Stéphane Mallarmé — a remark

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“Poetry is the expression, through human language restored to its essential rhythm, of the mysterious meaning in the aspects of existence; it gives authenticity to our sojourn and constitutes the sole spiritual task.”

Original: La Poésie est l’expression, par le langage humain ramené à son rythme essentiel, du sens mystérieux des aspects de l’existence: elle doue ainsi d’authenticité notre séjour et constitue la seule tâche spirituelle. — Defines poetry as a rhythmic use of language that reveals the mystery within existence. · Letter to Léo d’Orfer, 27 June 1884 (French)

Stéphane Mallarmé

About Stéphane Mallarmé

Stéphane Mallarmé

18 March 1842–9 September 1898

In the hushed apartment at 89 rue de Rome in Paris, amid the blue cigarette smoke of Tuesday evenings, a soft-spoken schoolteacher held court over the most revolutionary minds in French literature. Stéphane Mallarmé, a man who published fewer than seventy poems in his lifetime, would become one of the most influential…

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“To name an object is to suppress three-quarters of the pleasure of the poem, which lies in the delight of guessing little by little; to suggest it, that is the dream.”

Original: Nommer un objet, c’est supprimer les trois quarts de la jouissance du poème qui est faite du bonheur de deviner peu à peu: le suggérer, voilà le rêve. — Captures the Symbolist ideal of suggestion, mystery and the reader’s imaginative participation. · Interview with Jules Huret, Enquête sur l’évolution littéraire, 1891 (French)

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