Verlaine, Paul

(1844-1896)

   poet

   A leader of the symbolist movement, Paul Verlaine was born in Metz and became interested in poetry at an early age. He was involved in the literary movements of the period. His first collection, Poèmes saturniens (1866), shows his affinity for the Parnassian movement. His Fêtes galantes (1869) evokes a scene from a painting by antoine watteau, and its sensual and affected subjects. Engaged to Mathilde Mauté, Verlaine described his thoughts on impending marriage in La bonne Chanson (1870), and expressed his hopes for a simple and tranquil life. His meeting with arthur rimbaud (September 1871) ended those plans, and his subsequent life together with Rimbaud in Paris, London, and in Belgium was a long series of altercations and separations. For firing two revolver shots at his companion (1873), Verlaine was imprisoned for two years at Mons. There, he wrote his collection, Romances sans paroles (1874), recalling his adventures with Rimbaud. shortly after his release, he underwent a religious conversion that inspired his mystical poems Sagesse (1880) and Amours (1888). He also tried unsuccessfully, with a young protégé, to be a farmer and then, for the rest of his life alternated between periods of intoxication and debauchery and ascetic repentance. With the publication of Poètes maudits (dedicated to Rimbaud, tristan corbière, and Stéphanie Mallarmé) and Jadis et Naguère, a collection of verse, Verlaine emerged as a symbolist poet. An erotic work, Parallelèment (1889), was followed by Liturgies intimes (1892), and Épigrammes (1894). Verlaine, who also wrote autobiographical prose (Mes Hôpitaux, 1892; Mes prisons, 1893; Confessions, 1893), not only exerted an influence on the French poets who followed him, but on various composers as well (gabriel fauré, henri duparc, claude debussy, Maurice ravel, and Igor Stravinsky).