follain, Jean
Guillaume de Lorris
Jean de Meung
Laforgue, Jules
Lamartine, Alphonse de
Malherbe, François de
Marino, Giambattista
Michaux, Henri
Mickiewicz, Adam
Musset, Alfred de
Péguy, Charles-Pierre
Perse, Saint-John
Ponge, Francis
Prévert, Jacques
Reverdy, Pierre
Ronsard, Pierre de
Slowacki, Juliusz
Tzara, Tristan
Valéry, Paul
Vigny, Alfred de
Zagajewski, Adam

About Critical Survey of Poetry
Completely updated and expanded, Critical Survey of Poetry, Fourth Edition profiles major poets throughout history and the world, including analyses of their significant individual poems or collections. This new edition includes all poets from the previous edition and adds 145 new ones, covering 843 poets in total.

All the original essays were evaluated for their currency, and 133 of them were replaced or given substantial revision, in most cases by the original contributor. The sections "Other literary forms," "Achievements," "Biography," and "Analysis" were updated to include recent developments: new titles or awards, changes in residence or employment, and shifts in critical and popular reception. For these essays, material on one or more specific poems or collections was added.

For all essays, the bibliographies--lists of the poet's works and sources for further consultation--were revised to provide readers with the latest information. Every overview essay and its bibliography was brought up to date as well.

Essays begin with full data on dates and places of birth and death, and a list of the poet's "Principal Poetry." Next is a brief overview of "Other literary forms" and two longer sections, "Achievements" and "Biography." The longest section, "Analysis," discusses the poet's work and examines several poems. The final section includes a listing of other major works and a bibliography containing up-to-date resources. All essays are signed by the academics and other experts who wrote them.