Théodore de Banville.
Théodore de Banville was born in 1820, of a good family, his father being an officer in the navy. He began to write very early with the Cariatides, and continued for fifty years to be active in prose and poetry. M. de Banville displayed at once a remarkable mastery of rhyme and rhythm, and it is in the exhibition of this that he chiefly excelled. Under his auspices not merely the graceful metrical systems of the Pléiade, but the older forms of the mediaeval poets, Ballades, Rondeaux, Triolets, etc., were once more brought into fashion. But M. de Banville was by no means only a clever versifier. His serious poetry (Cariatides, Stalactites, Odelettes, Les Exilé's, Trente-six Ballades) is full of poetical language and sentiment, his lighter verse (Occidentales, Odes Funambulesques) is charming, his prose is excellent, and he was no mean hand at drama (Gringoire).
Leconte de Lisle.
As M. de Banville sought for poetical novelty in an elaborate manipulation of the formal part of poetry, so M. Leconte de Lisle has sought it in a wide range of subject. He is a great translator of Greek verse. But in his original poems (Poésies Antiques, Poésies Barbares, Poëmes et Poésies) he has gone not merely to the classics but to the East and to mediaeval times for his inspiration. A tendency to load his verse with exotic names in unusual forms (he was one of the first Frenchmen to adopt the fashion of spelling Greek names with a strict transliteration) has brought, not perhaps altogether undeservedly, the charge of affectation on M. Leconte de Lisle. But he is a poet of no small power, not merely in outlandish subjects such as Le Massacre de Mona, Le Sommeil du Condor, Le Runoia, etc., but in much simpler work, such as the beautiful Requies.
Charles Baudelaire.
Charles Baudelaire had a more original talent than either of these. Although a very careful writer, he is not studious of bizarre rhythm, nor are his subjects for the most part outlandish. He chose, however, to illustrate a peculiar form of poetical melancholy by dwelling on subjects many of which would have been better left alone, while others were treated in a manner unsuited to the time. His Fleurs du Mal, therefore, as his chief work is entitled, had to undergo expurgation before it was allowed to be published, and has never been popular with the general public. But its best pieces, as well as the best of some singular Petits Poëmes en Prose, partly inspired by Louis Bertrand, have extraordinary merit in the way of delicate poetical suggestion and a lofty spiritualism. Baudelaire was also a very accomplished critic, his point of view being less exclusively French than that of almost any other French writer of the same class. He translated Poe and De Quincey.
Minor Poets of the Second Romantic Group.
Dupont.
The minor poets of this second Romantic school may again be grouped together. Charles Coran, a miscellaneous poet of talent, anticipated the school of which we shall shortly have to give some notice, that of the Parnassiens. Joséphin Soulary is remarkable for the extreme beauty of his sonnets, in devoting himself to which form he anticipated a general tendency of contemporary poets both English and French. Auguste Vacquerie, better known as a critic, a dramatist, and a journalist, began as a lyrical and miscellaneous poet, and achieved some noticeable work. Gustave Le Vavasseur attempted, not without success, to revive the vigorous tradition of Norman poetry. Pierre Dupont, better known than any of these, seemed at one time likely to be a poet of the first rank, but unfortunately wasted his talent in Bohemian dawdling and disorder. His songs were the delight of the young generation of 1848, and two of them, Le Chant des Ouvriers and Les Bœufs, are still most remarkable compositions. Louis Bouilhet (whose best poem is Melænis) has some resemblance to M. Leconte de Lisle, though he went still further afield for his subjects. He had no small power, but the defect of the old descriptive poetry revived in him, and in some of his contemporaries and followers, the defect necessarily attendant on forgetfulness of the fact that description by itself, however beautiful it may be, is not poetry. With these may be mentioned Gustave Nadaud, a song-writer pure and simple, free from almost any influence of school literature, a true follower of Béranger, though with much less range, wit, and depth.
The Parnasse.