GEORGES LAFENESTRE.
1837.
Though he is perhaps more widely known as a critic of art than as a poet, his poems have a certain distinction by reason of their deep and serious thought and their clear and noble expression.
Works: Les Espérances, 1864; Idylles et Chansons, 1874. The poems here given are from Idylles et Chansons.
240. 21. MICHEL-ANGE, Michaelangelo.
FÉLIX FRANK.
1837.
He is chiefly known to the world of scholars by his studies in literary history and his editions of writers of the Renaissance.
Works : Chants de colère, 1871; le Poème de la Jeunesse, 1876; la
Chanson d'amour, 1885.
243. C'ÉTAIT UN VIEUX LOGIS. From le Poème de la Jeunesse.
ARMAND SILVESTRE.
1838.
A prolific writer of both prose and verse. He has a rich gift of style, but he appeals to his reader more often by the sensuous charm of his lines than by their originality or depth.
Works: Rimes neuves et vieilles, 1866; Renaissances, 1870; la Gloire du souvenir, 1872; these three volumes are collected in Premières poésies, 1875; la Chanson des heures,1878; les Ailes d'or, 1880; le Pays des roses, 1882; le Chemin des étoiles, 1885: Roses d'octobre, 1889; l'Or des couchants, 1892; les Aurores lointaines, 1895.
For reference: J. Lemaître, les Contemporains, vol. ii, 1887.
245. LE PÈLERINAGE. From les Ailes d'or.
ALBERT GLATIGNY.
1839-1873.
Led a wandering and adventurous life. He was at different times actor in a travelling company, prompter, and writer. In his poems he shows a native gift of expression that made him a favorite of the Parnassiens.
Works: Les Vignes folles, 1857; les flèches d'or, 1864; Gilles et
Pasquins, 1872.
For reference: J. Lazare, A. Glatigny, sa vie, son oeuvre; Catulle
Mendès, Légende du Parnasse contemporain, 1884.
SULLY PRUDHOMME.
1839.
René-François-Armand Prudhomme, known as Sully Prudhomme, combines the artistic punctiliousness of a Parnassien with sincere emotion and a deeply philosophic mind. The intellectual quality of his work is conspicuous, but hardly less so the grace and finish of its form. It bears deep traces of the influence of the scientific movement of our time and of the transformation it has wrought in our ideas of man and nature and their relations. The personal emotion from which his lyrics spring appears always intellectually illumined, with its background of scientific corollaries and logical consequences. It is not abandoned to itself, to wreak itself on expression, but is checked by the challenge of doubt or scientific curiosity or moral scruple. His verse thus unites in rare degree the qualities of lyrical impulse and philosophical reflection.
Works: Stances et Poèmes, 1865; les Épreuves, 1866; les Solitudes, 1869; les Destins, 1872; les Vaines Tendresses, 1875; la Justice, 1878; le Prisme, 1886; le Bonheur, 1888; these have appeared in a new edition as Oeuvres, 5 vols., 1883-1888.
For reference: J. Lemaître, les Contemporains, vol. i, 1886; E. Caro, Poètes et romanciers, 1888; G. Paris, Penseurs et poètes, 1896; F. Brunetière, Évolution de la poésie lyrique, vol. ii, 1894.
The first eleven poems are from Stances et Poèmes. LES DANAÏDES, UN SONGE and LE RENDEZ VOUS are from les Épreuves; LA VOIE LACTÉE is from les Solitudes; REPENTIR, from Impressions de la Guerre (1872;) CE QUI DURE, LES INFIDÈLES, LES AMOURS TERRESTRES and L'ALPHABET, from les Vaines Tendresses; and the last two sonnets, from la Justice.
255. LE LEVER DU SOLEIL. 5. Hellade, Hellas, country inhabited by the Hellenes, or Greeks, a name at first given to a district of Thessaly, later to all Greece.
257. LES DANAÏDES. The Danaïdes were the fifty daughters of Danaus, twin-brother of Aegyptus, whose fifty sons they married and then murdered. As a punishment they were condemned to pour water forever into a sieve. 2. Théano, Callidie, Amymone, Agavé are names of four of the daughters.
ALPHONSE DAUDET.
1840-1897.
Though of world-wide fame as a brilliant novelist, he introduced himself to the public by a volume of verse, les Amoureuses, which contains many poems delicate in sentiment and exquisite in style.
HENRI CAZALIS (JEAN LAHOR).
1840.
The poems of Henri Cazalis, who has preferred to give his later works to the public under the nom de plume Jean Lahor, have the grave pessimism of Leconte de Lisle, but with more of buddhistic resignation. They are often sustained by a high moral fortitude, and though they are clothed in a less rich and brilliant garment than the poems of Leconte de Lisle, they have a charm of their own, "inquiétant et pénétrant," says Paul Bourget, "comme celui des tableaux de Burne Jones et de la musique tzigane, des romans de Tolstoi et des lieder de Heine."
Works: Vita tristis, 1865 (under the pseudonym Jean Caselli;) Mélancholia, 1866; le Livre du néant, 1872; l'Illusion, 1875; the preceding were collected in one volume and published under the name Jean Lahor and with the title l'Illusion, 1888; under the same name, le Cantique des cantiques, a translation of the Song of Solomon, 1885; les Quatrains d'Al-Ghazali, 1896.
For reference; J. Lemaître, les Contemporains, vol. iv.
CHARLES FRÉMINE.
1841.
He holds an honorable place among the poetae minores by poems distinguished for the sincerity and simple truth of their record of nature and humble experience.
Works: Floréal, 1870; Vieux Airs et Jeunes Chansons. 1884; Bouquet d'automne, 1890.
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE.
1842.
