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Central Library Jean & Alexander Heard Library Vanderbilt University

 

The W. T. Bandy Center for Baudelaire and Modern French Studies

(Centre W. T. Bandy d'Etudes Baudelairiennes et de Français Moderne)


For the book and journal holdings of the Center collections, please consult ACORN, the online catalog for the Vanderbilt Libraries.

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Collections and Databases:

The W. T. Bandy Collection





The W. T. Bandy Center for Baudelaire and Modern French Studies, founded by the College of Arts & Science of Vanderbilt University in September 1968 is a joint project with the Department of French and Italian and the Central Library in which it is located. Its core is the personal collection of the eminent Baudelaire scholar, W.T. Bandy, who continued to work with the collection until his death in 1989.


The Center's most important holdings consist of:
  • all the first editions of Baudelaire's works

  • magazines and newspapers (originals or microfilm) in which he first published his writings

  • subsequent reprintings of his works that are of scholarly interest

  • all collected editions of his works

  • practically every book published on Baudelaire

  • several thousand volumes containing materials on Baudelaire and related topics

  • thousands of articles from periodicals (scholarly journals, newspapers, etc.)

  • several hundred volumes of translations of his works into various languages

The critical center of the collection is an exhaustive bibliography of writings by and about Baudelaire. Titles of books and ephemera in the Center are available through the Bandy Center online database. Current articles are being added to this catalog when they are received. The Center is open to visiting scholars during regularly scheduled hours and by appointment. Material in the Center does not circulate. For those who are unable to visit the Center, a reference service is available. It is hoped that scholars who use the Center's services will donate reprints of their studies so that they can be carefully preserved and made available to other scholars.

The W.T. Bandy Center for Baudelaire and Modern French Studies was formally dedicated to Vanderbilt in 1969. It was subsequently named for Professor William T. Bandy at his retirement in 1973. Dr. Bandy was a scholar dedicated to the study of Charles Baudelaire. He made a lifelong commitment to the research and collecting of materials relating to Baudelaire. In recognition "for the support of French culture in the United States," Dr. Bandy received the Chevalier des Arts et Lettres Award from the French government in 1986.

The Center contains an extensive collection of materials by and about the French poet and critic, Charles Baudelaire 1821-1867. Baudelaire is a major literary figure who has greatly influenced not only nineteenth century French lyric verse and French literature through his translation of Edgar Allan Poe, but subsequent twentieth century literature. The poetry of Baudelaire expressed the effect of the city. In the history of literature, he is considered the earliest exponent of modernism as the "first poet of modern sensibility." T.S. Eliot acclaimed Baudelaire as "the greatest exemplar in modern poetry in any language."

His major works include:

Les Fleurs du Mal
Le Spleen de Paris
La Fanfarlo

For more information, please contact the Center at 343-0372.

The Pascal Pia Collection










The Pascal Pia Collection contains French literary works, periodicals, and ephemera. Most of the publications are from the modern period, with emphasis on prose and poetry since the mid-19th century. A very large number of signed copies are in the Collection, many of them gifts of such major authors as Camus and Malraux, both good friends of Pascal Pia.


The Gilbert Sigaux Collection







Gilbert Sigaux was an author, a translator, a professor of theater history at the "Conservatoire national d'art dramatique" in Paris and secretary of the "Société des auteurs et compositeurs dramatiques." Over a period of many years until his death in 1982, Sigaux gathered an enormous personal library of play texts and books and other valuable documents on the theater.

The Gilbert Sigaux Collection contains some 6,000 volumes, including monographs, theater journals, and primary texts, as well as almost 75,000 items on authors, directors, actors, and theaters. These files contain such items as press clippings, programs, publicity releases, Sigaux's personal notes, and articles from journals, many of which are no longer available.

By its emphasis on theater, The Sigaux Collection complements the Pascal Pia Collection. "The collection represents," according to Dan M. Church, Associate Professor of French, "the single most valuable resource for research on theater in France in the 20th century."

For more information about the Collection or to browse through the many boxes of files please go to the Gilbert Sigaux Collection Web Site.

Inquiries regarding the W.T. Bandy Center for Baudelaire and Modern French Studies, the Pascal Pia Collection, and the Gilbert Sigaux Collection may be addressed to:

W. T. Bandy Center for Baudelaire and Modern French Studies
Box 6325, Station B
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN 37235
Telephone: (615) 343-0372

E-mail: baudelaire@library.vanderbilt.edu

Inquiries concerning graduate programs in French, including applications to serve as research assistant in the W.T. Bandy Center for Baudelaire and Modern French Studies, should be addressed to:

Chair
Department of French and Italian
Box 6312, Station B
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN 37235
Telephone: (615) 322-6900

 

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