Complex sentence: In the 1940s and 1950s Chisholm gave a series of "spellbinding" lectures on Baudelaire, Mallarmé and Valéry and his French department became known in Europe as the "a'Melbourne School' of scrupulous Mallarméan exegesis".
Split into simpler sentences: In the 1940s and 1950s Chisholm gave a series of "spellbinding" lectures on Baudelaire, Mallarmé and Valéry. His French department became known in Europe as the "a'Melbourne School' of scrupulous Mallarméan exegesis".