Robert Desnos and the Question of Wartime Dissent, 1940-1944

FAIN: FT-53248-05

Charles A. Nunley
President and Fellows of Middlebury College (Middlebury, VT 05753-6004)

Robert Desnos, widely known today for having written some of France's most important Resistance poems under the German Occupation (1940-44), also published a large number of texts under his own name in the German-censored press. My study of these long-neglected works will show the boundary between the clandestine and non-clandestine sphere to be far less stark than typically drawn. Through close readings exploring Desnos's manipulation of the discourses of mediation and power, such a study examines the richly suggestive ways in which Desnos sought to pursue his oppositional project even within the heavily-censored public sphere.