Portrait of Corbière en homme qui rit Reading of “Femme”

The poem ‘‘Femme’’, in Les Amours jaunes, can be read as a rewriting of an episode from Hugo’s L’Homme qui rit. This rewriting gives Corbière an opportunity to explore not only bitter and jarring feelings, but also the everlasting traces the literary past has left on his writing. Though unique because of its partly cryptic intertext, it offers an indicative sample of Corbière’s complex relationship with romanticism, whose legacy is literally incorporated in his poetry.