Theophile Gautier

Theophile Gautier Poems

Sweet lady, let your lids unclose.--
Those lids by maiden dreams caressed;
I am the phantom of the rose
You wore last night upon your breast.
...

Carmen est maigre, - un trait de bistre
Cerne son oeil de gitana.
Ses cheveux sont d'un noir sinistre,
Sa peau, le diable la tanna.
...

Okay, my starsick beauty! -
blue jeans and tilting breasts,
child of Canaverel -
where would you like to go?
...

Theophile Gautier Biography

Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier (August 30, 1811 – October 23, 1872) was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, and literary critic. While Gautier was an ardent defender of Romanticism, his work is difficult to classify and remains a point of reference for many subsequent literary traditions such as Parnassianism, Symbolism, Decadence and Modernism. He was widely esteemed by writers as diverse as Balzac, Baudelaire, the Goncourt brothers, Flaubert and Oscar Wilde. Towards the end of 1830, Gautier began to frequent meetings of Le Petit Cénacle, a group of artists who met in the studio of Jehan Du Seigneur. The group was a more irresponsible version of Hugo's Cénacle. The group counted among its members the artists Gérard de Nerval, Alexandre Dumas, père, Petrus Borel, Alphonse Brot, Joseph Bouchardy and Philothée O’Neddy. Le Petit Cénacle soon gained a reputation for extravagance and eccentricity, but also for being a unique refuge from society. Gautier began writing poetry as early as 1826 but the majority of his life was spent as a contributor to various journals, mainly La Presse, which also gave him the opportunity for foreign travel and for meeting many influential contacts in high society and in the world of the arts. Throughout his life, Gautier was well-traveled, taking trips to Spain, Italy, Russia, Egypt and Algeria. Gautier's many travels inspired many of his writings including Voyage en Espagne (1843), Trésors d’Art de la Russie (1858), and Voyage en Russie (1867). Gautier's travel literature is considered by many as being some of the best from the nineteenth century, often written in a more personal style, it provides a window into Gautier's own tastes in art and culture.)

The Best Poem Of Theophile Gautier

The Phantom Of The Rose

Sweet lady, let your lids unclose.--
Those lids by maiden dreams caressed;
I am the phantom of the rose
You wore last night upon your breast.
Like pearls upon my petals lay
The weeping fountain's silver tears,
Ere in the glittering array
You bore me proudly 'mid your peers.

O lady, 'twas for you I died--
Yet have I come and will I stay;
My rosy phantom by your side
Will linger till the break of day.
Yet fear not, lady; naught claim I--
Nor mass, nor hymn, or funeral prayer;
My soul is but a perfumed sigh,
Which pure from Paradise I bear.

My death is as my life was--sweet;
Who would not die as I have done?
A fate like mine who would not meet,
Your bosom fair to lie upon?
A poet on my sentient tomb
Engraved this legend with a kiss:
'Here lies a rose of fairest bloom;
E'en kings are jealous of its bliss.

Theophile Gautier Comments

Theophile Gautier Quotes

Any man who does not have his inner world to translate is not an artist.

Art is beauty, the perpetual invention of detail, the choice of words, the exquisite care of execution.

The word poet literally means maker: anything which is not well made doesn't exist.

I am one of those for whom superfluity is a necessity.

Critical lice are like body lice, which desert corpses to seek the living.

Good heavens! what a foolish thing is this pretended perfectibility of the human race which is continually being dinned into our ears!

You do not become a critic until it has been completely established to your own satisfaction that you cannot be a poet.

Books follow morals, and not morals books.

Any man which an idea, however subtle and unexpected it may be, finds lacking, is not a writer. The inexpressible does not exist.

I was born to travel and write verse.

[Great artists] do not copy what they see, but what they desire.

It doesn't prove anything, it doesn't tell anything.

Theophile Gautier Popularity

Theophile Gautier Popularity

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