Paul-Marie Verlaine was born March 30, 1844 in the town of Metz on the Eastern border of France. His father, a French army officer, brought the family to Paris when Paul-Marie was seven years old.
As a young man, Verlaine made several attempts at a normal life, studying law for … Read the rest
It takes courage to break rules. The various experimental, counter-cultural or otherwise Bohemian literary movements of 19th Century Europe found this courage by banding into tribes. It is particularly impossible to study the works of seminal French poets like Baudelaire, Verlaine or Rimbaud without feeling smothered by labels, cross-groupings, … Read the rest
Born on May 25, 1803 into a lineage of esteemed Boston clergymen, young Ralph Waldo Emerson initially aimed for a career as a Unitarian minister. He studied divinity at Harvard and became pastor of Boston’s Second Church (his father, William Emerson, had been the pastor at the First Church).
His … Read the rest