French Symbolist poet (1842–1898)
Stéphane Mallarmé (March 18 1842 – September 9 1898), born Étienne Mallarmé, was a poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of the early 20th century, such as Dadaism, Surrealism, and Futurism.
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Alternative Names:
Stephane Mallarme
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Steph. Mallarme
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Etienne Mallarmé
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Etienne Mallarme
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Mallarmé
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Étienne Mallarmé
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Degas was discussing poetry with Mallarmé; "It isn't ideas I'm short of... I've got too many" [Ce ne sont pas les idées qui me manquent... J'en ai trop], said Degas. "But Degas," replied Mallarmé, "you can't make a poem with ideas. … You make it with words." [Mais, Degas, ce n'est point avec des idées que l'on fait des vers. . . . C'est avec des mots.]
THE BOOK: A SPIRITUAL INSTRUMENT I am the author of a statement to which there have been varying reactions, including praise and blame, and which I shall make again in the present article. Briefly, it is this: all earthly existence must ultimately be contained in a book. It terrifies me to think of the qualities (among them genius, certainly) which the author of such a work will have to possess. I am one of the unpossessed. We will let that pass and imagine that it bears no author’s name. What, then, will the work itself be? I answer: a hymn, all harmony and joy; an immaculate grouping of universal relationships come together for some miraculous and glittering occasion. Man’s duty is to observe with the eyes of the divinity; for if his connection with that divinity is to be made clear, it can be expressed only by the pages of the open book in front of him.