Théodore de Banville

Banville, Théodore de (1823–91), French poet and playwright associated with the Parnassian movement. His vast poetic œuvre depicts nymphs, satyrs, and fairies walking side by side with members of the literary, artistic, and social circles of 19th‐century France. In the 50 Contes féeriques (Fairy‐like Tales, 1882), he critiques the bourgeois values of contemporary society, but at the same time creates fantasy situations in which good fairies reward struggling young artists and poets. Banville also adapted Perrault's ‘Riquet à la houpe’ (‘Riquet with the Tuft’, 1884) to the stage.

— Amy Ransom

Banville, Théodore de (1823-91). French poet and man of letters. He was at the centre of art for art's sake [see Art Pour L'Art] and Parnassian developments in poetry and was highly esteemed both by contemporaries and later generations of poets, including Mallarmé and Rimbaud.

He was precociously gifted and soon discovered his distinctive poetic domain. His first collection, Les Cariatides (1842), already displayed his Hellenic inspiration, which was further evident in Les Stalactites (1846), although his rich deployment of Ronsardian effects was also demonstrated here. Banville's poetic career and ambitions were closely linked with those of Gautier and Baudelaire. He shared their distaste for the prevailing ugliness, philistinism, and materialism of bourgeois and commercial culture. Like them, he wanted poetry to achieve the purity and perfection attained by other art forms. His Petit traité de poésie française (1872) is perhaps the single most impressive exposition of the forms and techniques of French poetry. Mes souvenirs (1882) is a valuable memoir of 19th-c. literary life. There is much of Banville yet to be discovered and appreciated. His Odes funambulesques (1857), with their interest in the theatre, the circus, and the everyday, go well beyond his reputation for the coldly marmoreal.

[Brian Rigby]