French Literature Reviews - 2026

A Poetics of the Abyss
Poetry and Poetics

A Poetics of the Abyss. On Baudelaire et l'expérience du gouffre by Benjamin Fondane, Proceedings of the Cosenza conference, edited by Monique Jutrin and Gisèle Vanhese, Rubbettino, 2004.

Benjamin Fondane (1898–1944) increasingly emerges as a figure of modernity, having grasped its anxieties, fascinations, and aporias well ahead of his time. The choice of Baudelaire et l'expérience du gouffre (a testament-book, since Fondane was deported and murdered before completing it) aimed to shed light on his critical approach. Positioned at the unstable intersection where criticism meets poetry and philosophy, his reflection on the author of The Flowers of Evil remains essential today for penetrating the Baudelairean universe and its enigmas. His reading, grounded in the "thought of participation" developed in his Faux Traité d'esthétique, attempts to illuminate a poet for whom, as Yves Bonnefoy recognizes, "the truth of the word stems directly from this encounter—conscious and bare for the first time in our literature—between the wounded body and immortal language." It is this obscure alloy whose secret Fondane sought, in turn, to unlock.

This volume gathers conference proceedings dedicated to the intellectual legacy of Benjamin Fondane, a writer and thinker whose engagement with modernity continues to draw critical attention. At the center of these discussions is his final, uncompleted study on Charles Baudelaire, a poet whose exploration of modern anxieties and existential ruptures deeply resonated with Fondane's own philosophical inquiries. By examining the intersections of poetry, aesthetic theory, and existential crisis, the contributions collected here reflect on how Fondane approached the complexities of artistic creation on the edge of the abyss.

The essays contextualize Fondane's critical method within broader discussions of twentieth-century French literature and philosophy, touching on concepts such as the thought of participation and the tensions between bodily vulnerability and poetic language. While the volume focuses primarily on his reading of Les Fleurs du mal, it also sheds light on the wider trajectory of an author whose life and work were tragically cut short. Readers interested in twentieth-century poetry, modernist aesthetics, and the reception of Baudelaire may find these proceedings relevant to their pursuits.