Aux Singuliers. Les Excentriques Des Lettres

Among the writers whose works readers will encounter in these pages is Étienne Jodelle (1562–1573), the young prodigy of “La Pléiade” whose talent was admired by Ronsard and Du Bellay. A genuine Renaissance “Rimbaud” – this poet-turned-paria gave up the pen to become a soldier – but later resumed writing again to create love poems that turned out to be rare gems. Many years later, Henri IV relinquished France – which he had conquered at such a great price – for the charms of a fourteen-year-old girl who had won his heart. Malherbe (1555–1628), a stalwart classicist, tried to cure his sovereign with lines of perfect rhymes. Two centuries later, this “medicine” failed to cure Nerval (1808–1855) when he fell madly in love with a second-rate actress. The eccentric Marquis de Bièvre, who raised word play to a fine art, will entertain readers with his comic pre-Reign of Terror writings. Readers may shiver aboard the Farman 190 airplane as it flies over Yemen’s dunes in quest of the Queen of Sheba’s kingdom with its passenger, André Malraux (1901–1976). They will experience other cinemascope adventures from Antonin Artaud (1896–1948), who will take them into the heart of the Mexican Sierra Mountains and plunge them into the midst of secret Shamanic rites. Toulet (1867–1920) and Levet (1874–1906), masters of the short poem who lived at the dawn of the 20th century, left behind them a heady atmosphere of haikus and shipping lines. In 1817, in Brussels, French ex-convict Antoine Lycas stole the Manneken-Pis, confessing the deed in a way that Baudelaire might have imagined fifty years later.