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My breast, though proofless, still attests a bite
Mysterious, due to some august tooth;
But enough! for confidant such mystery chose
The great double reed which one plays 'neath the blue.

— Stéphane Mallarmé The Afternoon of a Faun (1876)

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More quotes by Stéphane Mallarmé

The flesh is sorrowful, alas! And I've read all the books.

It is in front of the paper that the artist creates himself.

If only I'd chosen an easy work!

The work of pure poetry implies the elocutionary disappearance of the poet, who yields the initiative to words.

The poetic act consists in suddenly seeing that an idea splits into a number of motives of equal value and in grouping them; they rhyme.

All Stéphane Mallarmé quotes →

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Stéphane Mallarmé (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.