French Poetry Research Articles

Automatic Generation and Evaluation of French-Style Chinese Modern Poetry

Literature has a strong cultural imprint and regional color, including poetry. Natural language itself is part of the poetry style. It is interesting to attempt to use one language to present poetry in another language style. Therefore, in this study, we propose a method to fine-tune a pre-trained model in a targeted manner to automatically generate French-style modern Chinese poetry and conduct a multi-faceted evaluation of the generated results. In a five-point scale based on human evaluation, judges assigned scores between 3.29 and 3.93 in seven dimensions, which reached 80.8–93.6% of the scores of the Chinese versions of real French poetry in these dimensions. In terms of the high-frequency poetic imagery, the consistency of the top 30–50 high-frequency poetic images between the poetry generated by the fine-tuned model and the French poetry reached 50–60%. In terms of the syntactic features, compared with the poems generated by the baseline model, the distribution frequencies of three special types of words that appear relatively frequently in French poetry increased by 12.95%, 15.81%, and 284.44% per 1000 Chinese characters in the poetry generated by the fine-tuned model. The human evaluation, poetic image distribution, and syntactic feature statistics show that the targeted fine-tuned model is helpful for the spread of language style. This fine-tuned model can successfully generate modern Chinese poetry in a French style.

Apollinaire, G. (2022). Zone. In Russian translations and ‘Russian mirror.’ Ed. By Y. Fridstein and O. Tsareykina. Foreword by N. Zubkov. Moscow: Tsentr knigi Rudomino. (In Russ.)

The review examines a publication of the poem ‘Zone,’ which counts among the most famous works by the innovative French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, in the original language and seven Russian translations, two of which were made in 2022 under the auspices of the Pushkin programme funded by the French Institute of the French Embassy in Moscow to promote book publishing. The book’s structure can baffle the reader, just like Apollinaire’s poem does. Opening with a double dedication to the 110th anniversary of the poem’s original publication and the centenary of M. Kudinov’s birth, the book then displays the original French version of ‘Zone,’ followed by the publisher’s colophon. The subsequent sections of the book seem to follow the conventional logic: N. Zubkov’s foreword discusses the unique characteristics of the French poem’s poetics and outlines the key points for a comparative analysis of the translations. The sequence of the printed translations is at odds with their chronological order, a conscious decision made by the publisher. The final section entitled ‘In the Russian mirror’ features insightful comments on the poem offered by distinguished scholars of French poetry such as N. Balashov, S. Velikovsky, Z. Kirnoze, and M. Yasnov.

The Case for Reading War Poetry as Ephemera

The First World War blurred the lines between “ordinary” and “literary” writing practices. Many sources corroborate this: necrologies written about poets who died in the act of writing not a poem but rather a letter, or introductions to poetry collections where bereaved families and friends admit they had no knowledge of their loved one’s writing practices until they found a journal full of poems after the author’s death, which they only published as a posthumous tribute. This article uses examples of French poetry of the Great War to explore this permeability between what is considered war poetry and what is considered war ephemera. The main question it addresses is what changes when we look at the war poems that were initially ephemera or ordinary writing. Whose stories get told when poetry is studied not as literature to be judged as accomplished or failed art but as a way of writing to make sense of the world? It argues that when we choose to read poems as ephemera and from the point of view of a larger anthropology of writing practices, diverse histories emerge and communities who write poetry not only as an artistic pursuit but also as a means of organizing experience and leaving traces behind reclaim ownership over their own narratives. This can challenge the false equivalence between the cultural history of warfare and an intellectual history of the elites at war and includes poetry within paradigmatic shifts that place objects at the centre of mediations of the experience of war.

