"Women poets in nineteenth-century France made important contributions to major stylistic innovations - from the birth of elegiac Romanticism to the inauguration of free verse - and many were prominent in their lifetime. Yet only a few are known today, and nearly all have been unavailable in English translation. Of the fourteen poets of this anthology - the third bilingual volume in the MLA series Texts and Translations - some were wealthy, others struggled in poverty; some were socially conventional, others were cynical or defiant. Their poems range widely in style and idea, from Romantic to Parnassian to symbolist." "Gretchen Schultz, author of The Gendered Lyric: Subjectivity and Difference in Nineteenth-Century French Poetry, provides literary history and biographical notes to show the crucial role women played in nineteenth-century French poetry and to explain why they were criticized and - in the creation of the canon - often eclipsed."--BOOK JACKET.