Tristan Corbière (18 July 1845 – 1 March 1875), born Édouard-Joachim Corbière, was a
French poet born in Coat-Congar,
Ploujean (now part of
Morlaix
Morlaix (; , ) is a commune in the Finistère department of Brittany in northwestern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department.
History
The Battle of Morlaix, part of the Hundred Years' War, was fought near the town on 30 Septembe ...
) in
Brittany
Brittany ( ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the north-west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica in Roman Gaul. It became an Kingdom of Brittany, independent kingdom and then a Duch ...
, where he lived most of his life before dying of
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...
at the age of 29. He was a French poet, close to
Symbolism, and a figure of the "
cursed poet".
He is the author of a single collection of poetry ''Les Amours Jaunes'', and of a few prose pieces. He led a mostly marginal and miserable life, nourished by two major failures due to his bone disease and his "ugliness" which he enjoyed accusing: the first is his sentimental life (he only loved one woman, called "Marcelle" in his work), and the second being his passion for the sea (he dreamt of becoming a sailor, like his father,
Édouard Corbière). His poetry carries these two great wounds which led him to adopt a very cynical and incisive style, towards himself as much towards the life and world around him.
He died at the age of 29, possibly from tuberculosis, a childless bachelor with no work, entrenched in his old Breton manor, misunderstood by his contemporaries, and his innovative poetry was not recognised until well after his death.
Family and schooling
His mother Marie-Angélique-Aspasie Puyo, 19 years old at the time of his birth, belonged to one of the most prominent families of the local bourgeoisie. His father was
Antoine-Édouard Corbière, known for his best-selling novel ''Le Négrier''. A cousin,
Constant Puyo, was a well-known
Pictorialist photographer.
During his schooling at the Imperial
Lycée of
Saint-Brieuc
Saint-Brieuc (, Breton language, Breton: ''Sant-Brieg'' , Gallo language, Gallo: ''Saent-Berioec'') is a city in the Côtes-d'Armor Departments of France, department in Brittany (administrative region), Brittany in northwestern France.
History
...
where he studied from 1858 until 1860, he fell prey to a deep depression, and, over several freezing winters, contracted the severe
rheumatism which was to disfigure him. He blamed his parents for having placed him there, far from his family's care and affection. Difficulties in adapting to the harsh discipline of the college's ''noble débris'' (distinguished relics, i.e., teachers) gradually developed those characteristics of anarchic disdain and sarcasm which were to give much of his verse their distinctive voice.
Poetry
Corbière's only published verse in his lifetime appeared in ''Les amours jaunes'', 1873, a volume that went almost unnoticed until
Paul Verlaine included him in his gallery of ''
poètes maudits'' (accursed poets). Thereafter Verlaine's recommendation was enough to establish him as one of the masters acknowledged by the
Symbolists, and he was subsequently rediscovered and treated as a predecessor by the
surrealists.
Close-packed, linked to the ocean and his Breton roots, and tinged with disdain for Romantic sentimentalism, his work is also characterised by its idiomatic play and exceptional modernity. He was praised by both
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an List of poets from the United States, American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Ita ...
and
T. S. Eliot (whose work he had a great influence on).
Eliot used his self-description as "Mélange adultère de tout" as the title for one of his own (French) poems. Many subsequent modernist poets have also studied him, and he has often been translated into English.
His complete poems appear in two volumes with translations by the English poet
Christopher Pilling.
[''Oysters, Nightingales and Cooking-Pots: Selected Poetry and Prose of Tristan Corbière'', trans. by Christopher Pilling, ed. by Richard Hibbitt and Katherine Lunn-Rockliffe (York: White Rose University Press, 2018). Open access publication; free on https://universitypress.whiterose.ac.uk/site/books/10.22599/Corbiere/]
A very precise commented version of
Les Amours jaunes was published in 1993 by Elisabeth Aragon and Claude Bonnin for the Presses universitaires de l'université de Toulouse-Le Mirail. It is now on open and free access: https://new-pum.univ-tlse2.fr/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Les_amours_jaunes.pdf
See also
*
Charles 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 ...
*
Orientalism
In art history, literature, and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects of the Eastern world (or "Orient") by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. Orientalist painting, particularly of the Middle ...
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Corbiere, Tristan
1845 births
1875 deaths
19th-century French poets
19th-century French male writers
19th-century deaths from tuberculosis
Writers from Brittany
Tuberculosis deaths in France
French male poets
People from Morlaix
Poètes maudits
Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at
:fr:Tristan Corbière; see its history for attribution.