Mallarmé, Stéphane

French poet, 1842-1898, author of Hérodiade and other works

Fishburn and Hughes: "A French poet who, together with Paul Verlaine, is regarded as the founder of the Symbolist movement, which had a marked influence in France throughout the twentieth century. Mallarmé also wrote a number of critical essays: his views on writing derive mainly from the principle that the world exists in order to be written about: 'Le monde est fait pour aboutir à un beau livre' ('The world was made to end in a beautiful book', misquoted by Borges as 'Tout aboutit à un livre' (Disc. 121)). This idea is examined by Borges in 'On the Cult of Books' (TL 358). In his escape from reality, Mallarmé was influenced at first by Baudelaire, both poets having lost a parent in early childhood, but Mallarmé turned increasingly to the intellect, rather than the emotions, in his search for an ideal world. He saw the poet's task as feeling and describing the essences beyond reality. To convey this sense of distilled reality, Mallarmé sought to pare down and condense his language: his later poems were often obscure, relying for their structure on the sound and association of the words employed." (124)

Parodi: Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898) poeta simbolista y crítico. Para Borges, Mallarmé es del tipo de escritor que “laboriosamente elabora una obra secreta” (“Francisco de Quevedo” 111). Traductor de los poemas de Poe, Mallarmé procuró alcanzar una poesía pura que presupone la participación activa del lector.