Tristan Corbière

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Tristan Corbière (July 18, 1845 – March 1, 1875), born Édouard-Joachim Corbière, was a French poet born in Coat-Congar, Ploujean near Morlaix in Brittany, where he lived most of his life and where he died.

His mother was Marie-Angélique-Aspasie Puyo, 19 years old at the time, belonged to one of the most notable families of the local bourgeoisie. His father was Antoine-Édouard Corbière, known for his best-selling novel Le Négrier.

During his early schooling at the Imperial Lycée of Saint-Brieuc where he studied from 1858 until 1860, he fell prey to a deep depression, and, over several freezing winters, contracted the severe rheumatism which was, with time, to disfigure him severely. He blamed his parents for having placed him there far from his family's care and affection. Difficulties in adapting to the harsh discipline of the college's noble débris^[1](distinguished relics, i.e., teachers) gradually developed those characteristics of anarchic disdain and sarcasm which were to give much of his verse its distinctive voice.

His work was little known until Paul Verlaine included him in his gallery of poètes maudits, "accursed poets;" but Verlaine's recommendation was enough to get his work noticed and established him as one of the masters acknowledged by the Symbolists.

His only published verse in his lifetime appeared in Les amours jaunes, 1873. Corbière died of tuberculosis at the age of 29.