This anthology has a double aim: to present a body of poetry, none of it easily available, some of it never before reproduced, and to point up a particular trend, until now nearly lost sight of in the maze of generalizations about eighteenth-century French poetry. This trend, called individualist, in contradistinction to the academic and universalist trends of the century, has been chosen since it is the least known and most original of the three.

The individualist poets are avowed moderns, and their attitude toward poetry and their concept of its nature often anticipate attitudes held by our poets of our own time. There has not been available to this point a sufficiently representative body of poems by these poets, a gap that Professors Finch and Joliat have attempts to fill with their anthology.

Readers will find the notes to the poems especially useful, since many of them provide out-of-the-way background material and, as well, offer new insights into the poetry of the individualist poets as a group.

Robert Finch (1900-1995), scholar, poet, painter, musician, and theatrical director, was professor of French in University College, University of Toronto. His poetry won the Governor-General's award twice, in 1946 an 1961. He received the Lorne Pierce medal in 1968. Among his other books are The Sixth Sense: Individualism in French Poetry, 1686-1760, Acis in Oxford (both published by the University of Toronto Press), and Silverthorn Bush (1966).

Robert Finch's profile page

Eugène Joliat was a professor emeritus and past chairman of the Graduate Department of French in the University of Toronto. He published numerous articles and reviews in schoarly journals and a book, Smollett et la France.

Eugène Joliat's profile page