Literary Birthday – 30 March – Paul Verlaine

Paul Verlaine was born on 30 March 1844 and died on 8 January 1896.

Paul Verlaine Quotes

1. The poet is a madman lost in adventure.
2. A poem is really a kind of machine for producing the poetic state by means of words.
3. The drawn-out sobs of autumn’s violins wound my heart with a monotonous languor.
4. I am the Empire at the end of the decadence.
5. I love this word decadence, all shimmering in purple and gold. It suggests the subtle thoughts of ultimate civilization, a high literary culture, a soul capable of intense pleasures. It throws off bursts of fire and the sparkle of precious stones. It is redolent of the rouge of courtesans, the games of the circus, the panting of the gladiators, the spring of wild beasts, the consuming in flames of races exhausted by their capacity for sensation, as the tramp of an invading army sounds.

Paul Verlaine was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement. He was a French lyric poet first associated with the Parnassians and later known as a leader of the Symbolists. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the fin de siècle in international and French poetry. With Stéphane Mallarmé and Charles Baudelaire, he formed the so-called Decadents. His poetry is available in anthologies like the Selected Poems of Paul Verlaine.

Source for image: Otto Wegener, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paul_Verlaine.jpeg

by Amanda Patterson

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