Paul Verlaine Much of the French poetry produced during the "fin de siècle" was characterized as "decadent" for its lurid content or moral vision. In a similar vein, Verlaine used the expression "poète maudit" ("cursed poet") in 1884 to refer to a number of poets like Stéphane Mallarmé, Arthur Rimbaud, Aloysius Bertrand, Comte de Lautréamont or Alice de Chambrier, who had fought against poetic conventions and suffered social rebuke or were ignored by the critics. But with the publication of Jean Moréas' "Symbolist Manifesto" in 1886, it was the term symbolism which was most often applied to the new literary environment. Along
William of Blois (poet) William of Blois (poet) William of Blois was a French medieval poet and dramatist. He wrote at least one poetical work, which has not survived, and some dramas. Besides being an author, William was also an ecclesiastic, being considered for a Sicilian bishopric and serving as abbot of a monastery in Italy. William was from the Loire Valley, the brother of fellow poet Peter of Blois. While named after Blois, there is no documentary evidence that either brother was born there. The family's origins may have been in Brittany. The family, which also included sisters, had some nobility if not