French Poets - Benjamin Fondane, Tristan Tzara, Voltaire, Robert Arnauld D'Andilly, Victor Hugo, Jean Racine, Vincent-Marie Vienot, C (Abridged, Paperback, Abridged edition)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 191. Chapters: Benjamin Fondane, Tristan Tzara, Voltaire, Robert Arnauld d'Andilly, Victor Hugo, Jean Racine, Vincent-Marie Vienot, Count of Vaublanc, Charles Baudelaire, Hilaire Belloc, Moliere, Serge Gainsbourg, Jean Genet, Paul Celan, Jean Cocteau, Arthur Rimbaud, Antonin Artaud, Jules Verne, Saint-John Perse, Theophile Gautier, Jean de La Fontaine, Marie de France, Michel Houellebecq, Francois Villon, Georges Brassens, Christine de Pizan, Philippe Beck, Pierre-Jean de Beranger, Boris Vian, Pierre de Ronsard, Francois Fenelon, Guillaume de Machaut, Louis Aragon, Brigitte Fontaine, Paul Verlaine, Andre Breton, Stephane Mallarme, Linda Maria Baros, Gaston Bachelard, Alain Tasso, Blaise Cendrars, Serge Venturini, Joachim du Bellay, Claude Esteban, Guillaume Apollinaire, Rene Galand, Pierre Reverdy, Roselyne Sibille, Paul Valery, Nicolas Chamfort, Charles Coypeau d'Assoucy, Andre Chenier, Aime Cesaire, Jacques d'Adelsward-Fersen, Anatole France, Paul Claudel, Guillaume Desautels. Excerpt: Benjamin Fondane (French pronunciation: ) or Benjamin Fundoianu (Romanian pronunciation: born Benjamin Wechsler, Wexler or Vecsler, first name also Beniamin or Barbu, usually abridged to B.; November 14, 1898 - October 2, 1944) was a Romanian and French poet, critic and existentialist philosopher, also noted for his work in film and theater. Known from his Romanian youth as a Symbolist poet and columnist, he alternated Neoromantic and Expressionist themes with echoes from Tudor Arghezi, and dedicated several poetic cycles to the rural life of his native Moldavia. Fondane, who was of Jewish Romanian extraction and a nephew of Jewish intellectuals Elias and Moses Schwartzfeld, participated in both minority secular Jewish culture and mainstream Romanian culture. During and after World War I, he was active as a cultural critic, avant-garde promoter and, with his brother-in-law Armand Pascal, manager of the theatrical troupe Insula. Fondane began a second career in 1923, when he moved to Paris. Affiliated with Surrealism, but strongly opposed to its communist leanings, he moved on to become a figure in Jewish existentialism and a leading disciple of Lev Shestov. His critique of political dogma, rejection of rationalism, expectation of historical catastrophe and belief in the soteriological force of literature were outlined in his celebrated essays on Charles Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud, as well as in his final works of poetry. His literary and philosophical activities helped him build close relationships with other intellectuals: Shestov, Emil Cioran, David Gascoyne, Jacques Maritain, Victoria Ocampo, Ilarie Voronca etc. In parallel, Fondane also had a career in cinema: a film critic and a screenwriter for Paramount Pictures, he later worked on Rapt with Dimitri Kirsanoff, and directed the since-lost film Tararira in Argentina. A prisoner of war during the fall of France, Fondane was released and spent the occupation years in clandestinity. He was eventually capture