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VERLAINE, PAUL (1844–1896)

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Originally appearing in Volume V27, Page 1024 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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VERLAINE, See also:PAUL (1844–1896) , See also:French lyric poet, was See also:born at See also:Metz on the 3oth of See also:March 1844. He was the son of one of See also:Napoleon's soldiers, who had become a See also:captain of See also:engineers. Paul Verlaine was educated in See also:Paris, and became clerk in an See also:insurance See also:company. He was a member of the Parnassian circle, with Catulle Mendes, See also:Sully Prudhomme, See also:Francois See also:Coppee and the See also:rest. His first See also:volume of poems, the Poetizes saturniens (1866), was written under Parnassian influences, from which the Fetes galantes (1869), as of a See also:Watteau of See also:poetry, began a delicate See also:escape; and in La Bonne Chanson (187o) the defection was still more marked. He married in 1870 Mlle. Mautet. During the See also:Commune he was involved with the authorities for having sheltered his See also:friends, and was obliged to leave See also:France. In 1871 the See also:strange See also:young poet See also:Jean See also:Arthur See also:Rimbaud came somewhat troublingly into his See also:life, into which drink had already brought a lasting disturbance. With Rimbaud he wandered over France, See also:Belgium, See also:England, until a See also:pistol-shot, fortunately See also:ill-aimed, against his See also:companion brought upon him two years of imprisonment at See also:Mons. Solitude, confinement and thought converted a See also:pagan into a See also:Catholic, without, however, rooting out what was most human in the pagan; and after many years' silence he published Sagesse (1881), a collection of religious poems, which, for humble and passionate conviction, as well as originality of poetic beauty, must be ranked with the finest religious poems ever written. Romances sans paroles, composed during the intervals of wandering, appeared in 1874, and shows us Verlaine at his most perfect moment of See also:artistic self-See also:possession, before he has quite found what is deepest in himself.

He returned to France in 1875. His wife had obtained a See also:

divorce from him, and Verlaine made another See also:short stay in England, acting as a teacher of French. After about two years' See also:absence Verlaine was again in France. He acted as teacher in more than one school and even tried farming. The See also:death of his See also:mother, to whom he was tenderly attached, dissolved the ties that See also:bound him to " respectable " society. During the rest of his life he lived in poverty, often in See also:hospital, but always with the heed-less and unconquerable cheerfulness of a See also:child. After a See also:long obscurity, famous only in the Latin See also:Quarter, among the cafes where he spent so much of his days and nights, he enjoyed at last a See also:European celebrity. In 1894 he paid another visit to England, this See also:time as a distinguished poet, and lectured at See also:London and See also:Oxford. He died in Paris on the 8th of See also:January 1896. His eighteen volumes of See also:verse (among which may be further mentioned Jadis et naguere, 1884; Amour, 1888; Parallelement, 1889; See also:Bonheur, 1891) vary greatly in quality as in substance; they are all the sincere expression, almost the instantaneous notation, of himself, of his varying moods, sensual See also:passion, the passion of the mystic, the delight of the sensitive artist in the.' See also:fine shades of sensation. He brought into French verse a See also:note of lyrical See also:song, a delicacy in the evocation of See also:sound and See also:colour, which has seemed almost to create poetry over again, as it provides a See also:language out of which See also:rhetoric has been cleansed and a See also:rhythm into which a new See also:music has come with a new simplicity.' (A. SY.) His CEuvres completes (3 vols.) were published in 1899, &c.; CEuvres posthumes (1903).

See also Paul Verlaine, sa See also:

vie, son oeuvre, by E. Lepelletier (1907) ; monographs by M. Dullaert (See also:Ghent, 1896), C. Morice (1888); also Anatole France, La Vie litteraire (3rd See also:series, 1891); J. See also:Lemaitre, Nos contemporains (1889), vol. iv.; E. See also:Delille, " The Poet Verlaine," in the Fortnightly See also:Review (March 1891); A. See also:Symons, in the See also:National Review (See also:June 1892); V. See also:Thompson, French Portraits (See also:Boston, U.S.A., 'See also:coon); and the poet's own Confessions (1895) and his Pates maudits (1888). A bibliography of Verlaine with an See also:account of the existing portraits of him is included in the Pates d'Aujourd'hui (11th ed., 1905) of MM. A. See also:van Bever and P. Leautaud. The Vie by Lepelletier has been translated into See also:English by E.

M. See also:

Lang (1909).

End of Article: VERLAINE, PAUL (1844–1896)

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