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Paul Verlaine

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Courbet - Paul Verlaine

Paul Verlaine (1844-1896). Portrait by Gustave Courbet (1819-1877). Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Paul Verlaine
Born March 30 1844(1844-Template:MONTHNUMBER-30)
Metz, France
Died January 8 1896(1896-Template:MONTHNUMBER-08) (aged 51)
Paris, France
Occupation Poet
Genres Symbolist

Paul-Marie Verlaine (30 March 1844 - 8 January 1896) was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement. He is considered a major representative of the fin de siècle in international and French poetry.

Life[]

Youth and education[]

Verlaine was born at Metz on 30 March 1844. He was the son of a Napoleonic soldier, who had become a captain of engineers.[1]

Paul Verlaine was educated in Paris.[1]

Career[]

Henri Fantin-Latour 005

Verlaine and Rimbaud - detail of Coin de table by Henri Fantin-Latour (1836-1904), 1872. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Verlaine became a clerk in an insurance company.[1]

He was a member of the Parnassian circle, with Catulle Mendès, Sully Prudhomme, François Coppée and the rest.[1]

He married in 1870 Mlle. Mautet. During the Commune he was involved with the authorities for having sheltered his friends, and was obliged to leave France.[1]

In 1871 the strange young poet Jean Arthur Rimbaud came somewhat troublingly into Verlaine's life, into which drink had already brought a lasting disturbance. With Rimbaud he wandered over France, Belgium, England, until a pistol-shot (fortunately ill-aimed) against his companion brought upon him 2 years of imprisonment at Mons.[1]

Verlaine returned to France in 1875. His wife had obtained a divorce from him, and Verlaine made another short stay in England,[1] Verlaine again traveled to England, where he worked for some years as a teacher, teaching French, Latin and Greek and drawing at a grammar school in Stickney in Lincolnshire.[2] From there he went to teach in Boston, before moving to Bournemouth.[3]

After about 2 years' absence Verlaine was again in France. He acted as schoolteacher more than once, and even tried farming.[1]

Final years[]

Paul Verlaine

Verlaine drinking absinthe in the Café François 1er in 1892, photo by Paul Marsan Dornac. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

The death of his mother, to whom he was tenderly attached, dissolved the ties that bound Verlaine to "respectable" society. During the rest of his life he lived in poverty, often in hospital, but always with the heedless and unconquerable cheerfulness of a child.[4]

After a long obscurity, famous only in the Latin Quarter among the cafes where he spent so much of his days and nights, he enjoyed at last a European celebrity. In 1894 he paid another visit to England, this time as a distinguished poet, and lectured at London and Oxford.[4] That same year he was elected France's "Prince of Poets" by his peers.

He died in Paris on 8 January 1896.[4]

Writing[]

Verlaine's debut collection of poems, the Poèmes saturniens (1866), was written under Parnassian influences, from which the Fêtes gallantes (1869), as of a Watteau of poetry, began a delicate escape; and in La Bonne Chanson (1870) the defection was still more marked.[1]

Romances sans paroles, composed during the intervals of wandering, appeared in 1874, and shows us Verlaine at his most perfect moment of artistic self-possession, before he has quite found what is deepest in himself.[1]

Imprisonment, solitude, and thought converted a pagan into a 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.[1]

His 18 volumes of verse (among which may be further mentioned Jadis et naguère, 1884; Amour, 1888; Parallelèment, 1889; 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 passion, the passion of the mystic, the delight of the sensitive artist in the fine shades of sensation.[4]

He brought into French verse a note of lyrical song, a delicacy in the evocation of sound and colour, which has seemed almost to create poetry over again, as it provides a language out of which rhetoric has been cleansed and a rhythm into which a new music has come with a new simplicity.[4]

His Œuvres complètes (3 volumes) were published in 1899 and on; his Œuvres posthumes in 1903.[4]

Recognition[]

In preparation for Operation Overlord (the Allied invasion of Normandy in World War II), the BBC had signaled to the French Resistance that the opening lines of the 1866 Verlaine poem "Chanson d'Automne" were to indicate the start of D-Day operations. The first 3 lines of the poem, "Les sanglots longs / des violons / de l'automne" ("Long sobs of autumn violins"), meant that Overlord was to start within 2 weeks. These lines were broadcast on 1 June 1944. The next set of lines, "Blessent mon coeur / d'une langueur / monotone" ("wound my heart with a monotonous languor"), meant that it would start within 48 hours and that the resistance should begin sabotage operations especially on the French railroad system; these lines were broadcast on 5 June at 23:15.[5][6][7]

Portraits[]

Numerous artists painted Verlaine's portrait. Among the most illustrious were Henri Fantin-Latour, Antonio de la Gándara, Eugène Carrière, Gustave Courbet, Frédéric Cazalis, and Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen.

