Unlocking Mallarmé

Almost a century after the death of the French poet Stéphane Mallarmé, readers still puzzle over his writings, still seek to understand his seemingly impenetrable philosophy. In this highly original book, Graham Robb reveals conclusive answers to the mysteries of Mallarmé. Robb's discovery of a "key" to Mallarmé's poetry is an exciting achievement that entirely redefines Mallarmé studies, illuminates large areas of French poetry, both before and after Mallarmé, and opens the way for new interpretations of some of the most complicated poems ever written.

As Robb scrutinized the work of Mallarmé, he discovered that the poet repeatedly used the hundred or so words in the French language that have no rhyme. This discovery, as Robb tells it, "proved to be the first step of a staircase leading to a tomb which had remained sealed since Mallarmé built it."

It revealed the only perspective from which his poems "made sense"—as allegorical tales of their own creation. The "theme" of the poem turns out to be just one surface of a brilliantly coordinated whole.

In the first part of the book, Robb defines and explores the development of Mallarmé's approach; in the second he applies the method to specific poems; in the conclusion he suggests ways in which the key might be applied to other poems and poets; and in the epilogue he offers a guided tour through Mallarmé's famously uninterpretable shipwreck poem, Un coup de dés. The book reveals how Mallarmé's self-reflecting, self-destructive work poses, and perhaps answers, the central questions of twentieth-century criticism.