Le Parnasse contemporain
Le Parnasse contemporain (French pronunciation: [lə paʁnas kɔ̃tɑ̃pɔʁɛ̃], "The Contemporary Parnassus", e.g., the contemporary poetry scene) is composed of three volumes of poetry collections, published in 1866, 1871 and 1876 by the editor Alphonse Lemerre. The volumes included one hundred French poets, such as Leconte de Lisle, Théodore de Banville, Heredia, Gautier, Catulle Mendès, Baudelaire, Sully Prudhomme, Mallarmé, François Coppée, Charles Cros, Nina de Callias, Léon Dierx, Louis Ménard, Verlaine, Villiers de L'Isle-Adam and Anatole France.
The mid/late 19th century French literary movement Parnassianism took its name from the poetry collection.
The first volume contained les Épaves and Nouvelles Fleurs du mal by Baudelaire, and early Mallarmé and Verlaine, avant-garde poets of the time.[1] No poem by Arthur Rimbaud was included in any of the three volumes. Rimbaud is known to have read the first collection at a time when he was developing his poetry (sometime between 1866 and 1870). In a letter dated May 15, 1871 Rimbaud mentions by name dozens of poets who were included, referring to some of them as "idiots", "imbeciles", "schoolboys" et cetera. In that letter Rimbaud praises Charles Baudelaire, Theophile Gautier, Theodore de Banville, Leconte de Lisle, Albert Merat, and Paul Verlaine. He does not mention Mallarmé, who had 11 poems published in the 1866 collection.
History
[edit]The idea of Le Parnasse contemporain began when the poet Louis-Xavier de Ricard was publishing a financially unsuccessful periodical, L'Art.[2][3] He was advised by his friend and fellow poet Catulle Mendès to turn the weekly L'Art into an annual publication of only poems under the title Le Parnasse Contemporain. The first run of Le Parnasse Contemporain failed to secure a single subscriber.[2] After the failed first run, Alphonse Lemerre took over the running of the publication, paid its various debts, and stewarded it into further publications.[2]
Information on each collection
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Number of installments date of publication of first and last installments shown, as well as the date of the publication of the collected installments |
Number of poets | Number of poems | Total number of pages | Number of copies printed? | |
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List of 99 poets
[edit]The following table lists (in alphabetical order) 99 poets who contributed to La Parnasse contemporain. Indicated for each poet is the number of poems that appeared in the three collections (1866, 1871, 1876):
References
[edit]- ^ Whidden, Seth Adam (2007). Leaving Parnassus: The Lyric Subject in Verlaine and Rimbaud. Rodopi. p. 23. ISBN 978-90-420-2210-2.
- ^ a b c "Alphonse Lemerre - Publisher of the Parnassiens". The Bookman. Dodd, Mead and Company. 1910. p. 244.
- ^ "Le Parnasse contemporain | French periodical | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2025-01-10.
Further reading
[edit]- Armstrong, Jane (1933). A Critical Study of the Parnasse Contemporain. University of Minnesota.