Verlaine, Paul (pōl vĕrlĕn`), 1844–96, French poet. He gained some notice with the Parnassian poetry of Poèmes saturniens (1866) and Fêtes galantes (1869) and became a figure in the bohemian literary world of Paris. Verlaine's turbulent marriage broke up as a result of his liaison with his young protégé, Arthur Rimbaud Rimbaud, Arthur (ärtür` răNbō`)
..... Click the link for more information. . The two poets traveled in Belgium and England; their relationship ended in tragedy when Verlaine shot and wounded Rimbaud and was imprisoned in Belgium for two years. In prison he was brought back to the Catholic faith of his childhood and wrote some noble religious poetry that appeared in Sagesse (1881). From that time also dates his Romances sans paroles (1874), which shows Verlaine as one of the first of the symbolists symbolists, in literature, a school originating in France toward the end of the 19th cent. in reaction to the naturalism and realism of the period. Designed to convey impressions by suggestion rather than by direct statement, symbolism found its first expression in
..... Click the link for more information. . The sensitive appreciation of the common incidents and sights of life and the haunting and simple music of his verse, combined with the melancholy and unreal disillusion of the decadents, distinguish his poetry. More striking, however, is the candor of Verlaine himself. Through the degrading incidents of his later life, which was marked by drunkenness, poverty, and debauchery, he preserved his honesty and inverted naïveté. Jadis et Naguère (1884) and Parallèlement (1889) were perhaps the best of his later volumes of poetry. Of his prose works the only one of importance is Les Poètes maudits (1884), sketches of his fellow symbolists, particularly Mallarmé and Rimbaud.

Verlaine, Paul (-Marie)

(born March 30, 1844, Metz, France—died Jan. 8, 1896, Paris) French lyric poet. After entering the civil service, he was first associated with the Parnassian poets, contributing to the first volume of the anthology Le Parnasse contemporain (1866). His early collections, Poèmes saturniens (1866), Fêtes galantes (1869), La Bonne chanson (1870), and Romances sans paroles (1874), show the intense lyricism and musicality that would mark all his verse. His marriage was shattered by his infatuation with Arthur Rimbaud, and the two scandalized Paris with their behaviour in 1872–73. While in prison in Belgium (1873–75) for shooting Rimbaud when the latter threatened to leave him, he converted to Catholicism and probably composed the famous “Art poétique,” adopted in 1882 by the poets of the Symbolist movement. Sagesse (1880) expresses his religious faith and his emotional odyssey. He later taught French and English; he spent his late years in poverty, but just before his death he was sponsored for a major international lecture tour. His Les Poètes maudits (1884; “The Accursed Poets”) consists of short biographical studies of six poets, including Stéphane Mallarmé and Rimbaud. He is regarded as the third great member (with Charles Baudelaire and Mallarmé) of the so-called Decadents.