Description:
Capital Letters sheds new light on how literature has dealt with the death penalty by uncovering the unexpected critical dialogue in which Victor Hugo, Charles Baudelaire, and Albert Camus engaged.
Review Quotes:
"Morisi's book is a captivating read, showing the similarities and differences among the three authors, and revealing a reciprocal relationship in their ethics and poetics. Her argument of erasure, be it of the condamné's body and identity in Hugo, of moral superiority in Baudelaire, or of literary jargon in Camus offers a new and refreshing way of rediscovering these texts. This book will appeal to scholars researching the death penalty as well as those looking to delve deeper into the works of these important authors of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries." --Nineteenth-Century French Studies
"Morisi's excellent account of capital punishment in the writings of three authors whose work revolves around it demonstrates just how central it is to modern thought, despite our best efforts to rid ourselves of it." --H-France
"There aren't many scholars these days who have the erudition, rhetorical arsenal, and sensibility to give French poetry and poetics their due. Ève Morisi is one of them." --Debarati Sanyal, author of The Violence of Modernity: Baudelaire, Irony, and the Politics of Form
"In a stunning tour de force that examines the multiple strategies deployed by Victor Hugo, Charles Baudelaire, and Albert Camus to represent and indict lethal justice and violence, Ève Morisi provides a wealth of captivating perspectives that grip the reader's attention. Her lively analysis illuminates how these three authors use literary transgression to portray state-sanctioned killing--and thus create compelling ethical arguments grounded not in rhetorical discourse but in poetic expression." --Kathryn M. Grossman, author of The Later Novels of Victor Hugo: Variations on the Politics and Poetics of Transcendence