Representative Authors
Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
The poetry of Charles Baudelaire was the chief inspiration for the development
of Symbolism. His masterpiece, Les fleurs du mal (Flowers of
Evil), and his important collection of prose poetry Petits poèmes en prose
(1868; Little Prose Poems), embody the central ideals of the symbolist
movement. Baudelaire was born on April 9, 1821, in Paris, France. As a young
man he established himself as a popular critic of art and literature. When he
first encountered the short fiction of American writer Edgar Allen Poe in 1847,
Baudelaire immediately felt that Poe’s literary sensibilities resonated
strongly with his own. Thenceforth, he devoted much of his life to translating
the works of Poe into French. Through these translations, Poe became an
important influence on the later French symbolist poets. In 1848, Baudelaire
participated in two major political events in France, the Revolution of 1848
and the June Days rebellion. In 1855, eighteen of his poems were published in a
literary journal as a collection entitled Flowers of Evil. Flowers of
Evil was eventually expanded to include over one hundred poems and
published as a single volume. In the 1860s, Baudelaire began to compose the
prose poems that were posthumously collected in the volume Little Prose
Poems (later republished as Le spleen de Paris, or Paris
Spleen). Baudelaire died of complications resulting from syphilis on August
31, 1867, in Paris, in financial ruin and with many of his poems still
unpublished. However, the young generation of writers who developed the
symbolist movement regarded him as their literary father, and Baudelaire soon
came to be widely viewed as one of the greatest French poets of the nineteenth
century.
Aleksandr Blok (1880–1921)
Aleksandr (Aleksandrovich) Blok is considered the greatest poet of the Russian
symbolist movement. Blok’s symbolist masterpiece is the epic poem,
Dvenadtsat (1918; The Twelve). His literary ideals developed from
a synthesis of the influences of Russian poets Aleksandr Pushkin and Vladimir
Solovyov. Blok was born on November 16, 1880, in St. Petersburg, Russia, and
died on August 7, 1921, in Petrograd (the postrevolutionary name given to St.
Petersburg).
Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848–1907)
Joris-Karl Huysmans’s À rebours (1884; Against the Grain) is
considered the greatest novel to emerge from the symbolist movement. Huysmans
was born Charles Marie Georges Huysmans, February 5, 1848, in Paris, France.
Huysmans took up a lifelong career as a civil servant for the French
government. He became associated with the naturalist school of fiction headed
by the great French novelist Emile Zola. The publication of Against the
Grain, however, signaled his break with Naturalism, as the novel embodies
the ideals of the symbolist poets. His novel Là-bas (1891; Down
There) is based on a real-life historical figure who was executed in 1440
for murdering children. Huysmans died of cancer May 12, 1907, in Paris.
Maurice Maeterlinck (1862–1949)
Maurice Maeterlinck was the foremost playwright of the symbolist movement and
the greatest Belgian playwright of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Maeterlinck was born on August 29, 1862, in Ghent, Belgium. He studied law and
was admitted to the bar in 1886. Maeterlinck worked as a lawyer until 1889,
when he decided to devote himself to writing. In 1897, Maeterlinck went to
Paris, where he met many of the leading symbolist writers of the day. He sent
his first play, La Princesse Maleine (1890; The Princess
Maleine), to Mallarmé, who sent it on to an important French dramatist and
critic of the day. The Princess Maleine was an immediate success and many plays
followed, including L’Intruse (1890; The Intruder) and
(This entire section contains 1465 words.)
Unlock this Study Guide Now
Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
) andLes aveugles (1890; The Blind). Maeterlinck’s masterpiece and the greatest work of symbolist theatre, Pelléas et Mélisande (Pelleas and Melisande), was produced at the Théatre de l’Oeuvre in 1892. His book La vie des abeilles (The Life of the Bee), published in 1901, compares his observations of the behavior of bees to human society. His play L’Oiseau bleu (1909; The Blue Bird) was an international success and has been adapted several times as a children’s book and a major motion picture. The phrase “the bluebird of happiness” derives from this enormously popular and enduring story. Maeterlinck won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1911. He died of a heart attack on May 6, 1949, in Nice, France.
