Under Ideal Conditions: Provincializing the ‘French’ Poetic Canon with Amélie Gex (1835–1883)

Abstract

<p>Taking inspiration from 'regendering' initiatives, the question underpinning this article is: how can we go back to the drawing board and effectively (re)provincialize the nineteenth-century French poetic canon, one influenced by Paris-based cénacles? Methodologically, the article explores the very possibility of bypassing Paris, at least on a theoretical level, in order to be able to analyse nineteenth-century poetry from the provinces comparatively, without the capital's centralizing force at play. Through concrete, specific, and archive-based, multilingual poetic and epistolary exchanges that bypass Paris, such as those between the Languedoc-based félibres rouges and the Savoie-based Amélie Gex, this article seeks to promote a more inclusive remapping of the nineteenth-century 'French' poetic landscape. In doing so, it hopes to diversify and challenge such ideas as 'national poetry' and the 'national poet', and with them the very idea of a monolingual nation itself.</p>