Noailles, Anna-Elizabeth, countess de

(1876-1933)

(countess Mathieu de Noailles, princess Brancovan)

   poet, writer, society figure

   Born in Paris of Greek and Romanian origin, Anna de Noailles was at the nucleus of a cultured, aristocratic literary circle. Known by her contemporaries for her musical, personal, and often mystical and exotic poetry, first collected in 1901 as Le Coeur innombrable, she found through a form of neoclas-sicism a lyricism abandoned since the romantic period. Her early verses, reveal a passion for light of day and the French countryside. Setting her gaze on wider horizons she celebrated in her later poems the enchantment and beauty of the whole world (Les Ébouissements, 1907), while exuding an almost pagan love of life. The themes of the flight of time, the passage of youth, and solitude are found in such collections as L'Honneur de souffrir (1927). Also a novelist, Anna de Noailles wrote La nouvelle Espérance (1903), Le Visage émerveillé (1904), in addition to her memoirs, Le Livre de ma vie (1932). She was the first female commander of the legion of honor.