As someone who spent five years as a "sad French poetry PhD student," I'd like to know when French poetry became the single most pathetic thing anyone could dei

As someone who spent five years as a "sad French poetry PhD student," I'd like to know when French poetry became the single most pathetic thing anyone could deign to study. Probably ~40% of the people in my grad program ended up in translation or international affairs/relations jobs solely or largely because of their strong language skills, so I think French literature is a safer choice than English or history. Heck, even my software engineer colleagues who are trying to pick up French are glad there's another engineer who can help them with what they're learning or accompany them to a French conversation meetup.