Joseph-Pierre Borel d'Hauterive, known as Petrus Borel (26 June 1809 – 14 July 1859), was a French writer of the

Romantic movement Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. The purpose of the movement was to advocate for the importance of subjec ...

History

Petrus Borel was born in

Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

on 26 June 1809, the twelfth of fourteen children of an

ironmonger Ironmongery originally referred, first, to the manufacture of iron goods and, second, to the place of sale of such items for domestic rather than industrial use. In both contexts, the term has expanded to include items made of steel, aluminium ...

. He studied architecture in Paris but abandoned it for literature. Nicknamed ''le Lycanthrope'' ("Wolfman") and the centre of the circle of

Bohemians Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to: *Anything of or relating to Bohemia Culture and arts * Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, originally practised by 19th–20th century European and American artists and writers. * Bohemian style, a f ...

in Paris, Borel was noted for his extravagant and eccentric style of writing, foreshadowing

Surrealism Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

. He was occasionally captured in

drypoint Drypoint is a printmaking technique of the intaglio (printmaking), intaglio family, in which an image is incised into a plate (or "matrix") with a hard-pointed "needle" of sharp metal or diamond point. In principle, the method is practically iden ...

Marcellin Desboutin Marcellin Gilbert Desboutin (Cérilly, Allier, Cérilly 26 August 1823 – 18 February 1902 Nice) was a French painter, printmaking, printmaker, and writer. Desboutin always signed himself ''Baron de Rochefort.'' Biography Desboutin was born ...

. Petrus Borel was not commercially successful and was eventually directed to a minor civil service post by his friend

Théophile Gautier Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier ( , ; 30 August 1811 – 23 October 1872) was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, and art and literary critic. While an ardent defender of Romanticism, Gautier's work is difficult to classify and rema ...

. Borel is considered to be one of the '' poète maudits'', like

Aloysius Bertrand Louis Jacques Napoléon Bertrand, better known by his pen name Aloysius Bertrand (20 April 1807 — 29 April 1841), was a French Romantic poet, playwright and journalist. He is famous for having introduced prose poetry in French literature,Stuar ...

or Alice de Chambrier, and is said to have influenced

Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet, essayist, translator and art critic. His poems are described as exhibiting mastery of rhythm and rhyme, containing an exoticism inherited from the Romantics, an ...

and

Breton Breton most often refers to: *anything associated with Brittany, and generally **Breton people **Breton language, a Southwestern Brittonic Celtic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken in Brittany ** Breton (horse), a breed **Gale ...

. Petrus Borel was the subject of a 1954 biography by Irish literary critic

Enid Starkie Enid Mary Starkie CBE (18 August 1897 – 21 April 1970), was an Irish literary critic, known for her biographical works on French poets. She was a Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford, and Lecturer and then Reader in the University. Early ...

called ''Petrus Borel: The Lycanthrope''. In 1959 Tom Moran translated Borel's 1833 ''Champavert: Contes Immoraux (Seven Bitter Tales)'' via Theo. Gaus' Sons,

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

Death

Petrus Borel died at

Mostaganem Mostaganem () is a port city in and capital of Mostaganem (province), Mostaganem province, in the northwest of Algeria. The city, founded in the 11th century lies on the Gulf of Arzew, Mediterranean Sea and is 72 km ENE of Oran. It is consi ...

French Algeria French Algeria ( until 1839, then afterwards; unofficially ; ), also known as Colonial Algeria, was the period of History of Algeria, Algerian history when the country was a colony and later an integral part of France. French rule lasted until ...

on 14 July 1859.

Works

* ''Rhapsodies'' (Poems, 1832) * ''Champavert: Contes Immoraux'' (Short stories, 1833) * ''L'Obélisque de Louqsor'' (1836) * ''

Robinson Crusoe ''Robinson Crusoe'' ( ) is an English adventure novel by Daniel Defoe, first published on 25 April 1719. Written with a combination of Epistolary novel, epistolary, Confessional writing, confessional, and Didacticism, didactic forms, the ...

'' (Translation, 1836) * ''Comme quoi Napoléon n'a jamais existé'' (1838) * ''Madame Putiphar'' (Novel, 1839) * ''Le Trésor de la Caverne d'Arcueil'' (Novella, 1927)

References

External links

* *
Text of selected Borel poems
(in French)
Text of Andreas Vesalius the Anatomist
{{DEFAULTSORT:Borel, Petrus 19th-century French poets 1809 births 1859 deaths French horror writers French male poets 19th-century French male writers