Contemporary French Poetry: Towards a Minor Poetics by Daisy Sainsbury (review)

Contemporary French Poetry: Towards a Minor Poetics by Daisy Sainsbury (review)

Reimagining Literary Analysis: Utilizing Artificial Intelligence to Classify Modernist French Poetry

Aligned with global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and multidisciplinary approaches integrating AI with sustainability, this research introduces an innovative AI framework for analyzing Modern French Poetry. It applies feature extraction techniques (TF-IDF and Doc2Vec) and machine learning algorithms (especially SVM) to create a model that objectively classifies poems by their stylistic and thematic attributes, transcending traditional subjective analyses. This work demonstrates AI’s potential in literary analysis and cultural exchange, highlighting the model’s capacity to facilitate cross-cultural understanding and enhance poetry education. The efficiency of the AI model, compared to traditional methods, shows promise in optimizing resources and reducing the environmental impact of education. Future research will refine the model’s technical aspects, ensuring effectiveness, equity, and personalization in education. Expanding the model’s scope to various poetic styles and genres will enhance its accuracy and generalizability. Additionally, efforts will focus on an equitable AI tool implementation for quality education access. This research offers insights into AI’s role in advancing poetry education and contributing to sustainability goals. By overcoming the outlined limitations and integrating the model into educational platforms, it sets a path for impactful developments in computational poetry and educational technology.

Planetary gardening via female-led anthologies of women’s poetry in French

This article showcases the fruitfulness of cross-fertilizing geographical and literary methods to address the complexities of women’s poems being compiled into an anthology – a process of negotiation compounded by male domination of the canon. Inspired by Gilles Clément’s reflections on the ‘planetary garden’, we radically posit female-edited poetry anthologies as a prism for rethinking ecosystem management. Focussing on three landmark collections of French-language women’s writings, we illustrate how a wide variety of cultural production is essential for a flourishing future, just as greater biodiversity enhances an ecoregion’s resilience in the face of stressors like air pollution or heat shock. Within this experimental interdisciplinary framework, two main questions are explored: first, how an appreciation of anthologies through ecopoetics propels scalar thinking about issues to do with the climate crisis and social justice; second, what happens when a poem is transplanted into an anthological milieu, where a plurality of distributed agencies gives a collective sense of becoming more than just a sum of distinctive parts. Proposing an innovative model whereby a ‘poem-flower’ takes root in an ‘anthology-garden’, our article ultimately argues that paying attention to female-led anthologizations’ diversifying role can enhance thinking about ecological sustainability as much as social inclusion.

Relevance of Poetry: Catalyst of Moral Education in Sustaining Literacy for National Development in Teaching and Learning French Language

This paper attempts to show the relevancy of French poetry as catalyst of moral education in sustaining literacy for national development in teaching and learning the Language French. French poetry is one of the literary works that is used in giving moral education and promoting literacy in the teaching and learning French language. Education and moral are related to the needs of the society, it is what the students need to utilize in their daily life and should be given to them so as to have a brighter future. French language contains materials that deal with cognitive aspects likewise literacy education in form of prose and poetry which deal with the moral values should be imparted on the students during teaching process. French poetry, like other branches of literature is a work of imaginable deep thoughts, feelings and human experiences. Many people or teacher who are concerned about poetry teaching emphasise quite rightly the need to produce a lively atmosphere in the class so that poetry can be seen to be a source of pleasure and bring about the desired value change in our society. Descriptive research of a survey type was used for the study. The sample consisted of selected 50 French language students in two private Universities and 10 French language teachers in different institutions. The questionnaire was designed on the ability of the students towards teaching and learning French poetry as a catalyst of moral education in sustaining literacy for national development. The instrument used was a questionnaire for the teachers to generate information from them on the activities of the students towards learning French poetry and the provision of instructional materials during the Teaching and Learning of French poetry. Data collected were analysed using frequency count, percentage and ANOVA.

Incongruent Enjambments: The Case of Classical French Verse

In versified texts, congruence is one facet of the concordance between the edges of metrical constituents and those of grammatical constituents. Congruence may be characterized roughly as the requirement that no element within a syntactic constituent be in a stronger metrical position than the final element in that constituent. If break strength is defined in terms applicable to any constituent structure tree, syntactic as well as metrical, incongruences are discrepancies between the relative strengths of two breaks in metrical structure and the relative strengths of their counterparts in syntactic structure. Although our primary source of data is classical French verse, the characterization of congruence we present is a rather abstract one that does not make reference to features that are specific to French poetic forms or to the grammatical structure of the French language. This should make this characterization applicable in other poetic traditions.

