SOURCE: "Théophile Gautier's Poetry as Coquetterie Posthume," in Nineteenth-Century French Studies, Vol. 20, No. 1 & 2, Fall-Winter, 1991-92, pp. 74-81.

In the following essay, Schick explores the poem, "Coquetterie posthume," and discusses how its seemingly paradoxical conjunction of seduction and death can illuminate other aspects of Gautier's poetics.

Ever since Georges Poulet's seminal work [Etudes sur la temps humain, 1950] on time in Gautier, it is generally acknowledged that Gautier's obsession with death is a matrix not only for his choice of themes but also for his esthetics and poetics. "Tout passe.—L'art robuste / Seul a l'éternité." and "Les dieux euxmêmes meurent. / Mais les vers souverains / Demeurent / Plus forts que les airains" ("L'Art") are verses that most popularly identify Gautier's place in the 19th Century canon. Recently, the poet Jacques Lardoux offers the poem "Coquetterie posthume" as evidence mat Gautier's "pierres précieuses" are "un défi, en derni...