Experimentation and the Lyric in Contemporary French Poetry

Experimentation and the Lyric in Contemporary French Poetry offers a new theoretical approach and historical perspective on the remarkable upsurge in creative poetic practices in France that have challenged traditional definitions of poetry and of the lyric. Focusing on the work of Pierre Alferi, Olivier Cadiot, Emmanuel Hocquard, Franck Leibovici, Anne Portugal and Denis Roche, this book provides an analysis of the most influential poets in French poetry of the last few decades. It contextualizes the theoretical models that inform their investigations, analyzing them alongside the history of the avant-garde and the heated theoretical debates that have taken place over whether to continue or bring an end to the lyric. Systematically addressing the various strategies employed by these poets and drawing on reception theory and cognitive studies, Jeff Barda argues that French radical poetics re-evaluates the lyric in cognitive terms beyond the personal. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in twenty-first-century forms of experimental writing and the connections between literature and the arts today.

“Barda’s work testifies of an in-depth knowledge of a difficult and extremely innovative field, which he perfectly masters. … this book reframes our way of thinking the relationship between the lyric and the experiment. It can be used as a user’s manual to contemporary French poetry, which may seem very difficult to read without this kind of help (but it’s more than worth the effort).” (Jan Baetens, Leonardo, leonardo.info, August, 2021)

“We are delighted to award the first LE Book Prize in the category ‘Literature in languages other than English’ to Jeff Barda’s Experimentation and the Lyric in Contemporary French Poetry (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), a monograph endorsed by major scholars as a ground-breaking work that reshapes its field of study, “a truly brilliant book that provides the first full account we have of how French poetry has evolved in the course of the past half century” (Marjorie Perloff). It considers all the key authors in terms of their poetic methods and perspectives, as well as the research questions their work poses. Supported by systematic close-reading, Barda’s book is also pioneering in that it applies its extensive understanding of international theoretical and critical models to show their differences as well as correspondence with French poetic production. The book is to be commended for its relatively jargon-free, highly precise and tightly argued prose. It manages at the same time to be pedagogically accessible and to offer refined and sophisticated critical judgement.” (The Literary Encyclopedia) 

“Focusing on the principle of recycled language, Barda gives us a delightfully readable and comprehensive account of contemporary French poetics. He presents not only six of the most important poets in France today, but also the history of twentieth century French poetry, the political and social stakes at its core, and many of the thinkers, from Wittgenstein to Deleuze, who have informed it. This is an essential text for anyone interested in French literature, shining a spotlight on its vibrant present and pointing toward its very promising future.” (Cole Swensen, poet, translator and Professor of Literary Arts, Brown University, USA) 

“Anyone interested in the fate of the lyric whether French or otherwise, in our time, will profit from reading this brilliant analytic study of what poetry does and does not do in the age ofinformation.” (Marjorie Perloff, Professor Emerita of English at Stanford University, USA and Florence R. Scott Professor of English Emerita at the University of Southern California, USA)

Jeff Barda is Junior Research Fellow in French at Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge, UK.