Selected Essays of Malcolm Bowie I: Dreams of Knowledge
Malcolm Bowie
Legenda (General Series) vol 1 of 2•4 December 2013

  • ‘Only someone with Bowie’s exquisite powers of expression and formidably focused, well-stocked mind could home in so closely on the multilevelled play of thought in some of the most difficult modern writers, and especially on the places where their work crosses aesthetic boundaries... It is therefore a huge treat to be able to revel in the publication of his Selected Essays, impeccably edited by Alison Finch and beautifully produced by Legenda... Even in the space of a short review, Bowie’s writing offers both pleasure and intense mental stimulation. For readers old and new, there are marvels in store in these two magnificent volumes.’ — Michael Sheringham, French Studies 68.3, July 2014, 422-23
  • ‘These two volumes can only add to our sense of [Bowie's] importance... Criticism like this is clearly so much more than criticism: it is an engagement with the act of creation that is brought back to creation itself. These two volumes are full of brilliance and insight and deftly communicated and thus infectious pleasure.’ — Patrick McGuinness, Times Literary Supplement 5805, 4 July 2014, 21
  • ‘His readings are always marked by a resistance to easy answers that would attempt to reduce or deny the complexity of the text under analysis; the role of the critic is to illuminate that complexity, giving close attention to the way the text functions and how it guides the reader to a range of potential interpretive moves. While he is a highly trustworthy guide through the intricacies of the text, as he himself writes in an essay on Mallarmé, 'somehow the passage through imbricated levels of utterance towards some final state of achieved propositional clarity is never quite the point' (I: 152).’ — Joseph Acquisto, Nineteenth-Century French Studies 43.1-2, 2014
  • ‘How Verdi moves Shakespeare’s Othello around the globe, finding the mental ‘fingerprint’ in Winnicott, introducing Judith Butler, deciphering Stéphane Mallarmé, exploring brevity in Proust (yes), Liszt’s relationship with Wagner, ‘that most exhausting of sons-in-law’: these are just a few of the subjects considered with such zest by Malcolm Bowie, who was a critic of immense talent.’ — Edward Hughes, Times Higher Education Supplement 1 January 2015, 63
  • ‘Evidence abounds in these pieces of Bowie’s keen appetite for intrinsically difficult subject-matter. Indeed, his ability to sustain his critical nerve in the handling of complex material was to become a hallmark of his achievement... Yet alongside this intensity of engagement with serious subject-matter, we also see the poise and panache of a critic who was so evidently at home with textual composition.’ — Edward J. Hughes, Modern Language Review 111.1, January 2016, 228-29 (full text online)

Perspectives on Culture and Politics in the French Antilles
Celia Britton
Selected Essays 4•25 May 2018

  • ‘Engagingly written and meticulously argued at every turn, Britton’s essays reveal unexpected dimensions in her primary archives and offer challenging arguments on the relationship between politics and aesthetics in the French Caribbean... Although Britton has an abiding passion for Glissant’s work, she never lets this interest overshadow the singularities of her other authors. This careful sensitivity is characteristic of the masterful readings Britton provides in her provocative new collection.’ — Justin Izzo, French Studies 73.2, April 2019, 329-30 (full text online)
  • ‘Les analyses abordées sont très attentives et riches en éléments qui peuvent constituer le point de départ d’autres études.’ — Emanuela Cacchioli, Studi francesi 189, 2019, 616-17

For the Love of Art
Peter Dayan
Selected Essays 10•20 October 2022

  • ‘Rich and powerful discussions, bursting with invention and life. This is a formidably clever sequence of essays in which major writers and musicians are set in contrast and dialogue with each other.’ — John Batchelor, Modern Language Review 119.2, 2024, 181-88 (full text online)

France/China: Intercultural Imaginings
Alex Hughes
Research Monographs in French Studies 22•24 August 2007

  • ‘The author's scholarly and intriguing readings could be seen to invite us to look beyond the French framings of China to the texts of writers who know the country intimately.’ — Rosalind Silvester, Modern and Contemporary France 497-98

Edmond Jabès: The Hazard of Exile
Steven Jaron
Legenda (General Series) •1 December 2003

  • ‘A meticulously researched account of backgrounds to Edmond Jabès's poetry... Its focus on the early period in Egypt brings to view an aspect of Jabès's life not much otherwise looked at. And it raises many questions vital to understanding Jabès.’ — Shira Wolosky, Partial Answers 4.1, 2006, 201-04

