Phalanxes of Babel: Selected Texts from an Outlaw of Thought, 1828-46 –– by Philothée O'Neddy

The poet Philothée O’Neddy (1811-75) was a cultural radical sidelined by mainstream culture in his day, and has yet to garner the posthumous recognition granted to many later poètes maudits. A founding member of the seminal Bouzingo group, O'Neddy’s radical Romanticism melded Byronic dandyism, progressive politics, intellectual play, and linguistic experimentation, all with a deeply earnest irony that speaks to our contemporary cultural moment.

His work presents a finely-crafted phantasmagoria of radical politics, countercultural lifestyle, and gothic-horror tropes, all embroidered with archaic vocabulary and startling neologisms set in a tortured syntax, and twisted in order to achieve bewildering effects. His intense idealism shot through with a corrosive irony would later inspire the oeuvres of Baudelaire and Lautréamont.

But O’Neddy’s praxis encompassed far more than “literature” narrowly considered. He was among the first and most outspoken countercultural theorists to agitate overtly for the radical convergence of art and life, and to put these ideas into concrete action. He was one of the most active organisers in the burgeoning underground Romanticist movement in Paris, and led the collective push to explore its most experientially radical fringes.

This is the most extensive collection yet presented in English of O’Neddy’s poetry, along with selections of his theoretical statements, a bio-critical introduction by editor and translator Olchar Lindsann, and a bibliography of O’Neddy’s few works in English.

48 pgs on folded Letter-size paper. July, 2024/A.Da. 108/A.H. 194
$4.00 + s/h