Widely regarded as the greatest French poet of the eighteenth century, André Chénier (1762-1794) wrote some of his most scintillating, original verse in the looming shadow of the guillotine. Neither the 'last Classic' nor the 'first Romantic' of post-revolutionary legend, here is Chénier speaking from his own visceral, personal engagement in the Revolution that would take his life. The chief innovation of this edition of his last poems is to use translation as both critical tool and creative practice to open up these important texts to alternative readings. Chénier is a revolutionary poet in every sense of the term. These translations allow us to seize this truth afresh.
David McCallam is Reader in French Eighteenth-Century Studies in the University of Sheffield, UK.