Once and recently
Please sign in so that we can notify you about a reply
Paul Verlaine (1844–1896) coined the term "cursed poets" to refer to talented rebels who were neither able nor willing to lead a respectable bourgeois life. He himself was among them. Verlaine's fate led him along winding paths, whether guided by destiny or by his own capricious decisions, resulting in many upheavals: he would decide to marry and settle down, then leave his family to wander with the young Rimbaud, attempt to become a farmer, or end up in prison. The only constant in his life was his poetry—musical, incredibly impactful, and highly influential on his contemporaries and poets of subsequent generations, including in Russia.