Scandal and Parade Cocteau

Oxenhandler, Neal

Rutgers Univ@press

Rimbaud: The Cost of Genius

<p>Living during the chaotic period between the end of the Second Empire and the early years of the Third Republic, Arthur Rimbaud would become the genius of French literary modernism, surpassing even Baudelaire. But at what cost? In his poems and letters he reveals the devastating rigors of his relationships with others as well as his power as creator and thinker. Neal Oxenhandler employs psychocritical strategies to penetrate the secrets of a man who was one of the greatest literary figures of his century. For each poem Rimbaud wrote he paid a price in suffering, in jealousy, and in misunderstanding. Eventually the price for his gift rose so high that he had no alternative except to abandon poetry while still in his mid-twenties. <i>Rimbaud: The Cost of Genius</i> analyzes twenty-one major poems, showing the poet’s development during the ten years (1869–1879), when he was actively writing. It offers new solutions to the “joke” or “trick” poems, such as “H” and “Conte.” It also deals with the poet’s confinement in the Babylone barracks during the Commune, envisioned in the enigmatic poem, “Le Coeur du pitre.” In the last chapter, Oxenhandler studies how sublimation is achieved in “Une Saison en enfer” through the rhetorical trope of chiasmus. The book concludes with a personal “Appendix” that seeks to penetrate the mystery surrounding Rimbaud’s death in the Conception Hospital in Marseilles on November 10, 1891, at the age of thirty-seven.   </p>

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

Ohio State University Press

<p>Living during the chaotic period between the end of the Second Empire and the early years of the Third Republic, Arthur Rimbaud would become the genius of French literary modernism, surpassing even Baudelaire. But at what cost? In his poems and letters he reveals the devastating rigors of his relationships with others as well as his power as creator and thinker. Neal Oxenhandler employs psychocritical strategies to penetrate the secrets of a man who was one of the greatest literary figures of his century. For each poem Rimbaud wrote he paid a price in suffering, in jealousy, and in misunderstanding. Eventually the price for his gift rose so high that he had no alternative except to abandon poetry while still in his mid-twenties.\nRimbaud: The Cost of Genius analyzes twenty-one major poems, showing the poet’s development during the ten years (1869–1879), when he was actively writing. It offers new solutions to the “joke” or “trick” poems, such as “H” and “Conte.” It also deals with the poet’s confinement in the Babylone barracks during the Commune, envisioned in the enigmatic poem, “Le Coeur du pitre.” In the last chapter, Oxenhandler studies how sublimation is achieved in “Une Saison en enfer” through the rhetorical trope of chiasmus.\nThe book concludes with a personal “Appendix” that seeks to penetrate the mystery surrounding Rimbaud’s death in the Conception Hospital in Marseilles on November 10, 1891, at the age of thirty-seven.</p>

<p><div> <div>Living during the chaotic period between the end of the Second Empire and the early years of the Third Republic, Arthur Rimbaud would become the genius of French literary modernism, surpassing even Baudelaire. But at what cost? In his poems and letters he reveals the devastating rigors of his relationships with others as well as his power as creator and thinker. Neal Oxenhandler employs psychocritical strategies to penetrate the secrets of a man who was one of the greatest literary figures of his century. For each poem Rimbaud wrote he paid a price in suffering, in jealousy, and in misunderstanding. Eventually the price for his gift rose so high that he had no alternative except to abandon poetry while still in his mid-twenties.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div><i>Rimbaud: The Cost of Genius</i> analyzes twenty-one major poems, showing the poet's development during the ten years (1869-1879), when he was actively writing. It offers new solutions to the "joke" or "trick" poems, such as "H" and "Conte." It also deals with the poet's confinement in the Babylone barracks during the Commune, envisioned in the enigmatic poem, "Le Coeur du pitre." In the last chapter, Oxenhandler studies how sublimation is achieved in "Une Saison en enfer" through the rhetorical trope of chiasmus.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>The book concludes with a personal "Appendix" that seeks to penetrate the mystery surrounding Rimbaud's death in the Conception Hospital in Marseilles on November 10, 1891, at the age of thirty-seven.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> </div></p>

Looking for Heroes in Postwar France: Albert Camus, Max Jacob, Simone Weil

<p>This is the story of a love affair with a culture - a 50-year involvement that shaped at the very deepest levels its protagonist's philosophy, his identity, his life. In this elegant piece of "memoir criticism," a genre originated by Montaigne but finding renewed life in recent years, Neal Oxenhandler examines the impact of Camus, Jacob, and Weil on his own evolution as a writer, a scholar, and a human being. He finds subtle and surprising commonalities among the three writers, a harmony that motivated him to spell out their place in the postwar literary scene. Doing so, he began to unravel his own personal "craziness." He writes: "They taught me morality, politics, and religion, they gave me clues to secret parts of my psychic life."<br>Oxenhandler begins with his first Atlantic crossing, as a GI in World War II, then recounts his postwar return when traces of these writers were still intact. "I could walk down their streets, read their books, interview their friends." Now from the perspective of five decades he contemplates the contributions of each figure, both to intellectual history and to his own awakening.<br>Camus, he says, combined political relevance and artistic achievement, serving as a witness against evil in the post-Vichy period. Jacob died in the Drancy prison camp at war's end. In Oxenhandler's reassessment, Jacob becomes a witness to the Holocaust, even though a Catholic convert. Weil, self-exiled Jew, dying of hunger in a protest against the German occupation of France, is viewed by Oxenhandler as a transgressive figure of controversy, too absolute to survive the contradictions of the modern world. From these lives, these deaths the author devises a new type of "mediated autobiography" to connect text, narrative, and personal identity.</p>

Biographies & Memoirs

Dartmouth College

Scandal & parade;: The theater of Jean Cocteau

Dramas & Plays

Rutgers University Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Oxenhandler, Neal. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Oxenhandler, Neal

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Oxenhandler, Neal. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Scandal and Parade Cocteau

Rimbaud: The Cost of Genius

Rimbaud: The Cost of Genius

Rimbaud: The Cost of Genius

Looking for Heroes in Postwar France: Albert Camus, Max Jacob, Simone Weil

Looking for Heroes in Postwar France: Albert Camus, Max Jacob, Simone Weil

Scandal & parade;: The theater of Jean Cocteau