Anna Boschetti's 'La Poésie partout' criticized for dogmatic view of Apollinaire

Anna Boschetti's new essay 'La Poésie partout' (Seuil) is reviewed as a problematic contribution to avant-garde history. While it offers a competent monograph on Guillaume Apollinaire and literary sociology, the book is marred by a dogmatic application of Pierre Bourdieu's sociological method. Boschetti argues that Apollinaire's aesthetic choices were strategic, positioning him as a central figure between symbolism and surrealism. However, the reviewer contends that Boschetti's use of 'poésie pure' is deeply ambivalent: she historicizes the concept yet simultaneously employs it as an unexamined criterion for literary value, opposing 'pure' (good) against 'impure' (bad) literature. This leads to a distorted history where Apollinaire is seen as the inventor of modern poetry, the contemporary novel (via Joyce, Queneau, Leiris), and abstract painting (Duchamp, Delaunay, Picasso). Boschetti dismisses surrealism as 'sly' and accuses André Breton of liquidating Apollinaire's legacy, plunging French poetry into obscurantism. The reviewer finds this interpretation reductive, ignoring Apollinaire's political, erotic, and autobiographical works. The essay is deemed a symptom of contemporary critical malaise, favoring formalist trends (sound poetry, Oulipo) over ethically engaged literature.