Mallarmé, or the Poet of Nothingness

This is the first translation of a major text by Sartre on one of the greatest modern French poets, Stéphane Mallarmé, whom Sartre hailed as a “hero, prophet, wizard, and tragedian.” Written in 1953, Sartre’s text provides not only an invigorating and convincing intrepretation of Mallarmé, but also an original overview of French literature in the nineteenth century. Ernest Sturm is Professor of French at the University of California, Santa Barbara.