Eriphyle: Poème; Suivi de Quatre Sylves (Classic Reprint)

by Jean Moréas

Excerpt from Poème; Suivi de Quatre Sylves

Essence pareille au vent léger, J'erre Depuis que la vie a quitté Mon corps. Mais les souillures et les maux corps.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

51 pages, Paperback

First published August 8, 2015

About the author

Moréas was born into a distinguished Athenian family. His ancestors included two well-known men of the Greek War of Independence, namely his paternal grandfather and namesake Ioannis Papadiamantopoulos (1766–1826), born in Corinth but of ultimately Epirote ancestry, (he was executed after the fall of Missolonghi) and his maternal granduncle Iakovos Tombazis (c. 1782–1829), a renowned Arvanite from Hydra, who became one of the first admirals of the Greek navy. Moreas's father was Adamantios Papadiamantopoulos, a judge, scholar, and poet. He received a French education, and went to Paris in 1875 to study law at the University of Paris. While in France, he began associating with literary circles, and became acquainted with Les Hydropathes, a group of French writers that included Alphonse Allais, Charles Cros, Guy de Maupassant, and Léon Bloy. He was also an acquaintance of the Greek artist Demetrios Galanis and the Romanian poet Ion Minulescu.
Moréas published poetry in his publications Lutèce and Le Chat noir, and collected his poems into two editions, Les Syrtes ("The Sandbanks") and Cantilènes, which were strongly influenced by Paul Verlaine.
He was initially a practitioner of the style of Symbolism, and wrote the Symbolist Manifesto (1886), which he published in the newspaper Le Figaro, partly to redeem the reputation of the new generation of young writers from the charge of "decadence" that the press had implied. He was considered one of the most important Symbolist poets until the early 1890s.
In 1891, as Symbolism became more openly associated with anarchism, he published Le Pèlerin passioné which rejected Northern European and Germanic influences, such as Romanticism (as well as some aspects of Symbolism), in favor of Ancient Roman and Ancient Greek influences. This work helped initiate the École Romane, the aesthetic of which provided Charles Maurras with the ideology necessary for the far-right philosophy Action Française.
Moréas also wrote Les Demoiselles Goubert, a novel, in association with Paul Adam.