Frameworks for Mallarmé : the photo and the graphic of an interdisciplinary aesthetic

__The influence of photography and visual culture on the French poet, journalist, and critic.__ Countering the conventional image of the deliberately obscure ivory-tower poet, Frameworks for Mallarmé presents Stéphane Mallarmé as a journalist and critic who was actively engaged with the sociocultural and technological shifts of his era. Gayle Zachmann introduces a writer whose aesthetic was profoundly shaped by contemporary innovations in print and visual culture, especially the nascent art of photography. She analyzes the preeminence of the visual in conjunction with Mallarmé's quest for scientific language, and convincingly links the poet's production to a nineteenth-century understanding of cognition that is articulated in terms of optical perception. The result is a distinctly modern recuperation of the Horatian doctrine of ut pictura poesis in Mallarmé's poetry and his circumstantial writings.

Zachmann's work represents a truly excellent cultural and literary analysis of Mallarmé as a poet very much of his time, in tune both with the technological innovations and aesthetic ramifications of the art of photography and with the strategic innovations of the impressionist painters, who, like contemporary photographers, placed great emphasis on perception. By situating Mallarmé within his aesthetic cultural context, Zachmann succeeds in shedding convincing light on some of his more 'obscure' writings and also in presenting a compelling total portrait of Mallarmé as an artist whose aesthetic vision remained remarkably consistent throughout his life. - Katharine Conley, author of Robert Desnos, Surrealism, and the Marvelous in Everyday Life
"Countering the conventional image of the deliberately obscure "ivory-tower poet," Frameworks for Mallarme presents Stephane Mallarme as a journalist and critic who was actively engaged with the sociocultural and technological shifts of his era. Gayle Zachmann introduces a writer whose aesthetic was profoundly shaped by contemporary innovations in print and visual culture, especially the nascent art of photography. She analyzes the preeminence of the visual in conjunction with Mallarme's quest for "scientific" language, and convincingly links the poet's production to a nineteenth-century understanding of cognition that is articulated in terms of optical perception. The result is a distinctly modern recuperation of the Horatian doctrine of ut pictura poesis in Mallarme's poetry and his circumstantial writings."--Jacket Countering the conventional image of the deliberately obscure'ivory-tower poet,'Frameworks for Mallarmé presents Stéphane Mallarmé as a journalist and critic who was actively engaged with the sociocultural and technological shifts of his era. Gayle Zachmann introduces a writer whose aesthetic was profoundly shaped by contemporary innovations in print and visual culture, especially the nascent art of photography. She analyzes the preeminence of the visual in conjunction with Mallarmé's quest for'scientific'language, and convincingly links the poet's production to a nineteenth-century understanding of cognition that is articulated in terms of optical perception. The result is a distinctly modern recuperation of the Horatian doctrine of ut pictura poesis in Mallarmé's poetry and his circumstantial writings. Content: Frames of reference I: Une exquise crise, fondamentale -- Frame of reference II: Le futur vers se dégage -- Frames of consciousness in "Igitur": Devant le papier l'artiste se fait -- Framed works and Mallarmé: the steadfast gaze of a vision restored to its simplest perfection -- Frame Works for Mallarmé: Dans l'oubli fermé par le cadre se fixe, De scintillations -- Interartistic frameworks: Employez des comparaisons prises à tous les arts, mais la poésie les résume -- Coda: exposing change: Quotidian frameworks and developing movements. Frameworks for Mallarmé 5 CONTENTS 9 ILUSTRATIONS 11 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 13 ABBREVIATIONS 15 INTRODUCTION: Picture this 17 1. FRAMES OF REFERENCE I 31 2. FRAMES OF REFERENCE II 51 3. FRAMES OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN “IGITUR” 77 4. FRAMEDWORKS AND MALLARMÉ 107 5. FRAME WORKS FOR MALLARMÉ 139 6. INTERARTISTIC FRAMEWORKS 165 CODA: EXPOSING CHANGE 181 NOTES 187 BIBLIOGRAPHY 205 INDEX 219 A 219 B 219 C 220 D 220 E 220 F 220 G 221 H 221 I 221 J 221 K 221 L 221 M 221 N 223 O 223 P 223 R 224 S 224 T 224 U 224 V 224 W 225 Z 225