Encyclopedia > Emile Nelligan

  Article Content

Emile Nelligan

Émile Nelligan (1879-1941) was a Canadian poet who wrote in the French language.

Nelligan was born in Montreal to an Irish father and a French-Canadian mother. A follower of Symbolism, his poetry is deeply influenced by Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, Georges Rodenbach[?], Maurice Rollinat[?], and Edgar Allan Poe. A precocious talent like Arthur Rimbaud, his first poems were published in Montreal when he was 16 years old.

In 1899 Nelligan suffered a major psychotic breakdown from which he never recovered. In 1904, his collected poems were published to great acclaim in Canada, an acclaim he never knew. He was one of the greatest French language poets produced by Canada, and several schools and libraries there are named after him.

Quotation: Le Vaisseau d'Or

C'était un grand Vaisseau taillé dans l'or massif:
Ses mâts touchaient l'azur, sur des mers inconnues;
La Cyprine d'amour, cheveux épars, chairs nues,
S'étalait à sa proue, au soleil excessif.

Mais il vint une nuit frapper le grand écueil
Dans l'Océan trompeur où chantait la Sirène,
Et le naufrage horrible inclina sa carène
Aux profondeurs du Gouffre, immuable cercueil.

Ce fut un Vaisseau d'Or, dont les flancs diaphanes
Révélaient des trésors que les marins profanes,
Dégoùt, Haine et Névrose, entre eux ont disputés.

Que reste-t-il de lui dans la tempête brève?
Qu'est devenu mon coeur, navire déserté?
Hélas! Il a sombré dans l'abîme du Rêve!

External link:

Collection of Nelligan's poetry (site is in French): http://poesie.webnet.fr/auteurs/nelligan



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Holtsville, New York

... 7.5% from 18 to 24, 33.5% from 25 to 44, 23.9% from 45 to 64, and 6.9% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 34 years. For every 100 females there are 96.1 ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 24.8 ms