Poetry Movements & Poetry History at World of Poets

The Parnassians were a group of 19th-century French poets, so called from their journal, the Parnasse contemporain, itself named after Mount Parnassus, home of the Muses in Greek mythology. Issued from 1866 to 1876, it included poems by Charles Leconte de Lisle, Theodore de Banville, Sully-Prudhomme, Paul Verlaine, FranÃ§ois Coppee and Jose MarÃa de Heredia.

The Parnassians were influenced by Theophile Gautier and his doctrine of art for art's sake. In reaction to the looser forms of romantic poetry, they strove for exact and faultless workmanship, selecting exotic and classical subjects which they treated with rigidity of form and emotional detachment. Elements of this detachment were derived from the philosophical work of Arthur Schopenhauer.

Parnassianism did not restrict itself to France, though. Perhaps the most idiosyncratic of Parnassians, Olavo Bilac was an author from Brazil who managed to carefully craft verses and metre while still keeping a strong feel of emotion to them.

Gerard Manley Hopkins used the term Parnassian to describe competent but uninspired poetry, where a talented poet is merely operating on auto-pilot. He identified this trend particularly in the work of Alfred Tennyson, citing the poem Enoch Arden as an example.

French Parnassianism had a decisive influence on the Latin American literary current known as Modernismo, whose leading light was the notable Nicaraguan poet, Ruben Dario.

Poetry Movements Home

About Poetry Movements & Poetry History at World of Poets

Poetry movements is the history of poetry, and of the world. If you study the movements of every poetry school, and you can because we have listed all the poets involved in those movements, then you are basically approaching history through poetry. There are many schools of poetry, from the Spasmodic Poets to World War 1 Poetry; from Dymock Poets to the New York School, they are all here for you to learn about poetry and history. The poets who shaped our world represent a large group of men and women, not just American Poets, British Poets, Black Poets, but poets of the New Formalism, the Cavalier Poets, and the poets of the Nuyorican Movement. You will be surprised which famous poets were allied with which other great poets. If you have never studied the rich heritage of the schools of poetry and their movements, you will love this section of our poetry site!