2024/11/01 by Lichtenthal, Julia
Arts and Humanities · #French Literature and Poetry #Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Hegel #Philosophy and Historical Thought
paper · doi:10.15203/atem_2025_2.4
openalex publication_date 2024/11/01 · openalex created_date 2025/11/06 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/01
Paul Verlaine’s “Soleils couchants” (from Poèmes saturniens) is a pioneering work that unveils a lyrical paradigm shift. While the author draws on traditional literary models (especially Hugo and Baudelaire), he simultaneously transcends them by boldly reworking the genre of melancholy poetry. This distancing is particularly evident in Verlaine’s departure from a logically structured discourse on melancholy: rather than being the subject of profound reflection, melancholy emerges as an indeterminate, ineffable état d’âme that eludes conventional language and is conveyed primarily through the poem’s emancipated lyrical musicality.