New Pléiade Edition of Lautréamont's Complete Works Includes Critical Reception

Gallimard has published a new edition of Isidore Ducasse's complete works in its prestigious Pléiade collection, edited by Jean-Luc Steinmetz. The volume is the thinnest in the series at 296 pages for the author's writings, but includes nearly 700 pages of critical apparatus: preface, notes, bibliography, and a selection of readings spanning from 1868 to 1997. This edition notably excludes Germain Nouveau's works, which were included in the previous Pléiade edition. The critical reception section features texts by Léon Bloy, who early recognized Lautréamont's prophetic genius, as well as dismissive comments from Valéry Larbaud, Jean Cassou, Roger Caillois, and Albert Camus, who called Les Chants de Maldoror a "schoolboy" work. Supporters include the Surrealists André Breton and Louis Aragon, Francis Ponge, Maurice Blanchot, Guy Debord (who analyzed the parodic rhetorical devices in 1956), and the decisive 1966 contributions by Marcelin Pleynet and Philippe Sollers, who elucidated the link between Maldoror and Poésies as "absolute negativity." The edition aims to demonstrate that Lautréamont's work presents itself as a reading from the very first lines.