He is especially the poet of the vie des humbles. His talent is not pre-eminently lyric, and he has tended to escape
from the lyric domain in different directions, into the narrative poem, the drama, and the novel, in each of which he has achieved success. He is probably the most popular living French poet.
Works: Le Reliquaire, 1866; Intimités, 1868; Poèmes modernes, 1869; les Humbles, 1872; Promenades et intérieurs, 1872; le Cahier rouge, 1874; Olivier, 1875; l'Exilée, 1876; les Mois, 1877; Contes en vers et poésies diverses, 1881 and 1887;
Poèmes et récits, 1886; Arrière-saison, 1887; les Paroles sincères, 1890; Oeuvres, 5 vols., 1885-91.
For reference: M. de Lescure, François Coppée; L'Homme, la Vie, et l'Oeuvre (1842-1889), 1889; J. Lemaître, les Contemporains, vol. i, 1886; F. Brunetière. Évolution de la poésie lyrique, vol. ii, 1894; Alcée Fortier, Sept Grands Auteurs du XIXe Siècle, Boston, 1889.
271. JUIN. From les Mois.
272. L'HOROSCOPE. From le Reliquaire.
273. L'ATTENTE. From Poèmes modernes.
275. CHANSON D'EXIL, "QUAND VOUS ME MONTREZ UNE ROSE," LIED and ÉTOILES FILANTES are from l'Exilée.
277. A UN ÉLÉGIAQUE. From Contes en vers et poésies diverses. The story of the Spartan boy and the fox may be found in Plutarch's Lycurgus, 18. The idea should be compared with the artistic doctrine of the impassibles.
JOSÉ-MARIA DE HEREDIA.
l842.
He was born in Cuba, but was educated and has resided in France. He attracted notice among the Parnassiens by the degree of perfection with which he rendered in words the element of plastic beauty and the rare finish and precision of his style. He has used almost exclusively the form of the sonnet, to which he has given a new power and amplitude.
Works: Les Trophies, 1893 (many of the sonnets composing this volume had appeared in the Revue des Deux Mondes and elsewhwere and had long been admired).
For reference: J. Lemaitre, les Contemorains, vol. ii, 1887; F.
Brunetière, Évolution de la poésie lyrique, vol. ii, 1894; M. de
Vogüé, Devant le siècle, 1896; Edmund Gosse, Critical Kit-Kats,
New York, 1896.
278. ANTOINE ET CLÉOPÂTRE. LE CYDNUS. This is the name of the river on which Tarsus is situated. 18. LAGIDE; the line of the Ptolemies, to which Cleopatra belonged, was descended from Lagus; the first Ptolemy was commonly called the son of Lagus.
279. 18. BUBASTE ET SAÏS; Bubastis and Saïs were ancient cities of importance in the Delta of the Nile.
280. 6. LES CONQUÉRANTS. PALOS, the famous Spanish port from which Columbus sailed. MOGUER, a small town a little above Palos. 9. CIPANGO, the name given by Marco Polo in the account of his travels to an island or islands east of Asia, supposed to be Japan.
PAUL VERLAINE.
1844-1896.
The most striking and original figure among the poets of the latter half of the century. In the irregularity of his life he might count as a modern Rutebeuf or Villon. He certainly possessed a rich poetic endowment, which only occasionally produced what it seemed capable of. He began under the influence of the Parnassiens, but his most characteristic work is as far removed as possible from the plastic objectivity of that school. He pursues the expression of the most elusive sensations, and is so little concerned about clear ideas and precise forms and outlines that even grammatical coherence often fails, and the mind gropes in a mist of unintelligibility—in which direction, however, his disciples have gone very far beyond him. But in the rendering of pure feeling and sensation, in direct emotional appeal of tone and accent, he discovered powerful secrets for his verse that others have not known. He seems now to have been one of the original poetic forces of the century.
Works: Poèmes saturniens, 1866; Fêtes galantes, 1869; la Bonne Chanson, 1870; Romances sans paroles, 1874; Sagesse, 1881; Jadis et naguère, 1885; Amour, 1888; Parallèlement, 1889; Bonheur, 1891; Chansons pour elle, 1891; Dans les limbes, 1894; Chair, 1896; Invectives, 1896; selections from the volumes to and including Bonheur are given in Choix de poésies, 1891.
For reference: Ch. Morice, Paul Verlaine, l'homme et l'oeuvre; J. Lemaître, in Revue Bleue, Jan. 7, 1888; F. Brunetière, Évolution de la poésie Iyrique, vol. ii, 1894; A. Cohn, in The Bookman, vol. i, with portraits.
28O. COLLOQUE SENTIMENTAL. From Fêtes galantes.
288. 1. The quotation is from Dante's Purgatorio, canto iii, 79-84. ART POÉTIQUE. From Jadis et naguère.
289. UN VEUF PARLE and PARABOLES are from Amour.
291. PARABOLES. 1. LE POISSON; the use of the fish in Christian art as a symbol of Christ is well known. Its origin is commonly said to be in the initials of the Greek [Greek: Iaesus Christos Theou Tios Sotaer] which make the word Ichthus (fish). 2. L'ÂNON; cf. St. Mark xi. 3. LES PORCS, etc.; cf. St. Mark v, 13.
ÉMILE BERGERAT.
1845.
Widely known under the name of Caliban as the alert and witty chroniqueur of the Figaro and as the facile rhymester of its lyre comique, has written a few serious poems of direct and vigorous expression, especially under the inspiration of the memory of the war of 1870-71.
Works: Poèmes de la guerre, 1871; la Lyre comique, 1889.
291. PAROLES DORÉES. 17. CYLINDRE, the cylinder or toothed roller of the hand-organ.