René François Ghilbert (27 September 1862 – 15 September 1925), known as René Ghil, was a French poet. He was a disciple of

Stéphane Mallarmé Stéphane Mallarmé ( , ; 18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), pen name of Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of t ...

, a major contributor to the

symbolist Symbolism was a late 19th-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and real ...

movement in France, although they later had a falling out over ideological differences. Ghil published a series a short stories which together were called the ''Traité du Verbe''. He worked extensively on a new system of poetic language in reaction to the

Decadent Movement The Decadent movement (Fr. ''décadence'', “decay”) was a late-19th-century artistic and literary movement, centered in Western Europe, that followed an aesthetic ideology of excess and artificiality. The Decadent movement first flourished ...

and Symbolism. Owing to his widespread use of personal syntax and neological vocabulary, much of Ghil's work was inaccessible, and his own contemporaries labelled it confusing. However, his works gained wider attention after his death.

Early life and education

René François Ghilbert was born on 27 September 1862 in

Tourcoing Tourcoing (; nl, Toerkonje ; vls, Terkoeje; pcd, Tourco) is a city in northern France on the Belgian border. It is designated municipally as a commune within the department of Nord. Located to the north-northeast of Lille, adjacent to Rouba ...

. He went to Paris in 1870 to study at Lycée Fontanes, where his classmates included Rodolphe Darzens,

Pierre Quillard Pierre Quillard (born Paris, 14 July 1864 - died Neuilly-sur-Seine, 4 February 1912) was a French symbolist poet, playwright, translator (from Greek), and journalist. An anarchist and supporter of Dreyfus, he later became one of the first ...

Stuart Merrill Stuart Fitzrandolph Merrill (August 1, 1863 in Hempstead, New York – December 1, 1915 in Versailles, France) was an American poet, who wrote mostly in the French language. He belonged to the Symbolist school. His principal books of poetry ...

, André-Ferdinand Hérold,

André Fontainas André Fontainas (1865–1948) was a Belgian Symbolist poet and critic. He was born in Brussels. He spent much of his life in France. He taught at Lycee Fontaines. He was a member of the Académie Mallarmé The Académie Mallarmé is a Frenc ...

, and Éphraïm Mikhaël. This group of friends subsequently became known as the "Fontanes group".

Literary career

Ghil was a disciple of

, a major French

poet. Ghil published his first book in 1885. In the same year, he published a series of short stories, which were together called, the ''Traité du Verbe''. His works also included extensive metaphysical references especially to matter, the history of the universe, and human development. According to Joseph Acquisto of the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universit ...

, Ghil worked towards developing an ideal poetic language that would "subsume and supersede all the other arts", by establishing his own system of verbal instrumentation. Ghil's theory was intended to support scientific poetry, which included inert matter, atomic-level concepts, human knowledge, and ways of attaining wisdom. This system established relations among vowels, consonants, colours, music (orchestra), and emotions, which he expanded in a style through versions of the ''Traité du Verbe''. Though it is not clear which or how these scientific principles were applied, Ghil always claimed these observations were based on scientific facts. Traité du verbe Ghil Deman

Though he initially admired Mallarmé's works, Ghil later became a critic because of their ideological differences. In one of Mallarmé's gatherings in Rue de Rome, Ghil openly expressed his disagreement with him, which ended their relationship. Before this incident, Mallarmé wrote the preface to one of Ghil's works. After his estrangement from his mentor in 1888, Ghil continued to work relentlessly on his own school of

instrumentalism In philosophy of science and in epistemology, instrumentalism is a methodological view that ideas are useful instruments, and that the worth of an idea is based on how effective it is in explaining and predicting phenomena. According to instrument ...

, a philosophico-aesthetic system in reaction to the

and Symbolism, which were prevalent in the late 19th-century. This was based largely on serious misreadings of the works of

Hermann von Helmholtz Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (31 August 1821 – 8 September 1894) was a German physicist and physician who made significant contributions in several scientific fields, particularly hydrodynamic stability. The Helmholtz Associatio ...

, a German physicist,

Arthur Rimbaud Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (, ; 20 October 1854 – 10 November 1891) was a French poet known for his transgressive and surreal themes and for his influence on modern literature and arts, prefiguring surrealism. Born in Charleville, he sta ...

, a French poet, and

Auguste Comte Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte (; 19 January 1798 – 5 September 1857) was a French philosopher and writer who formulated the doctrine of positivism. He is often regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense ...

, a French philosopher and writer. In 1923, he published ''Les dates et les œuvres, symbolisme et poésie scientifique'', a sort of autobiographical report, which attempts to re-situate its singularity and its contribution to the

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

of the early 20th-century.exte imprimé is a 2007 Japanese horror film written and directed by Sion Sono, and stars Chiaki Kuriyama, Ren Osugi, and Megumi Satō. The title is a Japanese slang shortening Romanization of the English term "extension" from "hair extension". The plot ...

Early life and education

Literary career

Death and legacy

Works

Notes

References