Susan Harrow, Colourworks. Chromatic Innovation in Modern French Poetry and Art Writing

Susan Harrow, Colourworks. Chromatic Innovation in Modern French Poetry and Art Writing

Afro-Creole Poetry in French from Louisiana’s Radical Civil War-Era Newspapers: A Bilingual Edition by Clint Bruce (review)

Afro-Creole Poetry in French from Louisiana’s Radical Civil War-Era Newspapers: A Bilingual Edition by Clint Bruce (review)

:“The Life of Saint Eufrosine”: In Old French Verse, with English Translation

Previous articleNext article No AccessReviewsAmy V. Ogden, ed. and trans., “The Life of Saint Eufrosine”: In Old French Verse, with English Translation. (MLA Texts and Translations.) New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2021. Paper. Pp. 192. $17. ISBN: 978-1-6032-9505-5.Karen CasebierKaren CasebierUniversity of Tennessee, Chattanooga Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Speculum Volume 98, Number 1January 2023 The journal of the Medieval Academy of America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/722941 Views: 6Total views on this site For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Understanding Deschamps's Ballade Praising Chaucer in the Context of Early Humanist Epistolary Exchanges in Verse and Prose

Abstract: Eustache Deschamps's famous ballade praising Chaucer as "great translator" is best understood in the context of the early French humanist milieu whose literary values, linguistic markers, and transcultural reach it displays. With this epistolary ballade, written in the late 1390s and avant-garde at the time, Deschamps wanted to establish a literary friendship and an exchange of poetic writings with Chaucer, whom Deschamps perceived as a fellow humanist poet-translator, and whom he lauded for translating eloquence into the English language. Evidence for this new interpretation comes from comparisons of Deschamps's Ballade 285 with early fifteenth-century epistolary exchanges in French verse and prose, including letters from the debate over Jean de Meun's Roman de la Rose and the exchange of poetic praise between Deschamps and Christine de Pizan; from the Latin epistolary exchanges of the last quarter of the fourteenth century between leading French and Italian humanists Jean de Montreuil and Coluccio Salutati; and also from Petrarch's Latin letters to long-dead classical authors, which permitted no reply. Although Ballade 285 survives only in the collection of 300 "moral ballades" at the beginning of the huge manuscript of his collected works in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Fr. 840, Deschamps must have valued it, for this is the only section whose content he is thought to have selected and ordered himself before his death in 1404.

Elemental Air in French Poetry and American Nature Writing

This article discusses elemental air in twentieth-century French poetry and American nature writing, focusing on a comparison of human breathing to wind. Beginning with an overview of Pre-Socratic philosopher Anaximines, it examines select French poets’ expressions about wind. It turns to American nature writers' extensive experiences in the air outdoors. It looks at wind in the desert, prairie, forest, and Alaskan Sierra. Gaston Bachelard’s observations of air in motion serve as a segue to a discussion of elemental phenomenology. Building on the written expressions and experiences of French poets and American nature writers, the section on elemental phenomenology presents the importance of elemental air in philosophy but also in how one feels the many faces of wind and lives with and enjoys it.

Поиски счастья и фортуны: античные и французские источники сказки К. Н. Батюшкова «Странствователь и домосед»

The article discusses the intertextual links of Batiushkov’s verse-tale "The Wanderer and the Home-Lover". As formulated in Batiushkov’s letters, the tale’s central idea is closely connected with French maxims, and especially poetic punchlines. The philosophical quest of the protagonist, which forms the basis of the plot, culminates in him acquiring of Pyrrhon’s skeptical wisdom. The study reveals multiple borrowings from French poetry and treatises on classical Antiquity.

Vie de Saint Alexis : the elements of the antique novel live on in a holy life

One of the most well-known legends of the Middle Ages, the life of Saint Alexius, has been immortalized in both Latin and French poetry. The story, known from Latin and French sources, has been combined from several previous versions into a single legend over long centuries. My essay analyses the earliest Old French version of Saint Alexius's story, showing how a relatively dryly written sacred life can transform into a narrative enriched by romantic turns and emotional lyrical inserts.

