SOURCE: "The Poet and His Moira: 'El Desdichado'," in PMLA, Vol. LXXV, No. 4, September, 1960, pp. 402-09.

An English-born critic and educator specializing in French literature, Kneller is the coauthor of Introduction à la poésie francaise (1962) and a former editor of French Review. In the following essay, he provides an exegesis of "El Desdichado, " finding the sonnet to be an expression of Nerval's belief about his lot in life.

Concerning Gérard de Nerval it has been said, of late, that the hour of synthesis is at hand. This is particularly true of "El Desdichado," for most authors of the increasingly voluminous literature devoted to this sonnet have taken an extrinsic approach; that is, they have applied techniques of other fields, such as psychiatry, biography, astrology, and alchemy. At best they have helped to elucidate hitherto obscure symbols; at worst they have made of their thesis a kind of...