This MedLibrary.org supplementary page on Albert Samain is provided directly from the open source Wikipedia as a service to our readers. Please see the note below on authorship of this content, as well as the Wikipedia usage guidelines. To search for other content from our encyclopedia supplement, please use the form below:
Related Sponsors
| French literature |
|---|
| By category |
| French literary history |
|
Medieval |
| French writers |
|
Chronological list |
| France portal |
| Literature portal |
Albert Victor Samain (April 3, 1858 — August 18, 1900) was a French poet and writer of the Symbolist school.
Born in Lille, his family were Flemish and had long lived in the town or its suburbs. At the time of the poet's birth, his father, Jean-Baptiste Samain, and his mother, Elisa-Henriette Mouquet, conducted a business in "wines and spirits" at 75 rue de Paris. 1 Samain's father died when he was quite young; it was necessary for him to leave school and seek a trade. He moved to Paris in around 1880, where his poetry won him a following and he began mixing with avant-garde literary society, and began publicly reciting his poems at Le Chat Noir. His poems were strongly influenced by those of Baudelaire, and began to strike a somewhat morbid and elegiac tone. He also was influenced by Verlaine; his works disclose a taste for indecisive, vague imagery. Samain helped found the Mercure de France, and also worked on the Revue des Deux Mondes.
Samain published three volumes of verse: Le jardin de l'infante (1893), which made him famous; Aux flancs du vase (1898) and Le Chariot d'or (1901). His poetic drama Polyphème was set to music by Jean Cras. Samain died of tuberculosis.
Quotation
- Je rêve de vers doux et d'intimes ramages,
- De vers à frôler l'âme ainsi que des plumages,
- De vers blonds où le sens fluide se délie
- Comme sous l'eau la chevelure d'Ophélie,
- De vers silencieux, et sans rythme et sans trame
- Où la rime sans bruit glisse comme une rame,
- De vers d'une ancienne étoffe, exténuée,
- Impalpable comme le son et la nuée,
- De vers de soir d'automne ensorcelant les heures
- Au rite féminin des syllabes mineures.
- De vers de soirs d'amour énervéls de verveine,
- Où l'âme sente, exquise, une caresse à peine...
- Je rêve de vers doux mourant comme des roses.
-
-
-
-
- --Le jardin de l'infante
-
-
-
References
- ^ Six French Poets: Studies in Contemporary Literature. Amy Lowell. New York: Macmillan Company, 1915.
External links
- Poems by Albert Samain English translations of Samain's poetry
- Poems by Albert Samain (in French): http://poesie.webnet.fr/auteurs/samain.html
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 1 November 2008, at 18:02.
Wikipedia Authorship and Review
Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.
Wikipedia Usage Guidelines
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Albert Samain".
The URL for this specific entry is:
All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.