The Art Criticism of Francis Ponge
Shirley A. Jordan
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 36•1 January 1994

Strands of Utopia: Spaces of Poetic Work in Twentieth-Century France
Michael G. Kelly
Legenda (General Series) •3 October 2008

  • ‘In all, Michael Kelly’s study encourages revised understandings of both the poetic and the utopian in the modern French literary context... A well-informed and instructive survey of both utopia and poetry. All this makes Strands of Utopia: Spaces of Poetic Work in Twentieth-Century France an invaluable source.’ — Teresa Louro, Utopian Studies 21.2, 2010, 357-60
  • ‘A very careful, reflective, and thought-provoking study, and it more than amply rewards the exertions required of its readers.’ — Margaret Miner, French Studies 64.4, 2010, 513-14
  • ‘L'ouvrage de Michael G. Kelly, prolongé par une importante et très utile bibliographie, ouvre donc des voies passionnantes pour explorer la poésie dans la dynamique de sa fabrication au XXe siècle.’ — Michel Blay, Kritikon Litterarum 37, 2010, 168-69
  • ‘Offers a thorough and convincing argument for the need to read twentieth-century French poetry from the perspective of utopia... An important resource that should open up new means of addressing the ever-changing "'idea' of poetry".’ — James Petterson, French Review 37, 2010, 156-57

The Made and the Found: Essays, Prose and Poetry in Honour of Michael Sheringham
Edited by Patrick McGuinness and Emily McLaughlin
Legenda (General Series) •25 May 2017

  • ‘Micky’s words return here in all their felicity. His appetite, brilliance, and distinct sensibility are intensely present. The editors speak of Micky ‘drawn by what was accidental, unsystematic, eccentric’ (p. ix). They see him glorying in ‘the overspill of things’. They speak of Micky as their ‘friend and colleague’ and this book is a beautiful act of camaraderie.’ — Emma Wilson, French Studies 72.3, July 2018, 485-86 (full text online)
  • ‘This starry roster of writers, working in English and French, often operate along lines of creative interplay between chance and choice, the map and serendipity, walking and writing, celebrating the transition from noticing to noting and from there maybe even into actually making poetry.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 54.3, July 2018, 375
  • ‘The Made and the Found is a rich volume that will be of interest to friends of the late Michael Sheringham as well as to all those wanting to study the relation between French culture, language and the everyday.’ — Verena Andermatt Conley, H-France 18.214, November 2018

The Foreign Connection: Writings on Poetry, Art and Translation
Jamie McKendrick
Transcript 17•28 September 2020

  • ‘This book might have been written for my pleasure. Many readers of this journal will surely feel the same.’ — Chris Miller, PN Review 28.3, January/February 2022
  • ‘There is a natural clemency at work, throughout the entire volume, which has nothing to do with fuzzy-mindedness – quite the contrary, but it means that McKendrick will never deliver the frenzied hatchet-job some poets (whom he admires) can execute, apparently with sangfroid. This intelligence – by definition an ironic intelligence in that it can simultaneously entertain different positions – is what makes him such a trustworthy guide. One feels also that humour, that saving resource, is always within reach... His astute use of quotation to illustrate a point is a fiduciary of sound judgement. Above all, Jamie McKendrick reminds us that there is no substitute for patient looking and listening. This close attention, this authentic love of the art, is rare in our day. These writings are to be prized.’ — Stephen Romer, The London Magazine February/March 2022, 77-84
  • ‘A welcome marker to remind us, if we needed reminding, of how much human beings need, and gain from, dialogue with other cultures and languages. The apparently foreign, as Jamie McKendrick demonstrates so well here, in fact shows us a threshold, a door.’ — Hilary Davies, Times Literary Supplement 19 May 2023, p. 8
  • ‘What Jamie McKendrick so finely details about Tom Lubbock’s English Graphic is an entirely apt description for his own collection of brief reviews, introductions, and essays, on literature and art: ‘The constraints of the form proved exceptionally viable and liberating for his procedures. Providing a “wiry outline”, the form itself allowed for wit, aperçu, mental calisthenics, provocation, aphorism, meditation and surprisingly sustained argument’.’ — George Kalogeris, Essays in Criticism 73.1, 2023, 130-31 (full text online)

