OXFORD WORLD'S CLASSICS

PAUL VERLAINE was born in Metz, eastern France, in 1844, the
only son of an army captain; his mother came from a well-to-do
family. In 1851 they moved to Paris, where Verlaine received a
formal education. His father died in 1865. At first Verlaine was
destined for a career as a civil servant, but his literary talents and
ambitions brought him into the artistic milieux of Paris. His first
poems were published in his early twenties. In 1870 he married the
very young Mathilde Mauté. But Verlaine's erratic and drunken
behaviour was unacceptable to her respectable family. Matters
became worse when, in 1871, Verlaine invited to his in-laws' home
the precocious and ill-behaved 16-year-old Rimbaud. Soon the two
poets left to roam France, Belgium, and England together. Their
scandalous liaison spelled the ruin of Verlaine's marriage. In 1873
he shot and wounded Rimbaud, for which he served eighteen
months in prison. By then he already had four collections of poetry
to his name: Poèmes saturniens ( 1866), Fêtes galantes ( 1869), La
Bonne Chanson ( 1870), and Romances sans paroles ( 1874). For a
while, intermittently buttressed by religious faith, he held his life
together with brief spells of farming and teaching. The collection
Sagesse appeared in 1880. But after the death of his over-indulgent
mother in 1886, Verlaine's life drifted into disease and destitution.
Nevertheless, he continued to write and publish substantial amounts
of poetry. Jadis et Naguère ( 1884), Amour ( 1888), Parallèlement
( 1889), Dédicaces ( 1890), Bonheur ( 1891), Chansons pour Elle ( 1891),
Liturgies intimes ( 1892), Odes en son honneur ( 1893), Dans les limbes
( 1894), ÉPigrammes ( 1894). Chair and Invectives were published
posthumously. Verlaine also wrote a number of prose works, includ-
ing criticism and an autobiography. He was elected Prince of Poets
in 1894. Destitute, he died in Paris in 1896.

MARTIN SORRELL is Reader in French and Translation Studies
at the University of Exeter. His monograph Francis Ponge was pub-
lished by Twayne in 1980; his bilingual anthology Modern French
Poetry by Forest Books in 1902; Elles: A Bilingual Anthology of
Modern French Poetry by Women by University of Exeter Press in
1995. Many other translations of French poetry have appeared in
various journals. In addition, Sorrell has translated plays for the
stage and radio. Two original plays and three stories have been
broadcast on BBC Radio.

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