“The project of this engaging book is the rehabilitation of the terms 'beauty' and 'meaning' in a poststructuralist age. Lyu is well acquainted with theory, and she makes abundant use of Gilles Deleuze, Walter Benjamin, and Maurice Blanchot. Her real inspiration, however, comes from French poets like Baudelaire and Mallarmé. She makes fascinating use of Baudelaire's writings on hashish and Mallarmé's bizarre attempt to edit a fashion magazine . . . this book will prove to be a stimulating resource for those interested in French literature or aesthetics.”--Choice “Lyu's project ultimately-and here is the place I find it to be truly daring-has to do with inventing a new way of reading: to retain the analytic rigor of the deconstructive tradition along with the possibility of an emotional literary responsiveness, and to keep the two engaged in a fine equilibrium, a tension in which each interrogates the other, keeps the other honest, as it were. This is of course to take great--though also necessary--risks in our post-deconstructive era. Claire Lyu's text invokes my whole reading self in a manner that little contemporary scholarship does.”--Janet Beizer, Harvard University “A lyrical celebration of the savoir-vivre of lyricism, Claire Lyu's beautifully written study is a joyous affirmation of the centrality of poetry. Blended with insights borrowed from the sciences and grounded in contemporary theory, her passion for the poetic invites the reader to rediscover some of the most powerful of all poetic voices, and thus to awaken to present experience.”--Rosemary Lloyd, Indiana University “A graceful and resolute examination of a concept many critics have abandoned--Beauty. Lyu takes 'the beautiful' seriously. She speaks of beauty's risks, and makes its drama compelling. Her readings are remarkable for their ingenuity and their penetration.”--Richard Terdiman, University of California, Santa Cruz ”If Baudelaire had the popular reach of Dr. Phil, this book would be an instant bestseller, so inspirational is its message, so articulate its conclusions. In evocative prose and far-reaching scholarship, Lyu attempts to distill the astounding, impulsive power of poetry--its spiritual value, its serious frivolity--and succeeds beautifully. The book’s lucid, engaging style, its impulse to seek beauty in everyday living, and its sheer emotional appeal to the sould all make ‘A Sun within a Sun’ a rare and worthwhile enterprise.”--Wade Edwards, Virginia Quarterly Review, July 23, 2006 ”Both erudite and creative, insightful and challenging, ‘A Sun within a Sun’ is a model of the ‘living scholarship’ that its author believes all good poetry inspires.”—Steven Winspur, Dalhousie French Studies, Summer 2007 “Gracefully written . . . The beauty of her work is in the details, in the wide range of unexpected references, in the freshness of her approach.”—Nineteenth-Century French Studies, Spring-Summer 2009

Prologue: “A Sun within a Sun” 1 Surrender of Freedom and Surrender to Freedom: Hashish and Poetry 2 The “Frivolous” Other and the “Authentic” Self: Fashion and Poetry 3 “Vise of Stone” and Open Air: “The Weight of Living” and “The Search for Lightness” 4 Beyond Hell and Paradise: The Poet and the Critic 5 Quantum Elegance: Content and Form in Science, Fashion, Poetry 6 The Eternal Enigma of Beauty Epilogue: “Emotion-in-Syntax”