- Albert Samain
Albert Victor Samain (
April 3 ,1858 —August 18 ,1900 ) was a French poet and writer of the Symbolist school.Born in
Lille , his family were Flemish and had long lived in the town or its suburbs. At the time of the poet's birth, his father, Jean-Baptiste Samain, and his mother, Elisa-Henriette Mouquet, conducted a business in "wines and spirits" at 75 rue de Paris. [Six French Poets: Studies in Contemporary Literature. Amy Lowell. New York: Macmillan Company, 1915.] Samain's father died when he was quite young; it was necessary for him to leave school and seek a trade. He moved toParis in around 1880, where his poetry won him a following and he began mixing withavant-garde literary society, and began publicly reciting his poems at "Le Chat Noir ". His poems were strongly influenced by those of Baudelaire, and began to strike a somewhat morbid and elegiac tone. He also was influenced by Verlaine; his works disclose a taste for indecisive, vague imagery. Samain helped found the "Mercure de France ", and also worked on the "Revue des Deux Mondes ".Samain published three volumes of verse: "Le jardin de l'infante" (1893), which made him famous; "Aux flancs du vase" (1898) and "Le Chariot d'or" (1901). Samain died of
tuberculosis .Quotation
:Je rêve de vers doux et d'intimes ramages,:De vers à frôler l'âme ainsi que des plumages,
:De vers blonds où le sens fluide se délie:Comme sous l'eau la chevelure d'Ophélie,
:De vers silencieux, et sans rythme et sans trame:Où la rime sans bruit glisse comme une rame,
:De vers d'une ancienne étoffe, exténuée,:Impalpable comme le son et la nuée,
:De vers de soir d'automne ensorcelant les heures:Au rite féminin des syllabes mineures.
:De vers de soirs d'amour énervéls de verveine,:Où l'âme sente, exquise, une caresse à peine...
:Je rêve de vers doux mourant comme des roses.
:::::--"Le jardin de l'infante"
References
External links
* [http://www.blackcatpoems.com/s/albert_samain.html Poems by Albert Samain] English translations of Samain's poetry
* Poems by Albert Samain (in French): http://poesie.webnet.fr/auteurs/samain.html
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