Remy de Gourmont

Rémy de Gourmont (1858-1915) was a French Symbolist poet and influential critic.

His poetic works include Litanies de la rose (1892), Les Saintes du paradis (1898), and Divertissements (1912). His poems plunge from perhaps ironic piety to equally ironic blasphemy; they reflect, more than anything else, his interest in mediæval Latin literature, and his works led to a a fad for late Latin literature among Symbolist authors like Joris-Karl Huysmans. He was also a literary critic of great importance, and was admired by T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound in that capacity.

Quotation

Que tes mains soient bénies, car elles sont impures!

Elles ont des péchés cachés à toutes les jointures;

Leur peau blanche s'est trempée dans l'odeur âpre des caresses

Secrètes, parmi l'ombre blanche où rampent les caresses,

Et l'opale prisonnière qui se meurt à ton doigt,

C'est le dernier soupir de Jésus sur la croix.

---Oraisons mauvaises

External link

Selected poems by Rémy de Gourmont (in French): http://poesie.webnet.fr/auteurs/gourmont.html

Les amateurs de Rémy de Gourmont (site is in French): http://www.remydegourmont.org/