Lamartine, Alphonse de << la mar TEEN, al FAWNS duh >> (1790-1869), was a French writer and statesman. The death of the woman he loved inspired some of his greatest poems. Poetic Meditations (1820), his first published collection, was a key work in the development of French romantic literature and won Lamartine fame. In this work, he expressed sadness and a yearning for the past, and told of the consolation he found in religious faith, the hope of immortality, and the memory of his ideal love. He began a vast work symbolically describing humanity’s struggle to reach God by suffering and atonement. Only two episodes, Jocelyn (1836) and The Fall of an Angel (1838), were finished.
Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine was born on Oct. 21, 1790, in Mâcon. He served briefly as provisional chief of state after the Revolution of 1848. He lost his popularity, and he died heavily in debt on Feb. 28, 1869.
