"To treat nature by the cylinder, sphere and cone, with the whole put into perspective, so that each side of an object or plane is directed towards a central point. Lines parallel to the horizon give extent, either a section of nature or, if you prefer, spectacle which the pater omnipotens aeterne deus lays out before our very [Read more]

Prematurely orphaned of his mother, the poet Gérard de Nerval (born Gérard Labrunie) suffered throughout his childhood from the absence of maternal affection, which was probably the cause of his deep-rooted psychological angst.

Attracted by German literature, Gérard de Nerval brilliantly translated Goethe’s [Read more]

The collection of poems "The Flowers of Evil", written by Charles Baudelaire, appeared in 1857. Baudelaire worked on it for a little more than ten years, publishing first the poems which compose the work in various reviews.

The great poet manifests in this work his suffering, hopes, fears and degeneration. Two opposite states [Read more]

The very example of the myth of the damned poet, Charles Baudelaire marked the 19th century by his work and symbolized poetic modernity. His brief existence was characterized by a dual obsession: spleen and the ideal.

Coming from a cultivated, refined bourgeois milieu, Baudelaire first became known as an art critic. In 1848 he translated [Read more]

Both a literary and artistic movement, symbolism developed in Europe towards the end of the 19th century (1870). In literature, we generally associate the official birth of symbolism in literature with the appearance of the "Surrealist Manifesto" published in the Figaro by the poet Jean Moréas on September 18, 1886. This [Read more]

A literary movement in the world of poetry, Le Parnasse appeared in France shortly before 1860. It broke with romanticism and wished to see disappear all social or political commitment in poetic works.

Théophile Gautier was the precursor of this movement, and the most famous "Parnassiens" were Leconte de Lisle, Sully [Read more]