Étienne-Paulin Gagne, known as Paulin Gagne (8 June 1808 – August 1876) was a French

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...

essay An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...

ist, lawyer,

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking ...

, inventor, and

eccentric Eccentricity or eccentric may refer to: * Eccentricity (behavior), odd behavior on the part of a person, as opposed to being "normal" Mathematics, science and technology Mathematics * Off-center, in geometry * Eccentricity (graph theory) of a v ...

. His best-known poem, ''The Woman-Messiah'', is among the longest poems in French, or any language. The poem is 25,000 verses (60 acts and 12 songs) and is notable for its 24th act entitled ''Bestiologie'' which enumerates the advantages that a citizen of Paris would have by marrying the animals of the Jardin des Plantes. He is also notable for proposing anthropophagy ( cannibalism) at a public meeting and offering himself as food to starving Algerians.

Biography

Gagne was born in Montoison on 8 June 1808 of a family which soon reestablished itself in

Montélimar Montélimar (; Vivaro-Alpine: ''Montelaimar'' ; la, Acumum) is a town in the Drôme department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in north Provence, Southeastern France. It is the second-largest city in the department after Valence. In 2018 ...

. Early on he established himself as a lawyer and, after moving to Paris, lost his only lawsuit. In the 1850s, he moved back to Montélimar, and turned to prose and poetry after giving up law. His writings focused primarily on bizarre and burlesque social and political matters. In 1853 he married Élise Moreau. He spent time as a minor politician and the creator of an unsuccessful journal entitled ''Hope''. More success came with his second publication entitled ''The Theatre of the World'' in which contained some well-regarded articles, none by Gagne. Shortly thereafter, Gagne wrote, ''The Woman-Messiah'', one of his many lengthy poems. During this time he also invented a universal language he named La Gagne-monopanglotte, which had no other known speakers. In 1863, he moved back to Paris. He began to publish primarily in journals devoted to esoteric topics. One such journal, ''Uniter of the Visible and Invisible World'', published an article in which Gagne alleged the intervention of Satan at a

séance A séance or seance (; ) is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word ''séance'' comes from the French word for "session", from the Old French ''seoir'', "to sit". In French, the word's meaning is quite general: one may, for example, spea ...

. Towards the end of the

Second French Empire The Second French Empire (; officially the French Empire, ), was the 18-year Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 14 January 1852 to 27 October 1870, between the Second and the Third Republic of France. Historians in the 1930 ...

, at public meetings, Gagne would make speeches on

socialism Socialism is a left-wing Economic ideology, economic philosophy and Political movement, movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to Private prop ...

, anti-monarchy and similar topics. Often he would organize strange political demonstrations at which he was the only participator. Many of his antics brought on laughter, but he was always a perpetual candidate for parliament. Gagne consistently took the radical route. In 1868, during an Algerian famine, he called for hippography (the eating of horseflesh) as a solution and then suggested cannibalism and called for legislation that would prevent the famine by making the Algerians eat all elderly persons in France over the age of 60, including himself. He stated, " human being over sixty is neither useful nor ornamental, and to prove that I mean what I say, I am willing to give myself as food to my sublime and suffering townsmen."

Influence

The Comte de Lautreamont is known to have read Gagne. In Lautreamont's ''Poesies'', Gagne is grouped with twelve tragic poets which included

Lord Byron George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and has been regarded as among the ...

and

Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as tr ...

. Gagne has also been compared to Goriot, one of the main characters of Balzac's ''Le Père Goriot''.

References

Secondary literature

*Comte de Lautreamont (trans. Lykiard]: "Maldoror", pp. 238, 311. *Dictionnaire biographique et biblio-iconographique de la Drôme by Justin Brun-Durand, p. 350-351 (French)
''An Englishman in Paris'' (Notes and Recollections)
by

Albert Dresden Vandam Albert Dresden Vandam (1843–1903) was an English journalist and writer. Life Born in London in March 1843, the son of Mark Vandam, his background was Dutch-Jewish descent. Before he was 13 he was sent to Paris, where he was privately educated, a ...

, p. 390 (English) *''Dictionnaire biographique et biblio-iconographique de la Drôme'' by Justin Brun-Durand, p. 350-351 (French) *''Polybiblion: Revue bibliographique universelle'' by Société bibliographique, p. 274-275 (French) *''The Prix Volney'' by Joan Leopold, p. 265 (English) {{DEFAULTSORT:Gagne, Etienne-Paulin 1808 births 1876 deaths French male poets 19th-century French poets 19th-century French male writers