“This volume offers a lucid and intellectually bold reappraisal of Mallarmé’s poetics. It charts a distinctive path through Symbolist aesthetics and critical theory, articulating a compelling interpretive vision that reflects the depth and coherence of William Franke’s broader philosophical project.” —Andrea Schellino, University of Louvain, Belgium; editor of the Pléiade edition of Baudelaire.

“The Sign of the Swan unveils the secret life of symbols in French poetry. Through Mallarmé and his contemporaries, William Franke explores how words conjure new worlds and re-envision reality itself. He reveals how French Symbolist poetry, led by Stéphane Mallarmé, reshapes reality through language and imagination. William Franke offers a masterful analysis of the poetic interplay between image, meaning, and perception in fin-de-siècle France. A rare and precious book for now and tomorrow.” —Philippe Beck, French poet (Grand Prix de Poésie de l’Académie française), Professor of Philosophy, University of Nantes, France; and Professor of Poetry, European Graduate School, Saas-Fee, Switzerland.

Preface; Introduction: Baudelaire—Rimbaud—Mallarmé: Revolution and Revelation in Poetic Language; 1. Making Beings Speak: The Linguistic Epistemology of French Symbolist Poetry; Intrinsic Meanings of Things Expressed through Symbols; The Pre-semiological and Sub-semantic; 2. Illustrative Readings of Mallarmé’s Poems as Symbolist Works; Sonnet en x (“Ses Purs Ongles”); Sonnet en i (“Le vierge, le vivace, et le bel aujourd’hui”); “L’après-midi d’un faune”; Undecidability Rather than Suppression of Reference; Meanderings of Chance from Igitur to Un coup de dés; 3. Symbolist Meaning and Subjective Feeling; 4. Mallarmé’s Negative Poetics of De-Objectification through the Symbol; “L’après-midi d’un faune” Encore: From Representational; Emptying to Verbal Presence; Speaking the Being of Language—Or Rather its Nothing; Concluding Reflection; Bibliography; Index