French Literature Reviews - 2026
Théo Soula, Géographie littéraire de Paris dans l’œuvre de Jacques Réda. Le flâneur mégapolitain
Other Literary Studies
Review published in Acta Fabula (January 2023, vol. 24, no. 1): "Jacques Réda géographe" by Jean-François Duclos
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Théo Soula, Géographie littéraire de Paris dans l’œuvre de Jacques Réda. Le flâneur mégapolitain
2019 PhD Thesis Award from the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme et de la Société de Toulouse
Paris, Classiques Garnier, coll. "Bibliothèque des lettres modernes", 2021
EAN 9782406120490
554 p.
Price: 59 EUR.
Overview:
In a sprawling city transformed into a postmodern megacity, Jacques Réda’s work reinvents the tradition of Parisian literary flânerie. Rather than signaling the end of the era of the "pedestrian of Paris," it serves as a crucible forging new forms of urban citizenship.
The practice of flânerie has long occupied a central place in French literature, particularly in depictions of the capital developed by nineteenth-century poets and twentieth-century avant-gardes. As urban spaces evolved under the pressures of modernization and globalization, writers continually recalibrated their relationship to the street. In this context, scholarly work examines how Jacques Réda engages with this rich tradition, positioning pedestrian observation not as a vanishing art, but as a resilient mode of spatial appropriation within the contemporary metropolitan environment.
Readers interested in modern poetry, urban geography, and the literary representation of Paris may find it relevant. The texts navigate the complexities of the sprawling city, transforming the physical landscape into a site of aesthetic inquiry and reflection. Scholars of contemporary literature will recognize here an extension of familiar debates surrounding the relationship between literature, walking, and the experience of urban modernity.