Re: *browses shelves* - Edit 1
Before modification by DomA at 23/05/2012 07:01:25 PM
Rilke for German poetry, but for French poetry, outside of Baudelaire, Rimbaud and Verlaine nothing really comes to mind for the past 170 years.
For 20th century poetry, you might try Prévert, or go off the beaten path completely and try a Québécois like Gaston Miron (avoid Émile Nelligan. A lot of people here would call me an heretic for saying this, but it's really just sub-Rimbaud).
Before your trio, La Pléiade (Ronsard, du Bellay etc.) and François Villon were of interest (for me personally, Villon much more so than la Pléiade).
Other big names would include Cendrars, Appolinaire, Lautréamont, Mallarmé, Musset, Valéry, Tzara etc.
A lot of the more meaningful francophone poetry from the 20th century has rather come from songwriters (Brassens, Ferré, Brel etc.) - a bit like it's the case with Dylan or Cohen, actually.
What about a comparison of Molière and Schiller's treatments of Don Juan (although Schiller doesn't have Don Juan as the titular character)?
That might be original, at least it's not something I've seen done in French Molière scholarship. Nearly all comparative discussions center on Molière vs. de Molina.