Australian Divagations

Two revolutionary texts by Stephane Mallarme (1842-1898) lie at the heart of this book, the poem Un Coup de des and the prose collection Divagations. An international team of scholars from Paris to New York explores the multiple connections between Mallarme and Australia, especially as they are embodied in the works of Sydney poet Chris Brennan (1869-1932), whose writing, according to Mallarme, offered a parente de songe (a kinship of dream) with his own. With its focus on divagation - or wandering, reverie, and exploration - this book summons forth a Mallarme seen through a specifically Australian lens, through the focus of a century of critical and creative responses to his work, a Mallarme whose poetics enfold a particular femininity as well as a particular response to the feminine, and a Mallarme who possessed the extraordinary gift of seeing inspiring contemporary art.