Stéphane Mallarmé (1842–1898)
Stéphane Mallarmé was one of the founders of the symbolist movement and a major
influence on nineteenth- and twentieth-century poetry. Mallarmé was profoundly
influenced by the poetry of Baudelaire, from which he developed the literary
ideals of Symbolism. Mallarmé was born on March 18, 1842, in Paris, France. His
mother died when he was only five years old. By the time he was twenty-one, his
sister and father had also died. These early experiences with death may have
contributed to the deep sense of loss expressed in his later work. Mallarmé
made his living as a teacher, editor, and translator while working on his
poetry. His L’Après-midi d’un faune (1876; The Afternoon of a
Faun) is a major work of symbolist poetry. Mallarmé also held a weekly,
Tuesday-evening literary, artistic, and musical salon in his apartment in
Paris. He thus was an important intellectual influence on the symbolist
movement in that he devoted himself to developing and communicating the
theoretical basis for Symbolism. In his poetry, Mallarmé was interested in
exploring the relationship between everyday reality and an ideal world of
perfection and beauty that transcends reality, what he described as the ideal
flower that is absent from all bouquets. Mallarmé died September 9, 1898, in
the French village of Valvins. His major works of poetry are collected in the
volumes Vers et prose (1893) and Poésies (1899). His essays on
literature are collected in the volume Divagations (1897; Wanderings).
Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891)
Arthur Rimbaud was one of the founding poets of the symbolist movement and a
major influence on modern poetry. Rimbaud was born on October 20, 1854, in
Charleville, France. As a teenager he ran away from home to go to Paris on
three separate occasions. During one of these ventures, he participated in the
1871 rebellion of the Paris Commune. However, disillusioned by the violent
suppression of the Paris Commune, Rimbaud chose to devote his life to poetry
rather than political action. Rimbaud, like Mallarmé and Verlaine, was
influenced by the poetry of Baudelaire. In 1871, Rimbaud sent some of his poems
to Verlaine, who was so impressed that he paid for Rimbaud to come to Paris and
stay several months in his home. In Paris, Rimbaud met many important literary
figures but alienated most of them with his vulgar behavior. However, Rimbaud
and Verlaine (who was married at the time) developed an openly acknowledged
homosexual relationship. The two men engaged in a tumultuous, passionate,
intermittent love affair for several years. Rimbaud traveled with Verlaine to
London and Brussels in the early 1870s, during which time Rimbaud composed the
prose poetry later collected in Les illuminations
(Illuminations). In 1873, the volatile nature of their relationship
reached a peak when Verlaine shot Rimbaud in the wrist. Soon after this
incident, Rimbaud returned to his family home in France, where he completed his
volume of prose poetry, Une saison en enfer (1873; A Season in
Hell). In 1875, Rimbaud saw Verlaine for the last time. He left Verlaine
with the manuscript of the volume Illuminations, which Verlaine saw to
publication in 1886. Rimbaud spent most of the remainder of his life traveling
the world, largely cut off from the literary world of Paris. His period of
poetry writing lasted from about age sixteen to twenty-one. In February 1891,
Rimbaud returned to France for cancer treatments. He died on November 10, at
the age of thirty-seven.
Paul Verlaine (1844–1896)
Paul Verlaine was one of the principal founders of the symbolist movement.
Verlaine was born on March 30, 1844, in Metz, France. In 1862, he began his
association with many of the literary figures of the day, including Mallarmé,
Villiers de L’Isle-Adam, and Anatole France. He married in 1870, but his
marriage was disrupted by the arrival of Rimbaud in 1871, with whom Verlaine
carried on a passionate and tumultuous love affair over a period of years. In
1872, Verlaine abandoned his wife to travel with Rimbaud to London and Brussels
and to work on his poetry. In 1873, in Brussels, Verlaine shot Rimbaud in the
wrist during a quarrel and was sentenced to two years in prison. His
masterpiece, the poetry volume Romances sans parole (Songs without
Words), was published in 1874, while Verlaine was still in prison. His
volume Sagesse (1880; Wisdom), published in 1880, has come to be
regarded as one of his major works. In the early 1880s, Verlaine was recognized
as a leading symbolist poet, particularly with his poem “Art poétique.” His
volume Les poètes maudits (1884; The Accursed Poets), includes
short biographical essays on six poets, including Mallarmé and Rimbaud. In
1886, Verlaine oversaw the publication of Rimbaud’s Illuminations. When
Verlaine died of pulmonary congestion on January 8, 1896, in Paris, he was
widely recognized as a major French poet of the nineteenth century and one of
the founders of the symbolist movement.
Cite this page as follows:
"Symbolism - Representative Authors." Literary Movements for Students, Vol. 1. Gale Cengage, 8 Nov. 2024 <https://www.enotes.com/topics/symbolism#biography-representative-authors>