New Books across the Disciplines

New Books across the Disciplines

À propos de l’origine du sonnet marotique

Several contradictory theories have been proposed in an attempt to elucidate the reasons that lead Clément Marot and his followers to introduce the sonnet in France with a rhyme scheme different from those adopted by the Italian sonnet. After submitting these hypotheses to examination, we will offer a new explanation, complementary to those exposed by Jasinski and Vianey: the sonnet marotique is due to an effort to respect the ancestral rules of versification typical of French poetry. Hence, Marot and the other creators of the early French sonnets arranged the rhyme of the tercets according to the usual schemes of the six-line stanza

F. Dostoevsky’s image in T. de Banville’s poem Les Petits Lapins

In the mid-1880s, the French came to discover Dostoevsky’s works. Yet neither Russian nor foreign scholars have attempted to fnd out when exactly his name was frst mentioned in French fction. This article represents the frst such study. The author believes that Théodore de Banville was the frst French author who introduced Dostoevsky’s name to the poetry of the late 1880s, or can at least be credited with one of the earliest mentions of the Russian writer’s name in French verse. For authors of de Banville’s generation, Dostoevsky remained a trendy foreign writer whose opinions and manner of writing stood in stark contrast with traditional French literary, aesthetic and ethical values. De Banville’s lines about the Russian author are full of irony and mock what the poet views as Dostoevsky’s exaggerated ‘psychologism.’ The article also describes the context for Dostoevsky’s reception, drawing comparisons with other foreign authors who became known to French audiences around the same time. The study contains a comparison between G. Flaubert’s response to L. Tolstoy’s War and Peace [Voyna i mir] and de Banville’s reception of Dostoevsky.

The Message of “Chèvrefeuille”

Abstract The apparent ambiguity at the heart of Marie de France’s lai “Chèvrefeuille” has beguiled generations of readers. This short twelfth-century Old French verse text purports to tell a simple story of how the exiled Tristan manages to signal to Yseut as she passes through a forest with her entourage, and its only interpretive difficulty seems to be the way Tristan communicates his message by carving some words or letters onto a stick. This article argues that, by debating what exactly Tristan writes, the scholarship on “Chèvrefeuille” leaves aside the intertext of the Tristan tradition, and by extension, the literary and affective investments of the lai. This narrow critical question leads to a broader problem of how literature can or should be read. Reading “Chèvrefeuille” as imbricated in the twelfth-century Tristan tradition underscores the pleasure of recognition that both modern reader and medieval receiver might experience and invites a re-examination of the role of the imagination in the study of medieval literature.

Поль Клодель – комментатор Песни Песней

«Paul Claudel interroge le Cantique des Cantiques» («Paul Claudel questions the Song of Songs») is a landmark work in the oeuvre of Paul Claudel (1868-1955), it is one of the largest artistic and exegetic commentaries in the collection of prose «Le Poëte et la Bible» («The Poet and the Bible») (1998, 2004). The writer creates a new «Claudelian novel» in Bakhtin’s understanding of the novelistic word, based on the centuries-old tradition of multiple interpretations, on the one hand, but built into a work of art, on the other. Claudel draws on his experience of reading the Vulgate, working with concordances and the works of the Fathers of the Church, updating the text of the Holy Scripture through the prism of his work. The artistic world of prose allows us to trace themes, motives, images, as well as the style of working with the text in Latin. Upon finishing his work on the commentary, Claudel makes his own translation of the Bible. It reveals the principles that Lemaistre de Sacy and Fillon adhered to, as well as the typical Claudelian methods of translation, which the writer stated in his discussions about language, French verse and orthography. The translation becomes part of the work: the interpreter places it at the beginning of each chapter. Claudel makes a new translation, pursuing other goals: he does not translate the Bible from the sacred language into the profane language, he translates it into the «Claudelian», adding the meanings that he puts into the text himself, which develops in the second part of each chapter – a poetic commentary.