Henri de Régnier


Henri-François-Joseph de Régnier was a French symbolist poet, considered one of the most important of France during the early 20th century.

Life and works

He was born in Honfleur on 28 December 1864, and educated in Paris for law. In 1885 he began to contribute to the Parisian reviews, and his verses were published by most of the French and Belgian periodicals favorable to the symbolist writers. Having begun as a Parnassian, he retained the classical tradition, though he adopted some of the innovations of Jean Moréas and Gustave Kahn. His vaguely suggestive style shows the influence of Stéphane Mallarmé, of whom he was an assiduous disciple.
His first volume of poems, Lendemains, appeared in 1885, and among numerous later volumes are Poèmes anciens et romanesques, Les Jeux rustiques et divins, Les Médailles d'argile, La Cité des eaux. He is also the author of a series of realistic novels and tales, among which are La Canne de jaspe, La Double maîtresse, Les Vacances d’un jeune homme sage, and Les Amants singuliers. Régnier married Marie de Heredia, daughter of the poet José María de Heredia, and herself a novelist and poet under the pen name of Gérard d'Houville.
He was a contributor to Le Visage de l'Italie, a 1929 book about Italy prefaced by Benito Mussolini.
La Canne de jaspe and Histoires Incertaines were translated in 2012 by Brian Stableford under the title A Surfeit of Mirrors
Henri de Régnier died in 1936 at age 71 and was interred in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

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