About Théophile Gautier
Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier (US: goh-TYAY; French: [pjɛʁ ʒyl teɔfil ɡotje]; 30 August 1811 – 23 October 1872) was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, and art and literary critic. While an ardent defender of Romanticism, Gautier's work is difficult to classify and remains a point of reference for many subsequent literary traditions such as Parnassianism, Symbolism, Decadence and Modernism. He was widely esteemed by writers as disparate as Balzac, Baudelaire, the Goncourt brothers, Flaubert, Pound, Eliot, James, Proust and Wilde. Gautier was the first critic to recognize the work of Paul Verlaine, coining the term poète maudit (outcast poet) to characterize his outsider poetics. While at school, Gautier befriended Gérard de Nerval and the two became lifelong friends. Hugo became a major influence on Gautier.
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