Tristan Corbière

Life & Legacy

Tristan Corbière (18 July 1845 – 1 March 1875), born Édouard-Joachim Corbière, was a French poet born in Coat-Congar, Ploujean (now part of Morlaix) in Brittany, where he lived most of his life before dying of tuberculosis at the age of 29. He was a French poet, close to Symbolism, and a figure of the "cursed poet".
He is the author of a single collection of poetry, Les Amours jaunes, and of a few prose pieces. He led a mostly marginal and miserable life, nourished by two major failures due to his bone disease and his "ugliness" which he enjoyed accusing: the first is his sentimental life (he only loved one woman, called "Marcelle" in his work), and the second being his passion for the sea (he dreamt of becoming a sailor, like his father, Édouard Corbière). His poetry carries these two great wounds which led him to adopt a very cynical and incisive style, towards himself as much towards the life and world around him.
He died at the age of 29, possibly from tuberculosis, a childless bachelor with no work, entrenched in his old Breton manor, misunderstood by his contemporaries, and his innovative poetry was not recognised until well after his death.