Paul Verlaine

Paul Verlaine was born in Metz and grew up in Paris, the only son of an army officer. He worked as a clerk at the Paris city hall and published his first poetry collection, “Poèmes saturniens”, at 22. His poems, with their musical, melancholy verses, made him one of the leading poets of Symbolism.

In 1870 he married the young Mathilde Mauté. A year later the 17-year-old poet Arthur Rimbaud came to Paris at Verlaine’s invitation. The two began a passionate and turbulent relationship. Verlaine left his wife and child and travelled with Rimbaud through Belgium and England.

In July 1873 in Brussels, drunk and desperate after a quarrel, Verlaine shot at Rimbaud and wounded him in the wrist. He was sentenced to two years in prison, during which he returned to the Catholic faith. Later he wrote “Romances sans paroles”, inspired by the time with Rimbaud, and in his later collections also openly erotic poems about men and women.

Verlaine spent his last years in poverty and alcoholism, though celebrated as the “prince of poets”. He died in Paris in 1896, aged 51.