This article situates Mallarmé’s éventails within the fête galante tradition pioneered by Watteau and identifies a link between the neo-rococo and japoniste aesthetics in these poems. It begins by identifying the folding fan’s unique position at the boundary of the two styles within a discussion of Mallarmé’s fashion writing in La Dernière Mode . It moves on to consider in detail a number of the shorter, little-studied éventails of the Vers de circonstance focusing on the ways in which they engage with both aesthetics via neo-rococo textual imagery and japoniste paratextual imagery before concluding with a brief comparison of Mallarmé’s éventails with Verlaine’s Fêtes galantes that underlines the novelty of Mallarmé’s approach to the genre. Throughout, it references the rich visual tradition of the fête galante including some of Watteau’s painted works as well as some of the fans upon which Mallarmé inscribed his verse.

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La France peut-elle améliorer son système éducatif? par Marie-Christine Weidmann KoopMalgré les nombreuses réformes dont il a fait l'objet, le système éducatif français souffre de maux qui sont régulièrement mis au jour dans les comparaisons internationales. On peut donc s'interroger sur la capacité de la France à améliorer ses résultats. Votées au printemps 2013, les premières mesures de la Refondation de l'École de la République ont été mises en place sur fond de scepticisme et dans un climat politique explosif: rythmes scolaires, laïcité, égalité filles-garçons, formation des enseignants, enseignement supérieur et rôle du numérique. Cet article aborde ces premières mesures, ainsi que les raisons qui ont conduit aux changements préconisés. LITERATURE The Fiction of Michel Serres: Writing the Beauty, Fragility, and Complexity of the Universe by Keith MoserThe interdisciplinary philosopher Michel Serres has established a reputation as one of the greatest thinkers of his generation. However, in comparison to his major philosophical works-Le parasite, Le contrat naturel, Les cinq sens-this article argues that his fiction is overdue for recognition. In a more accessible fashion than his philosophy, Serres's collection of short stories, Nouvelles du monde (1997), highlights the splendor, fragility, and complexity of the threads that link the biotic community of life together. Serres compels the reader to (re)envision the appropriate relationship between humanity and the rest of the universe.

French Canadian poet William Chapman is generally dismissed as second-rate imitator of Lamartine, Hugo or his compatriot Louis Fréchette. Chapman's bitter feud with Fréchette has been – much more than the five collections of verse he published between 1876 and 1912 – his claim to fame. Despite being at odds with his North American contemporaries, Chapman was indefatigable in his pursuit of literary prestige. Chapman's quest for literary honours including the Nobel Prize, while it has thus far attracted the derision of critics, in fact provides context for a deeper understanding of his poetic practice within the shifting philanthropic landscape of the turn of the century. Close readings of two of Chapman's poems, ‘À M. Andrew Carnegie’ and ‘Nobel’, alongside contemporary journalistic sources, point to a new understanding of Chapman's considerable body of occasional verse and of Chapman himself as a savvy professional attuned to the developing ‘economy of prestige’.

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