Biography
Other info : Bibliography
Catulle Mendès was a French poet and man of letters.
Of Portuguese Jewish extraction, he was born in Bordeaux.[1] He early established himself in Paris and promptly attained notoriety by the publication in the Le Revue fantaisiste (1861) of his Roman d'une nuit, for which he was condemned to a month's imprisonment and a fine of 500 francs. He was allied with Parnassianism from the beginning of the movement and displayed extraordinary metrical skill in his first volume of poems, Philoméla (1863). His critics have noted that the elegant verse of his later volumes is distinguished rather by dexterous imitation of different writers than by any marked originality. The versatility and fecundity of Mendès' talent is shown his critical and dramatic writings, including several libretti, and in his novels and short stories. His short stories continue the French tradition of the licentious conte.
In 1866 he married Judith Gautier, the younger daughter of the poet Théophile Gautier. They later separated. Early on the morning of 8 February 1909, his body was discovered in the railway tunnel of Saint Germain. He had left Paris by the midnight train on the 7th, and it is supposed that, thinking he had arrived at the station, he had opened the door of his compartment while still in the tunnel.
