‖ maudit, a.
(modi, anglicized məʊˈdiː)
[Fr., pa. pple of maudire to curse, damn. Cf. maledict a. (n.)
Although maudit has various senses in French, its uses in English seem to derive exclusively from (and are often explicitly analogous with) the earlier borrowing poète maudit.]
Of creative artists or their work: insufficiently appreciated by contemporaries; unsung, undeservedly neglected. Usu. postpositive with nouns (sometimes other Fr. rather than Eng. nouns). Cf. poète maudit n.
| 1963 K. Widmer Henry Miller iv. 113 Miller, of course, pours less of his feelings through Oriental love-and-wisdom than through the literary hysterias of Celine, Patchen, and other prophètes maudits that he imitates. 1971 ‘E. Candy’ Words for Murder Perhaps vi. 76 A poet manqué—but hardly maudit. 1972 Guardian 10 May 14/3 The unsurpassed film maudit of this genre is ‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’, an expressionistic nightmare. 1987 Financial Times 6 Nov. i. 21/1 The novelist's 1914 roman maudit about homosexuality now gets the treatment. 1991 Vanity Fair Sept. 162/3 It was the period when he was working with writer Charles Bukowski, the maudit chronicler of marginal lives in American society. |