Théophile Gautier (1811-1872)
French

At first Gautier devoted himself to painting, then he passionately participated in the literary polemic between classics and romantics, siding with romantics. But in 1833, he abandoned the romantic thoughts, and after a few years he re-evaluated the classic idea of beauty. In the foreword of his novel, Mademoiselle de Maupin (1835), he theorized the idea of "art for art's sake". This idea introduced the school of the Parnassians and the symbolists. Conceived in the middle of the Romantic era, but written 30 years later, was his novel, Captain Fracassa (1863). La morte amoureuse (1836) The Double Knight (1840) Arria Marcella (1852) Avatar (1856) and the novel Spirite (1866) came from the inspiration of E.T.A. Hoffmann. Gautier also left many reports of travel and a lot of articles of artistic, theatric and literary criticism, partly collected in a book. In many ways, Gautier's life was full of disappointments. He was never elected to the Académie française, and his government appointments and subsidies were never sufficient. In addition, the frequent changes of government (born during the Napoleonic Empire, Gautier lived through two revolutions, a coup d'état, a major war and the Commune) always seemed to destroy whatever financial independence he had aspired to recieve. On October 23, 1872, his heart hit by the privations of the siege of Paris and without fortune, but universally known and admired, he died. He had a book of poems published in his honor a year later, which also included poems by Hugo and Mallarmé.

Works

La morte amoreuse (1836)
The Double Knight (1840)
Arria Marcella (1852)
Avatar (1856)
Spirite (1866)
Captain Fracasse (1863)

Additional Information
Gautier @ Poetes.com http://poetes.com/gautier