Shaping and Reshaping the Caribbean: The Work of Aimé Césaire and René Depestre
Martin Munro
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 52•1 January 2000

Singing Poets: Literature and Popular Music in France and Greece
Dimitris Papanikolaou
Studies In Comparative Literature 11•23 February 2007

  • ‘A well-informed and satisfying study.’ — Peter Hawkins, Modern Language Review 103.3, July 2008, 816-16 (full text online)
  • ‘This engaging and stimulating study... is a fascinating examination of the construction and reception of "high-popular" musical genres and specific debates surrounding the question of what "good" and "authentic" national music should be.’ — Hazel Marsh, Popular Music 27.2, 2008, 318-20
  • ‘Makes a significant contribution to the study of Modern Greek culture, and also forwards the thinking behind what makes the conjunction between high and popular culture in any context...’ — Hector Kollias, French Studies 63.1, 2009, 114-15

Essay as Enabler in Yves Bonnefoy: Creating the Good Reader
Layla Roesler
Research Monographs in French Studies 67•10 December 2022

Contemporary French Poetry: Towards a Minor Poetics
Daisy Sainsbury
Research Monographs in French Studies 65•26 July 2021

  • ‘Sainsbury has opened up a hospitable space for further reflection and critical engagement. This is a sure-handed, accessible and very knowledgeable study of what is challenging, and critically important, work.’ — Michael G. Kelly, Modern Language Review 119.2, 2024, 273-74 (full text online)

Translating the Perception of Text: Literary Translation and Phenomenology
Clive Scott
Legenda (General Series) •10 October 2012

  • ‘In echoing Walter Benjamin’s disapproval of the view that a translation is intended for ‘readers who do not understand the original’, Clive Scott convincingly argues in favour of translation as a literary art that helps promote the language of the source text rather than seeks to provide substitutes for it.’ — Ramona Fotiade, French Studies 68.1, January 2014, 143-44
  • ‘The literary translation urged on us in this seismic manifesto is neither the creation of an object nor the reaching of a target: ‘Translation’s area of operation is not two langues, but language itself, and translation’s business is not merely to provide a version of a text, but to make the provision of that version a fruitful con- tribution to the development of the expressive potentialities of the language medium’.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 50.1, January 2014, 130-31
  • ‘The real achievement of this volume, I think, is that it pushes for an overhaul of current understanding of the task of the (literary) translator. Even readers and translators who reject some of his individual claims and particular ideas will find that the thrust of the work as a whole leaves a lasting impression. If all this does is serve to remind the translator not to translate as would a machine (word for word, from one language to another, searching for sameness), this is still a valuable contribution.’ — Mairi McLaughlin, Comparative Literature Studies 52.3, 2015, 653-56

Perpetual Motion: Studies in French Poetry from Surrealism to the Postmodern
Michael Sheringham
Selected Essays 2•25 May 2017

  • ‘Sheringham s’y révèle un maître de l’art du compte rendu... Ce livre si riche en intuitions, détours, élucidations et remarquables traductions, se lira aussi comme l’art poétique d’un grand critique.’ — Jean Khalfa, French Studies 73.1, 145 (full text online)
  • ‘Here is a reader finely attuned to the myriad ways in which poetry seeks out new encounters with reality through endless linguistic experimentation and play... it is his ability to unlock the detail of what poetry accordingly helps concretize and crystallize, mentally, spiritually and emotionally, that will stimulate and delight those guided from essay to essay on an adventure ever in the making.’ — Michael Brophy, Irish Journal of French Studies 18, 2018, 229-30
  • ‘Poignant and richly rewarding... [Sheringham] offers an authoritative view of current academic study of a vast number of authors, major and minor, writing on almost the entire Surrealist and post-Surrealist constellation.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 55.3, July 2019, 356-57
  • ‘Questa scelta, in parte postuma, di scritti conferma in definitiva, per la varietà e ricchezza degli argomenti trattati e per l’acuità dello sguardo del suo A., la qualità di una ricerca che ha sempre rifuggito troppo facili schematismi per affrontare dimensioni assai diverse del poetico come quella oracolare, mistica o linguisticamente trasgressiva con eguale curiosità intellettuale e finezza d’analisi.’ — Fabio Scotto, Studi francesi 188, 2020, 396