Charles Marie René Leconte de Lisle, usually referred to only by his surname Leconte de Lisle, was one of the most important poets of the second half of the nineteenth century, even if he is little known and rarely studied today, especially in the Anglophone world. He is, however, widely recognised as the leading figure of the Parnassian movement that dominated French poetry in the 1860s and 1870s. He can indeed be considered the pioneer of this movement in his rejection of Romanticism’s emotionality and political engagement, his concern for poetic craft, and his choice of exotic and antiquarian subjects.
Born in 1818 into a landowning family on the Île Bourbon (now known as La Réunion), Leconte de Lisle spent his youth between this small island in the Indian Ocean and Brittany. In
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Citation: Bootle, Samuel Douglas. "Charles-Marie-René Leconte de Lisle". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 04 October 2017 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2665, accessed 22 November 2024.]