French Literature Reviews - 2026

Y. Ringuedé, Une crise du moderne. Science et poésie dans la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle
Poetry and Poetics

Yohann Ringuedé,

Une crise du moderne. Science et poésie dans la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle,

Hermann, 12/03/2021,

ISBN : 9791037006899, 540 p., 38 €.

The relationship between scientific knowledge and poetry in the second half of the 19th century is complex. Long downplayed by literary history, the dialogue between these two fields oscillates between scientific modernity and poetic modernities. Alternately conflicting or fraternal, these multiple and contradictory forms of dialogue nonetheless prove symptomatic of an era in crisis regarding both the poetic genre and a waning scientism. Stylistic analysis—systematically informed by the context of production—and epistemic critique allow us to account for a parallel and long-overshadowed history of modernity: while the modern poem increasingly proclaims its autonomy, and while science tends to specialize to the point of becoming untransmissible, the dialogue between science and poetry, far from disappearing, grows more complex. The poet is no longer content to merely present elements of knowledge thematically. The influence of science becomes deeper and more structural: the poem borrows its scholarly language to express the anxieties of the lyrical subject, and poetology steps into the laboratory of experimentation. In doing so, the impact of science on poetic craftsmanship, though subterranean, becomes decisive in the innovative reformulations of poetry in the second half of the 19th century. Two modernities thus observe one another, at times turning away from each other, elsewhere intersecting. This book presents the history of this difficult coexistence.

Yohann Ringuedé is an agrégé and holds a PhD in French literature; he is an associate researcher at the LISAA laboratory (UGE) and a member of the Französische Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft department (Basel). A specialist in poetic forms, he has conducted research on the relationship between science and poetry, popularization discourse (Flammarion, Fabre), and the work of Jules Verne.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Science and Poetry: Disjointed Modernities?

Historical Perspective: Scientific Poetry, a Genre Under Suspicion

Method and Structure of the Reflection: The Imprint of Science

Part I. Reforming the Dialogue: A Consciously Subverted Heritage

I. Enterprises of Minimization

The Influence of Paraliterature: Science as a Tool for Positional Minimization

Verses by Scientists

The Versified Puffs of Charlatans: An Awareness of the Paraliterary

The "Short Breath": Positional Minimization of the Poet (Laforgue and Richepin)

The Influence of Pathological Discourse: Science as a Tool for Formal Minimization

The Return of the Short Verse: Verse and Bathybius in "La Gloire de l’eau" (Richepin)

Science in Minor Fixed Forms: The Popular and the Approximation (Paul Fort and Laforgue)

The Parnassus: Fossil Form, Miniature Poems, and Scientific Distillation

The Poet as Archaeologist: Parnassian Poetics and Scientific Method

Contemporary Parnassus: Diffuse Presence of Science

The Masked Science of Leconte de Lisle

Heredia’s Trophées: Discreetly Scientific Sonnets

II. The Laughter of Science

Laughing at Pretensions: Denouncing Scientistic Arrogance

Scientists Who Dream of Being Demagogues

Sciences Lacking Ambition

Laughing at Enunciation: Mimicking the Voice of Scientists

Playing with Scientific Lexicon

Laughing at the Forms of Scientific Communication

The Play of Registers: Heroic-Comic and Lower-Bodily Sciences

III. When Modern Science Shapes the Epic

Poetically Rendering a World in Crisis

A Century of Fragmentary Epics: Blame Science?

The Possibility of a "Highly Analytical" Epic

Poetic Responses: Grasping Dispersion to Found a New Era

The Discovery of Deep Time and the Crisis of the Lyrical Subject

Hugo’s Gest: Achieving the Conjugation of Science and Poetry

Part II. Refounding the Dialogue: The Foundations of a New Alliance

IV. Tonal Revolution, Scientific Lyricism

Baudelaire, Lautréamont, Rimbaud, and Laforgue: Analytical Lyricisms

Baudelaire: Science and Anxious Lyricism

Lautréamont: The Composite Body of a Monstrous Lyrical Subject

Rimbaud the Scholar? The Seer and the Ironist

Lyricism and Psychological Sciences: The Case of Laforgue

Anxiety and Fin-de-Siècle Lyricism

The Anguished Lyres

Science, Poetry, and Anticipation: The Fortune of a Prospective Lyricism

V. Making Poetry an Object of Science

In Defense of Classical Verse: Science and Measured Evolution

Mathematical Metrics

Versification and Chemistry: A Modernizing Analogy

Banville’s Petit Traité: A Scientific Metric?

The Fortune of the Physiological Approach

Classical Versification and Evolutionary Biology

The Poet and the Pathographer

Metrics and Psychological Science: The Case of Free Verse

Gustave Kahn: Free Verse, Physiology, and Lyrical Renewal

Echoes of the Scientific Approach in Free Verse Theories

Mallarmé’s "Crisis of Verse": A Discreet Influence of Biological Sciences

Symbolism and Experimental Poetics

Mallarmé and the Experimental Poem: "The Intimate Correlation of Poetry with the Universe"

Science in Jarry: Laboratory of a Symbolic Hermeticism

René Ghil: Scientific Poetology and "Moved Metaphysics"

General Conclusion

The 19th century witnessed a profound transformation in the status of both scientific discourse and poetic form. As science became increasingly specialized and technical, the literary field grappled with its own shifting boundaries and the quest for autonomy. This period saw the rise of scientism, a belief in the universal applicability of scientific methods, which eventually faced skepticism as the century progressed. Within this intellectual climate, poets often navigated the tension between traditional lyrical expression and the encroaching influence of empirical methodologies.

Une crise du moderne. Science et poésie dans la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle examines how scientific language and concepts were integrated into poetic craftsmanship. The work analyzes how poets utilized scholarly vocabulary and experimental approaches, and investigates the intersection of versification with developments in biology, chemistry, and psychology. Readers interested in the history of 19th-century French literature and the intersection of arts and sciences may find this study relevant.