Theodore De Banville: Constructing Poetic Value in Nineteenth-century France

Theodore de Banville (1823-1891) was a prolific poet, dramatist, critic and prose fiction writer whose significant contribution to poetic and aesthetic debates in nineteenth-century France has long been overlooked. Despite his profound influence on major writers such as Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine and Mallarme, Banville polarised critical opinion throughout his fifty-year career. While supporters championed him as a virtuoso of French verse, many critics dismissed his formal pyrotechnics,...