Developing the everyday: French urban poetry and its relationships with the visual arts.

Abstract

This dissertation traces the changing nature of representations of everyday life in the urban poetry of Guillaume Apollinaire, Blaise Cendrars and Jacques Prevert. I focus on the interactions between their poetry and contemporary visual arts, specifically painting and photography. Under the influence of modern social conditions, poets became more and more interested in representing everyday life and in the representation of the <italic>quotidien</italic>, they often emulated or reacted to the contemporary techniques used painters and photographers of their times. These three urban poets bridged the gap between high culture and mass culture by enlisting the help of the visual arts, forcing poetry, a historically elitist genre, to roam the streets of the city. I investigate the urban poetry of Apollinaire, Cendrars and Prevert in light of contemporary art. In Chapter I, Towards a Window with Simultaneous Views of the City: Guillaume Apollinaire's 'Vendemiaire,' 'Zone' and 'les Fenetres, I discuss how his three poems are reflections of his art criticism. In Chapter II, Images of the Poor, the Eiffel Tower, and Other Urban Scenes: Picturing the Everyday in Blaise Cendrars' 'Les P&acirc;ques a New York,' 'Tour,' and <italic>Kodak: Documentaires</italic>, I examine three stages of Cendrars' urban poetry. First, I compare his Les P&acirc;ques a New York to contemporary New York documentary photography. Next, I look at his Tour, to discover what techniques he borrowed from Robert Delaunay. Finally, I take a brief look at his <italic> Kodak: Documentaires</italic> to examine how he played upon photography to serve as a guise for plagiarism. Finally, in Chapter III, Poet and Photographer Hit the Streets: Photographic Style in <italic>Grand Bal du Printemps </italic> and <italic>Charmes de Londres</italic>, I examine the photographic style of Jacques Prevert in two works that he published in cooperation with the photographer Izis Bidermanas.