Nerval, Gérard de << nehr VAL, zhay RAR duh >> (1808-1855), was a French poet. His charm, odd behavior, periodic mental disorders, and mysterious suicide made him a hero typical of the Romantic movement. Critics consider him a major visionary poet.
Nerval believed in metempsychosis, the passing of a soul at death from one body to another. In Les Chimères (1854), a collection of sonnets, this belief underlies many obscure references to the legendary past which contribute to the haunting beauty of the poems. His search for the eternal feminine ideal is reflected in the short stories of Les Filles du Feu (1854), notably in “Sylvie,” a tale set in the Valois countryside. Aurélia (1855), a prose confession, begins with the phrase “Our dreams are a second life.” It describes this “life,” including the hallucinations Nerval suffered during his periods of mental illness.
Nerval was born in Paris on May 22, 1808. He died on Jan. 26, 1855.
