Matilde MANARA

The Temptation of Thought. Poetry and Essay in Paul Valery's, Rainer Maria Rilke's, Wallace Stevens' and Eugenio Montale's works.
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Doctoral School : Littérature française et comparée
Thesis Description :

Basing itself on the assumption that, along with the growth of the Novel-Essay and of other literary hybrids, great Modernist literature is marked by the presence of a strong essayistic element, this thesis aims to investigate the relationship between this latter and lyrical poetry in the works of Paul Valéry (1871-1945), Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) and Eugenio Montale (1896-1981) . The study of these four poets in particular will cast light on the stylistic as well as on the thematic features of the Poem-Essay and will eventually enable to compare it with other genres that flourish in occidental literary field over the 20th century. The research will focus in part on the analysis of a set of texts published at about the same time: Valéry’s La jeune parque (1919), Rilke’s Die Duineser Elegien (1923), Stevens’ Harmonium (1923) and Montale’s Le occasioni (1939).