Long regarded as a “popular” writer, Jehan Rictus, an anarchist and poet of modern misery, nevertheless remains one of the most remarkable artists of the...

Long regarded as a “popular” writer, Jehan Rictus, an anarchist and poet of modern misery, nevertheless remains one of the most remarkable artists of the late nineteenth century, and the quality of his work is something that his contemporaries certainly envied. It is time now to hear once again the voice of Jehan Rictus. In his poems with libertarian accents, he chastises the bourgeois, his epoch, the “hideousness” of false charity, false reason, and bigotry. The fair and sensitive interpretation of Daniel Mesguich makes it possible to hear the power of these works orally while giving pieces of life to the ‘little people.’