Jean-Louis Baudry's Rimbaud Study Republished After 40 Years

Jean-Louis Baudry's seminal essay "Le Texte de Rimbaud," originally written in spring 1968 and published in the journal Tel Quel, has been republished for the first time in book form by Éditions Cécile Defaut. The edition is introduced by Laurent Zimmermann, who also released a companion essay on Rimbaud titled "Rimbaud ou la dispersion" with the same publisher in 2009. Baudry's study is a key document of the Tel Quel group's theoretical project, arguing that with Rimbaud, Lautréamont, and Mallarmé, poetry shifts from an expressive function to a textual production. The work remains relevant, challenging the notion of a "theoretical ice age" by demonstrating a vibrant reflection on literature. Baudry's analysis focuses on the "withdrawal of the signified" in Rimbaud's difficult oeuvre, which does not call for deciphering but rather a radical questioning of poetry's "will to say," preparing readers to cross the threshold of the text. The republication allows contemporary readers to engage with this critical moment in avant-garde literary theory.