Coppée, FRANÇOIS

Coppée, FRANÇOIS, poet, was born at Paris, 26th January 1842. For three years a war-office clerk, he early gave himself to poetry, and already with Le Reliquaire (1866) and Les Inimités (1867) he took his place in the front rank of the 'Parnassiens.' Later volumes of poetry were Les Humbles, Le Cahier Rouge, Olivier—his one long poem—Les Réécits et les Éloges, and Contes en Vers. His thought is marked by its distinction, his style by its perfection, and his exquisite treatment of Parisian elegy and idyll stand admittedly amongst the triumphs of modern poetry in France. His earliest dramatic poem, Le Passant (1870), owed much to the acting of Sarah Bernhardt, and was followed by Deux Douleurs, L'Abandonnée, Le Luthier de Crémone, and La Guerre de Cent Ans, which prepared the way for Madame de Maintenon and its 'succès d'estime' (1881), Severo Torelli (1883), his masterpiece in dramatic verse, and Les Jacobites (1885). Dramatic critic for some years to La Patrie, Coppée entered the Academy in 1884, and won fame in yet another field by his Contes en Prose, Vingt Contes Nouveaux, and Contes Rapides. See the study by M. De Lescure (1889).