Ducasse, Isidore

Ducasse, Isidore (ēzēdôr` dükäs`), 1846–70, French poet who wrote under the name Comte de Lautréamont, or simply Lautréamont. Born in Montevideo, Uruguay, he moved to Paris in 1867, where he lived like a hermit until his death at the age of 24. In 1870 he published a volume of poetry, Poésies. He is best known for his only other work, Les Chants de Maldoror (1868, tr. 1943), a nightmarish epic poem replete with grotesque, often erotic, imagery. Because of his hallucinatory, nonrepresentational style, Lautréamont was viewed by the surrealists as a progenitor.