The Treatment of Identity in Nerval's 'Les Chimeres' : With Particular Attention to Poetic Technique

Essay from the year 2013 in the subject Romance Languages - French Literature, grade: 72 (A), University of Birmingham, course: BA Modern Languages, language: English, comment: An engaged and engaging essay which opts to use biographical criticism to read the collection of poetry, but only after examining some of the objections often raised with regard to this methodology. Insightful points are made about Nerval's poetic technique and there is evidence of wide reading of secondary critics on the subject. The essay is rather long. Try to express ideas succinctly and be aware of the word limit. , abstract: Nerval's work is famously difficult to categorise. Was he a romantic? A surrealist? Or something else? The collection of poems "Les Chimres" could certainly be said to express elements of all of the above and perhaps more. Not originally intended as a collection, the poems nevertheless share many attributes, not least the question of identity. The treatment of this theme within "Les Chimres" is interestingly key to an understanding of the collection and one which raises several points pertaining to Nerval's particular poetic technique.