French Literature Reviews - 2026

A. Chénier, Oeuvres poétiques t. I
Poetry and Poetics

André Chénier, Oeuvres poétiques. Tome 1

(edited by Georges Buisson and Edouard Guitton)

Éditions Paradigme, "Hologrammes" series, 2005

EAN : 9782868782335

39 €

Publisher's overview:

Chénier's work was only made public long after the poet's death. His manuscripts suffered a turbulent fate, having been divided up, withheld from view, and partially destroyed in the 1871 fire... Successive editors have grappled with a text that remained incomplete and fragmentary, and none managed to achieve a satisfactory result. Should we have given up on having an edition that does justice to the "proud André"? Here it is, complete and faithful. Messrs. Buisson and Guitton have carried out the restructuring that connoisseurs knew was necessary. As specialists in 18th-century poetry, they investigated and scrutinized all sources, dating each fragment before reassembling the texts according to chronological, structural, and aesthetic criteria. For the needs of this complex undertaking, they forged their own methods and tools—including an entirely new chronology—based on the principles outlined in the "Remarks on this Edition". Care has been taken to ensure that the poet's verses occupy the page entirely on their own: readers can experience them in complete freedom, *a capella*.

Georges Buisson taught at the Université Michel de Montaigne-Bordeaux 3. Édouard Guitton taught at the Université de Rennes 2-Haute Bretagne.

This volume presents the poetry of André Chénier, a prominent late eighteenth-century French writer whose work occupies a unique place between the waning Ancien Régime and the turbulence of the French Revolution. Because Chénier perished during the Reign of Terror, his manuscripts suffered a famously complex and fragmented transmission over the following centuries. Editors Georges Buisson and Edouard Guitton met this formidable philological challenge by devising new textual methods, meticulously dating and reassembling the surviving fragments according to rigorous chronological, structural, and aesthetic criteria.

Designed for scholars of eighteenth-century literature, poetry specialists, and advanced students of French verse, this critical edition provides a reliable foundation for studying Chénier's evolution as a poet. By stripping away centuries of editorial interference and presenting the verses in complete freedom, the volume allows readers to engage directly with the author's lyrical craft. It serves as an essential resource for anyone seeking to understand the complexities of poetic transmission, editorial theory, and the turbulent literary landscape of revolutionary France.