Jules Laforgue (; 16 August 1860 – 20 August 1887) was a Franco-Uruguayan poet, often referred to as a
Symbolist
Symbolism was a late 19th-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and real ...
poet. Critics and commentators have also pointed to
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passa ...
as a direct influence and his poetry has been called "part-symbolist, part-impressionist". Laforgue was a model for
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (; 25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that " ...
, including for Renoir's 1881 painting ''
Luncheon of the Boating Party''.
Life
His parents, Charles-Benoît Laforgue and Pauline Lacollay, met in
Uruguay
Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...
where his father worked first as a teacher and then a bank employee. Jules was the second of eleven children in the family, the eldest child being Jules' brother Émile, who was to become a sculptor of note. In 1866 the family moved back to France, to
Tarbes
Tarbes (; Gascon: ''Tarba'') is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the Occitanie region of southwestern France. It is the capital of Bigorre and of the Hautes-Pyrénées. It has been a commune since 1790. It was known as ''Turb ...
, his father's hometown, but in 1867 Jules's father and mother chose to return to Uruguay, taking along their nine younger children, leaving Jules and his older brother Émile in Tarbes to be raised with a cousin's family.
In 1876 Jules's father took the family to
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...
. In 1877 his mother died of pneumonia, three months after a miscarriage, and Jules, never a good student, failed his baccalaureate exams. (His classmate
Henri Bergson
Henri-Louis Bergson (; 18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a French philosopherHenri Bergson. 2014. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 13 August 2014, from https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/61856/Henri-Bergson passed, and went on to great intellectual achievement as a philosopher.) He failed again in 1878, and then a third time, but on his own began to read the great French authors and visit the museums of Paris.
In 1879 his father became sick and returned to Tarbes, but Jules stayed behind in Paris. He published his first poem in
Toulouse
Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger Regions of France, region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania. The city is on t ...
. By the end of the year, he had published several poems and was noticed by well-known authors. In 1880 he moved in the literary circles of the capital and became a protégé of
Paul Bourget, the editor of the review ''
La Vie moderne''.
Much happened to Laforgue in 1881: he attended a course of
Taine's lectures and developed a great interest in painting and art.
Charles Ephrussi
Charles Ephrussi (24 December 1849 – 30 September 1905) was a French art critic, art historian, and art collector. He also was a part-owner (from 1885) and then editor (from 1894) as well as a contributor to the '' Gazette des Beaux-Arts'', th ...
, a rich collector, one of the first collectors of
Impressionist
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passag ...
art, took Laforgue on as his secretary. The direct influence of Impressionism on Laforgue's early development as a poet is a topic in Laforgue studies. In his introduction to his edition of ''Les Complaintes'', Michael Collie, author of a biography of Laforgue (''Laforgue (1963)''), states that he sees a more or less conscious attempt on Laforgue's part to produce a literary equivalent of Impressionism. In 1881 Laforgue wrote a novel, ''Stephane Vassiliew'' and prepared a collection of poems titled ''The Tears of the Earth'', which he later abandoned, though some pieces were altered for ''Les Complaintes''. Also in 1881 his sister left him alone in Paris to tend to their father who was seriously ill in Tarbes. Around that time, he also began to frequent
Le Chat Noir and adopted the style of ''fumisterie'' (smoke screening). The origins of this can be found in
Willette's panel cartoon, launched in the Parisian cabaret, which centered on a clown called "Pierrot fumiste" and exerted significant influence on Laforgue. When his father died, Laforgue did not attend the funeral.
From November 1881 until 1886, he lived in
Berlin
Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...
, working as the French reader for the
Empress Augusta, a sort of cultural counselor. He was well paid and could pursue his interests very freely. In 1885, he wrote ''
L'Imitation de Notre-Dame la Lune
''L'Imitation de Notre-Dame la Lune'' (''The Imitation of Our Lady the Moon'') (1886) is a collection of poems by the French poet Jules Laforgue. It is dedicated to Gustave Kahn and "to the memory of little Salammbô, priestess of Tanit". It co ...
'', widely regarded as his masterpiece .
In 1886, he returned to France and married Leah Lee, an Englishwoman. That year, his poetry was published in ''La Vogue'' alongside the work of
Arthur Rimbaud
Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (, ; 20 October 1854 – 10 November 1891) was a French poet known for his transgressive and surreal themes and for his influence on modern literature and arts, prefiguring surrealism. Born in Charleville, he sta ...
. His poem "''L'Hiver Qui Vient''" ("The Coming Winter") was one of these poems, which he believed set the tone for his work to come.
While he was able to publish some experimental writings there, his most creative and original work, at least as he saw it, was not published during his lifetime. He died the next year of
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in w ...
, four days after his 27th birthday, his wife following him shortly thereafter. When he died, he left an unfinished book of free verse, ''Des Fleurs de Bonne Volonté'', and an unfinished final essay for his series, ''Moral Tales''.
Influenced by
Walt Whitman
Walter Whitman (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among ...
, Laforgue was one of the first French poets to write in
free verse
Free verse is an open form of poetry, which in its modern form arose through the French '' vers libre'' form. It does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any musical pattern. It thus tends to follow the rhythm of natural speech.
Defini ...
. In fact, his translations of Whitman's poetry, which were published by ''La Vogue'', are believed to have influenced Laforgue's compatriot
Gustave Kahn.
Philosophically, he was
pessimist
Pessimism is a negative mental attitude in which an undesirable outcome is anticipated from a given situation. Pessimists tend to focus on the negatives of life in general. A common question asked to test for pessimism is "Is the glass half empt ...
and an ardent disciple of
Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer ( , ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work '' The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the p ...
and
Von Hartmann. His poetry would be one of the major influences on
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works includ ...
and the young
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biogr ...
(cf. ''
Prufrock and other observations'').
Louis Untermeyer
Louis Untermeyer (October 1, 1885 – December 18, 1977) was an American poet, anthologist, critic, and editor. He was appointed the fourteenth Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1961.
Life and career
Untermeyer was born in New Y ...
wrote, "''Prufrock'', published in 1917, was immediately hailed as a new manner in English literature and belittled as an echo of Laforgue and the French symbolists to whom Eliot was indebted."
Works
* ''Soir de Carnaval'' (ca. 1880)
* ''Stéphane Vassiliew'' (1881, not published until 1943)
* ''Les Complaintes'' (1885)
* ''
L'Imitation de Notre-Dame la Lune
''L'Imitation de Notre-Dame la Lune'' (''The Imitation of Our Lady the Moon'') (1886) is a collection of poems by the French poet Jules Laforgue. It is dedicated to Gustave Kahn and "to the memory of little Salammbô, priestess of Tanit". It co ...
'' (1886)
* ''Moralités légendaires'' (1887)
* ''Des Fleurs de bonne volonté'' (1890)
* ''Derniers vers'' (1890)
* ''Berlin, la cour et la ville'' (1922)
* ''Triste triste''
''(1967)''
* ''Some Poems of Jules Laforgue With Images by Patrick Caulfield'' (London: Petersburg Press, 1973).
References
* France, Peter (Ed.) (1995). ''The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French.'' Oxford: Clarendon Press. .
External links
*
*
*http://www.laforgue.org (in French)
* http://grandementtriste.blogspot.com (in English)
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Laforgue, Jules
1860 births
1887 deaths
Writers from Montevideo
French poets
Symbolist poets
French people of Uruguayan descent
French male poets
19th-century poets
Lycée Condorcet alumni
Tuberculosis deaths in France
Burials at the Cimetière parisien de Bagneux
19th-century French male writers
19th-century deaths from tuberculosis