St. Clair, Robert A.2011-07-282011-07-282011-06https://hdl.handle.net/11299/109844University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. June 2011. Major: French. Advisors: Mária Minich Brewer, Bruno Chaoua. 1 computer file (PDF); v, 474 pages.This thesis proposes a model of reading Arthur Rimbaud's early poems in verse and Jules Vallès's novels at the intersections of cultural historiography and contemporary continental political theory and philosophy, from Michel Foucault to Jacques Rancière, in order to argue that they represent and deploy a revolutionary literary politics capable of giving voice to a subject theorized as the "infans".en-USCommuneNineteenth centuryPoliticsRimbaudVallèsFrenchThesis or Dissertation