Mallarmé, Stéphane << mah lahr MAY, stay FAHN >> (1842-1898), a French poet, became the master of a group of poets who began a movement called Symbolism. Mallarmé systematically made his poems obscure, refusing to communicate directly with readers. In his “The Tomb of Edgar Poe” (1877), he rejected what he called “the words of the tribe”—that is, normal, everyday language. Key words in his poems have several simultaneous meanings and must be interpreted with a dictionary. Mallarmé’s prose is remarkable for its vitality and complex sentence structure. His writings exercised an enormous influence on literary criticism in the late 1900’s.
Mallarmé is best known for his poem “L’Après-midi d’un faune” (“The Afternoon of a Faun,” 1876). This dramatic monologue explores the fine lines that separate dream, fantasy, and reality. Mallarmé’s ambition was to write a “total book,” a long work that he said would provide an “Orphic explanation of the earth.” Two fragments exist from this unfinished work, the metaphysical dream meditation called Igitur and the poem “A throw of the dice will never abolish chance.”
Mallarmé was born on March 18, 1842, in Paris, France. He died on Sept. 9, 1898.
See also French literature (Symbolism).
