Are you looking for some of the most famous French poets?
Throughout history, the French have penned some of the world’s greatest novels such as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, The Count of Monte Cristo, and Madame Bovary. French writers are among the best and French poets have as well produced some of the finest poems.
French poets Apollinaire, Rimbaud, and Hugo are household names, and their work is still read and enjoyed today.
Here are 10 of the most popular poets from France and their notable works.
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10 Most Famous French Poets
1. Guillaume Apollinaire
One of France’s most celebrated poets, Guillaume Apollinaire’s writing is visual and striking.
Born Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki to Polish parents in Rome, Italy, in 1880, he adopted the name “Guillaume Apollinaire” when he moved to France in his youth.
Apollinaire published his first collection of poems called L’enchanteur Pourrissant (1909; English: The Rotting Enchanter). His most notable work was Alcools (1913), which established Apollinaire’s reputation. His collection of concrete poetry, Calligrammes, was published briefly after his death in 1918.
2. Paul Verlaine
Born in Metz, France, in 1844, French poet Verlaine was one of the major figures of the Symbolist movement, an “impressionistic” poetry style which he would develop further in his later work. His contributions to the movement have had a lasting impact on French poetry and literature as well.
Troubled most of his adult life, Verlaine resorted to drugs. His addiction, coupled with alcoholism, took a toll on the poet’s life. He was 51 when he passed away in 1896 in the French capital.
Paul Verlaine’s most famous works include Poèmes Saturniens (1866), Chanson d’Automne (1866), and Clair de Lune (1869).
3. Arthur Rimbaud
Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet who rejected traditional poetic form and explored novel ways of self-expression through language. This has had a deep impact on modern poetry and literature.
Born in 1854 in Charleville, Champagne, France, Rimbaud went on to become one of the most notable Symbolist poets of mid- to late 19th century France. He instigated the prose poem and free verse, which have become major experimental forms of poetry. He also radically reinvented the concept of love.
Arthur Rimbaud’s most notable works include The Drunken Boat (1871), A Season in Hell (1873), and Illuminations (1873–1875).
4. Charles Baudelaire
French poet Charles Baudelaire is one of the most influential writers of the modernist era, rising to fame in Paris in the 1800s. Baudelaire is credited with coining the concept of the “flaneur,” which refers to the lonely wanderer roaming the streets of modernist Paris in search of artistic inspiration.
Born Charles-Pierre Baudelaire in Paris in 1821, Baudelaire’s reputation was established by his 1857 collection Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil), considered by many to be the most important poetry collection published in the 19th-century Europe.
Baudelaire’s work was provocative, alluring, and shockingly original, shaping the poetic tradition and profoundly influencing the style of many poets who followed him.
5. Victor Hugo
Considered the most prominent French Romantic writer, Victor Hugo is best known internationally for his novels The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831) and Les Misérables (1862).
In France, however, Hugo is best regarded as one of its greatest poets. His most renowned poetry collections include Les Contemplations (1856; The Contemplations) and La Légende des Siècles (1959; The Legend of the Ages). His two epic poems, “La Fin de Satan“ (1886; “The End of Satan”) and “Dieu“ (1891; “God”), were products of his apocalyptic approach to reality.
Born in Besançon, Franche-Comté, France, in 1802, Victor Hugo grew up to become a poet, novelist, dramatist, essayist, and politician. He died at the age of 83 in Paris.
Related Read: 16 Interesting Facts About Victor Hugo
6. Paul Valéry
In twelve different years, French poet, philosopher, and essayist Paul Valéry had been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Deemed one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century, Valéry is best remembered for his writings on art, literature, and philosophy.
Paul Valéry was said to be the last of the French symbolists. His poems “Le Cimetière Marin” (1922; “The Graveyard by the Sea“) and “L’Ébauche d’Un Serpent” (1926; “Sketch of a Serpent”) are among the greatest French poems of the 20th century.
Valéry was born Ambroise Paul Toussaint Jules Valéry in Sète, France, in 1871. He died of pulmonary congestion in Paris at the age of 73, shortly before which the French literary world elected him as “Prince des Poètes” (“Prince of Poets”).
7. Jacques Prévert
French poet Jacques Prévert penned ballads of sentimental love and social hope, which became popular – and today retain their popularity – in schools in the French-speaking world.
Born in 1900 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, Jacques Prévert grew up in Paris. Some of his poems have been turned into songs, including such “Autumn Leaves,” “Sleeping In,” “The Sounds of the Night,” and “The Hunt for the Child.”
Prévert also wrote numerous screenplays, including Bizarre, Bizarre (1937), Port of Shadows (1938), Daybreak (1939), The Night Visitors (1942), and Children of Paradise (1945). Children of Paradise earned Prévert an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay at the 19th Academy Awards in 1947.
Jacques Prévert succumbed to lung cancer in 1977. His poetry collections, Soleil de nuit and La Cinquième Saison, were posthumously published in 1980 and 1984, respectively.
8. Alphonse de Lamartine
Alphonse de Lamartine was instantly catapulted to fame when his first collection of poetry was published in 1820.
Titled Méditations Poétiques (Poetic Meditations), it was where Lamartine introduced the French readers to Romanticism, which is a literary movement characterized by idealization of nature and of the past. Hence, Lamartine is regarded as France’s first Romantic poet.
Born into a family of provincial nobility in Mâcon, Burgundy, France, in 1790, Alphonse de Lamartine had a devout Catholic upbringing. He also became a statesman later in life.
Besides Méditations Poétiques, Lamartine’s most famous poems include “Le Lac” (1820; “The Lake”), “Jocelyn” (1836), and “La Chute d’un Ange” (1838; “The Fall of an Angel”).
9. Pierre de Ronsard
Pierre de Ronsard is perhaps among the most prolific writers France has ever had. He was called a “prince of poets” by his own generation in France.
Ronsard’s poetry, both praised and criticized all through his life, is characterized by its graceful variety of meter and grandiose usage of language and imagery.
Ronsard was born in 1524 to a noble family in La Possonnière, France, not far from Couture. He resorted to scholarship, the church, and literature after contracting an illness that left him partially deaf in 1540.
Ronsard’s “Ode à Cassandre,” penned in 1552 for the court of King Charles IX, is one of the most prominent French poems of all time.
10. Paul Éluard
Born Eugène Émile Paul Grindel in Saint-Denis, France, in 1895, he chose the nom de plume Paul Éluard in 1916. It was a matronymic he borrowed from his mother’s mother.
Éluard is most beloved for his anti-Nazi poems during the Second World War. Thanks to his poem “Liberté” that inspired the French resistance, he was dubbed the “Poet of Freedom.”
Éluard is regarded as a founder of the Surrealist literary movement, with his distinct style displayed in his 1937 collection L’Évidence Poétique Habitude de la Poésie.
The “Poet of Freedom” died of a heart attack in November of 1952 in Charenton-le-Pont, France.
Hi, I’m Christine – a full-time traveler and career woman. Although I’m from the Philippines, my location independent career took me to over 40 countries and lived in 4 continents in the last 10 years, including France. A self-proclaimed Francophile, I love everything France.