Germain Nouveau

1851–1920

Germain Nouveau (1851–1920) was a French poet from Pourrières in Provence. In Paris he befriended Rimbaud, with whom he travelled to London in 1874, helping copy out the Illuminations, and later Verlaine.

After a religious crisis in 1891 he lived as a wandering beggar-pilgrim and refused to publish his work. His poems, especially the love poems Valentines and the devotional La Doctrine de l’amour, were collected by friends, often against his wishes, and were admired by the Surrealists.

Best-known poems

• Idiot

  Nous lisons dans Legrand du Saulle
  Que le crétin a du goût pour
  L’arithmétique… tiens ! c’est drôle ! …

• Rêve claustral

  Je vous connais comme elle, ô murs, travail des nonnes,
  Préaux fleuris d’amours furtifs, silencieux
  Parloirs, où, par la nuit, l’âme des lunes bonnes …

All poems (145)

Poets of the same era

Émile Verhaeren 1855–1916 Charles Baudelaire 1821–1867 Paul Verlaine 1844–1896 Maurice Rollinat 1846–1903 Sully Prudhomme 1839–1907 Théodore de Banville 1823–1891 François Coppée 1842–1908 RV Renée Vivien 1877–1909