Madeleine M. Smith

Madeleine M. Smith, was an Associate Professor of French at SIU Carbondale from 1929-1971. Madeleine, working underthe direction of Henri Peyre, the distinguished French author and literary critic, wrote her dissertation on the great symbolist poet Mallarme and received her Ph.D. from. Yale in 1952. Madeleine Smith was the consummate humanist, lover of all French literature and of music, especially Wagner. In addition, she was a champion of women’s rights, “avant la lettre.”

Madeleine established the Mallarme Prize, to be awarded as follows: “The recipient of this prize must be a member of the graduating class in French who excels in the appreciation of literary values. The poet Mallarme represents all that is genuinely part of the historical and intellectual spirit of France.”