Laforgue, Jules

Lyrical and scathingly pessimistic, Uruguay-born French poet Jules Laforgue offered an urgent tone of despair and fatalism, often rendered with playfully provocative and cynical humor. In 1918 Ezra Pound said of him, "He is an exquisite poet, a deliverer of nations...a father of light." Among the most innovative of poets in the French language and a pioneer in the use of free verse, Laforgue was an important influence on the young T. S. Eliot. Notable also for his early protests for the liberation of women, Laforgue died in Paris in 1887 aged just 27.