Paul-Jean Toulet (5 June 1867, Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques - 6 September 1920) 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 ...

, novelist and

feuilleton A ''feuilleton'' (; a diminutive of french: feuillet, the leaf of a book) was originally a kind of supplement attached to the political portion of French newspapers, consisting chiefly of non-political news and gossip, literature and art critici ...

writer.

Life and works

Paul-Jean Toulet was the son of a wealthy sugar planter, originally from Pau but living in

Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label= Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It ...

. He was most famous for his acerbic wit, his addiction to opium, and his friendship with Maurice Sailland - the "prince of gastronomes". As a writer, Toulet is best known for ''Les Contrerimes,'' poems written in a verse form of his own invention, the rhyme scheme ''abba'', with the lines alternating long, short, long, short. The collection was published posthumously, although many of the poems appeared in various literary magazines, either in earlier versions or finished forms (Toulet was an inveterate polisher of his verse). His novels are almost unreadable today, with the possible exception of ''Mon amie Nane,'' a sort of '' fin-de-siècle'' equivalent to ''Pride and Prejudice'' , or even ''Bridget Jones' Diary.'' Toulet became a model or an inspiration to the poetic movement from 1911 until the Great War. This explains the following comment made on the reception of his works: "When two men who have read Paul-Jean Toulet meet (usually in a bar), they immediately imagine it's a certain form of aristocracy".

Jacques Bergier Jacques Bergier (; maybe born Yakov Mikhailovich Berger (russian: link=no, Я́ков Миха́йлович Бéргер); Odessa, Paris, 23 November 1978) was a chemical engineer, member of the French-resistance, spy, journalist and writer. ...

Louis Pauwels Louis Pauwels (; 2 August 1920 – 28 January 1997) was a French journalist and writer. Born in Paris, France, he wrote in many monthly literary French magazines as early as 1946 (including ''Esprit'' and ''Variété'') until the 1950s. He partic ...

, '' The Morning of the Magicians'', II. In 1897, Toulet received a copy of '' The Great God Pan'' by

Arthur Machen Arthur Machen (; 3 March 1863 – 15 December 1947) was the pen-name of Arthur Llewellyn Jones, a Welsh author and mystic of the 1890s and early 20th century. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. His ...

from a friend and he translated it the following year, as ''Le Grand Dieu Pan''. It was published in ''La Plume'' in 1901 but went unnoticed except for Maeterlinck's reaction "...combining the traditional and scientific fantastic genres, it hits both our memories and hopes". Toulet engaged a correspondence with Machen and visited him in London. Toulet's own novel ''Monsieur de Paur, homme public'' was inspired by Machen. Published in 1898 by Simonis Empis, it saw little success. In 1918, however, it was published again by the Éditions du Divan. This publishing company was owned by Toulet's admirer Henri Martineau, who also engaged in a correspondence with the author. Toulet died in Guéthary, Aquitaine, in September 1920.

Footnotes

External links

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Les Contrerimes
(e-text, in French) {{DEFAULTSORT:Toulet, Paul-Jean 1867 births 1920 deaths People from Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques French poets French male poets