In popular culture[]

Verlaine's poetry was admired and recognized as ground-breaking, and served as a source of inspiration to composers. Gabriel Fauré composed many mélodies, such as Clair de lune and the song cycles Cinq mélodies "de Venise" and La bonne chanson, which were settings of Verlaine's poems.[8] Claude Debussy set to music 6 of the Fêtes galantes poems, forming part of the mélodie collection known as the Recueil Vasnier,[9] and Belgian-British composer Poldowski (daughter of Henryk Wieniawski) set 21 of Verlaine's poems.

In 1964, French singer Léo Ferré set to music 14 poems from Verlaine (Écoutez la chanson bien douce, Il patinait merveilleusement, Mon rêve familier, Soleils couchants, L'espoir luit (...), Art poétique, Pensionnaires, Âme, te souvient-il ?, Chanson d'automne, Green, Je vous vois encor, Ô triste, triste était mon âme, Clair de lune, Sérénade) along with Arthur Rimbaud in his album Léo Ferré chante Verlaine et Rimbaud. He also sang two others poems (Colloque sentimental, Si tu ne mourus pas) in his album On n'est pas sérieux quand on a 17 ans (1987). Since then other French singers regularly sing these "songs".

The time Verlaine and Rimbaud spent together was the subject of the 1995 film Total Eclipse (film), directed by Agnieszka Holland and with a screenplay by Christopher Hampton, based on his play. Verlaine was portrayed by David Thewlis and Leonardo DiCaprio played Rimbaud.

Bob Dylan, in his 1975 song "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go," sings, "Situations have ended sad / Relationships have all been bad / Mine have been like Verlaine's and Rimbaud."

The New Zealand band The Verlaines are named for Paul Verlaine. Their most notable song "Death and the Maiden" features in its lyrics Paul Verlaine, the shooting of Rimbaud, and repeats the word "Verlaine" numerous times. The song Death and the Maiden has also been covered by Steve Malkmus.

Publications[]

Verlaine's Complete Works are available in critical editions from the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade.

  • Libretti for Vaucochard et Fils 1er and Fisch-Ton-Kan (1864)[10] (music by Chabrier)
  • Poèmes saturniens (1866)
  • Les Amies (1867)
  • Fêtes galantes (1869)
  • La bonne chanson (1870)
  • Romances sans paroles (1874)
  • Sagesse (1880)
  • Les poètes maudits (1884)
  • Jadis et naguère (Verlaine) (1884)
  • Amour (1888)
  • À Louis II de Bavière (1888)
  • Parallèlement (1889)
  • Dédicaces (1890)
  • Femmes (1890)
  • Hombres (1891)
  • Bonheur (1891)
  • Mes hôpitaux (1891)
  • Chansons pour elle (1891)
  • Liturgies intimes (1892)
  • Mes prisons (1893)
  • Élégies (1893)
  • Odes en son honneur (1893)
  • Dans les limbes (1894)
  • Épigrammes (1894)
  • Confessions (1895)
  • Paul Verlaine, Correspondance générale : [Vol.] I, 1857-1885 (edited and annotated by Michael Pakenham). Paris : Fayard, 2005. 16 x 24 cm. 1,122 pages. ISBN 2-213-61950-6

References[]

 Symons, Arthur (1911). "Verlaine, Paul". In Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopædia Britannica. 27 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 1023-1024. . Wikisource, Web, Sep. 13, 2020.

Notes[]

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 Symons, 1023.
  2. ↑ Delahave, Ernst (2006). "Paul Verlaine". Martin and Bev Gosling. http://www.stickneyhistory.co.uk/res/Documents/paulverlainebyernestdelahave.pdf. Retrieved 2010-09-05. 
  3. ↑ Delahave, Ernst (2010-05-22). "Biography of Paul Verlaine". The Left Anchor. http://www.theleftanchor.com/2010/05/biography-of-paul-verlaine.html. Retrieved 2010-09-05. 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Symons, 1024.
  5. ↑ Bowden, Mark; Ambrose, Stephen E. (2002). Our finest day: D-Day: June 6, 1944. Chronicle. p. 8. ISBN 9780811830508. http://books.google.com/books?id=N0bswpd6WQAC&pg=PT8. 
  6. ↑ Hall, Anthony (2004). D-Day: Operation Overlord Day by Day. Zenith. p. 100. ISBN 9780760316078. http://books.google.com/books?id=QFZ8G-SmVk0C&pg=PA100. 
  7. ↑ Roberts, Andrew (2011). The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War. HarperCollins. p. 74. ISBN 9780061228599. http://books.google.com/books?id=WjzFbcN6r9kC&pg=PR74. 
  8. ↑ Orledge, Robert (1979). Gabriel Fauré. London: Eulenburg Books. p. 78. ISBN 0-903873-40-0. 
  9. ↑ Rolf, Marie. Page 7 of liner notes to Forgotten Songs by Claude Debussy, with Dawn Upshaw &James Levine]], Sony SK 67190.
  10. ↑ Delage R. Emmanuel Chabrier. Paris, Fayard, 1999, p692-3.

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 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the 1911 Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Original article is at: Verlaine, Paul

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