Verlaine, Paul (1844-1896)

A French poet who was born in Metz in 1844 and died in Paris in 1896. From the 1860s he frequented literary salons and the members of the Parnassian movement. He even worked on the first Parnasse contemporain. Married and a respected poet, his life would take another turn when he met a young poet, Arthur Rimbaud, with whom he had a homosexual relationship and experienced bohemian life, notably in London and Ostend. During an argument in Brussels, he shot at Arthur Rimbaud, injuring his wrist, and spent two years in prison before converting to Catholicism. It is also to him that we owe the notion of ‘cursed poets.’