1839.
René-François-Armand Prudhomme, known as Sully Prudhomme, combines the
artistic punctiliousness of a _Parnassien_ with sincere emotion and
a deeply philosophic mind. The intellectual quality of his work is
conspicuous, but hardly less so the grace and finish of its form. It
bears deep traces of the influence of the scientific movement of our
time and of the transformation it has wrought in our ideas of man and
nature and their relations. The personal emotion from which his lyrics
spring appears always intellectually illumined, with its background of
scientific corollaries and logical consequences. It is not abandoned
to itself, to wreak itself on expression, but is checked by the
challenge of doubt or scientific curiosity or moral scruple. His
verse thus unites in rare degree the qualities of lyrical impulse and
philosophical reflection.
Works: _Stances et Poèmes_, 1865; _les Épreuves_, 1866; _les
Solitudes_, 1869; _les Destins_, 1872; _les Vaines Tendresses_, 1875;
_la Justice_, 1878; _le Prisme_, 1886; _le Bonheur_, 1888; these have
appeared in a new edition as _Oeuvres_, 5 vols., 1883-1888.
For reference: J. Lemaître, _les Contemporains_, vol. i, 1886; E.
Caro, _Poètes et romanciers_, 1888; G. Paris, _Penseurs et poètes_,
1896; F. Brunetière, _Évolution de la poésie lyrique_, vol. ii, 1894.
The first eleven poems are from _Stances et Poèmes_. LES DANAÏDES, UN
SONGE and LE RENDEZ VOUS are from _les Épreuves_; LA VOIE LACTÉE
is from _les Solitudes_; REPENTIR, from _Impressions de la Guerre_
(1872;) CE QUI DURE, LES INFIDÈLES, LES AMOURS TERRESTRES and
L'ALPHABET, from _les Vaines Tendresses_; and the last two sonnets,
from _la Justice_.
255. LE LEVER DU SOLEIL. 5. _Hellade_, Hellas, country inhabited
by the Hellenes, or Greeks, a name at first given to a district of
Thessaly, later to all Greece.
257. LES DANAÏDES. The Danaïdes were the fifty daughters of Danaus,
twin-brother of Aegyptus, whose fifty sons they married and then
murdered. As a punishment they were condemned to pour water forever
into a sieve. 2. _Théano_, _Callidie_, _Amymone_, _Agavé_ are names of
four of the daughters.