Alphonse de Lamartine Born in Macon, 1790; died at Passy (Paris), 1869. Lamartine's Meditations Poetiques (1820) has been from its first appearance the most beloved, the archetypal, book of Romantic verse. The poet's diction and versification (as well as his deism) were patterned after eighteenth-century models (and continued to be so throughout his poetic career), but the vague melancholy and the ardent, heartfelt reminiscences of past love expressed in poems like "La Lac" (The Lake) were the revelation of a new aesthetic. Lamartine's readers wanted all his books to be repetitions of the Meditations and were openly disappointed as his manner and themes evolved toward more mature statements.

The poet was born at Macon in Burgundy. His youth was spent in amorous indolence, since his family, provincial nobles without a great fortune, did not want him to serve Napolean. When the Restoration came, he undertook a diplomatic career. The year 1820 saw the publication of the Meditations (inspired largely by his affair with "Elvire" at Aix-les-Bains in 1816), a fervent return to the Catholic principles of his childhood, his marriage to an Englishwoman and his departure for a post in Naples. Lamartine returned to France the next year.

The Nouvelles Meditations Poetiques of 1823, which contains the famous "Les Preludes", includes some politically inspired pieces as well as more poems on love and religion. "La Mort de Socrate", a long poem which depicts Socrates as a prophet of Christianity, appeared in the same year. The "Dernier Chant de Pelegrinage d'Harold" (Last Canto of Childe Harold's Pilgimage, 1825) was a homage to Byron's memory. From 1825 to 1828 Lamartine served in a diplomatic post in Florence. He was elected to the Academie Francaise in 1829. The following year he published the Harmonies Poetiques et Religeuses, probably his richest volume. After the accession of Louis-Philippe in the same year, Lamartine voluntarily ended his diplomatic career, turning to politics instead. His journey to the Near East in 1832-3 (recounted in his prose Souvenirs d'un Voyage en Orient, 1835) was marred by the death at Beirut of his only surviving child, an event which permanently shook his religious faith.

The last volumes of poetry Lamartine published were Jocelyn (1836), a modern "epic" of a priest's life in the Savoy Alps; La Chute d'un Ange (The Fall of an Angel, 1838), a lengthy allegorical narrative with a strong biblical tinge, about the upward struggle of the human spirit; and the Recueillements Poetiques (Poetic Self-Communions, 1839), a mixed collection the contains the poem "La Cloche du Village" (The Village Church-Bell).....

Lamartine had always spoken of himself as an amateur in poetry (he wrote quickly and rarely polished his work, much of which suffers somewhat in this respect) and by 1839 felt that a reputation as a poet might injure his growing reputation as a statesman (he had been a Deputy since 1833). For a few months during the Revolution of 1848 Lamartine, displayed great personal bravery and endurance, was the most influential member of the provisional government, but his socialistic and anticlerical tendencies soon spelled political doom. Out of favor in both the political and literary circles of the Second Empire and burdened with enormous debts, he supported himself during the last twenty years of his life with a steady stream of prose works: history, literary criticism and semi-autobiographical fiction. Some of the poems of his old age (postumously published) are among his best, particularly "La Vigne et la Maison" (The Vine and the House).