Paul
Marie Verlaine.
(1844
- 1896), French poet, was born March 30, 1844 at Metz.
Verlaine took part in the Commune and was obliged to leave Paris
for a time. On his return, he met Arthur Rimbaud, with whom he
made a trip to Belgium and England in 1872, and during this trip
he wrote his Romances sans Paroles
(1874), poems that were among the earliest attempts to make
poetry a purely musical art.
In 1873, Verlaine shot Rimbaud in the wrist and arrested and condemned
to two years' imprisonment. Whle in jail he became a devout Catholic
and wrote most of the poems of Sagesse.
Toward the end of his life Verlaine became a legendary figure,
and by 1885 he was a poetical hero. His popularity was due as
much to the seemingly sincerity of his Romantic attitude as to
his actual way of life, which was dissolute but free from any
compromise with social prejudices. He died January 8, 1896.
