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Stéphane Mallarmé Quotes

1842–1898 France

Stéphane Mallarmé (March 18 1842 – September 9 1898), born Étienne Mallarmé, was a poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of the early 20th century, such as Dadaism, Surrealism, and Futurism.

France
Poets

Random Stéphane Mallarmé quote

31 quotes

How, save through obscure
Terrors, imagine more implacable still
And as a suppliant the god who some day will
Receive the gift of your grace! and for whom,
Devoured by anguish, do you keep the unknown
Splendor and mystery of your being?

Hérodiade (1898)

These nymphs I would perpetuate.
So clear
Their light carnation, that it floats in the air
Heavy with tufted slumbers. Was it a dream I loved?

The Afternoon of a Faun (1876)

Then shall I awake to the primitive fervour,
Straight and alone, 'neath antique floods of light,
Lilies and one of you all through my ingenuousness.

The Afternoon of a Faun (1876)

I wait, but do not know for what or why
Or perhaps you are uttering the last bruised sighs,
Ignorant of the mystery and of your cries,
Of a childhood feeling its frozen gems
Being broken off at last amidst its dreams.

Hérodiade (1898)

The sun as it's halted
Miraculously exalted
Resumes its descent Incandescent.

Hérodiade (1898)

A kiss would kill me, woman,
If beauty were not death...
By what attraction
Am I drawn, what morn forgotten by the prophets
That pours on the dying distance its sad rites?

Hérodiade (1898)

I am alone in my monotonous country,
While all those around me live in the idolatry
Of a mirror reflecting in its depths serene
Herodiade, whose gaze is diamond keen ...
O final enchantment! yes, I sense it, I am alone.

Hérodiade (1898)

Hyperbole! can you not rise
In triumph from my memory,
A modern magic spell devise
As from an ironbound grammary:
For I inaugurate through science
The hymn of all hearts spiritual
In the labor of my patience,
Atlas, herbal, ritual.

Prose (1885)

Inert, all burns in the fierce hour

The Afternoon of a Faun (1876)

No more, I must sleep, forgetting the outrage,
On the thirsty sand lying, and as I delight
Open my mouth to wine's potent star!
Adieu, both! I shall see the shade you became.

The Afternoon of a Faun (1876)

Its gaze profound
Up where the frozen
Absolute has chosen
That nothing shall measure
Its vastness, O glacier
But according to a ritual
Illumined by the principle
That chose my consecration
It extends a salutation.

Hérodiade (1898)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Stéphane Mallarmé (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.