23 Facts About Paul Fort

Jules-Jean-Paul Fort was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement.

At the age of 18, reacting against the Naturalistic theatre, Fort founded the Theatre d'Art.

Paul Fort founded and edited the literary reviews Livre d'Art with Alfred Jarry and Vers et Prose with poet Guillaume Apollinaire, which published the work of Paul Valery and other important Symbolist writers.

Paul Fort is notable for his enormous volume of poetry, having published more than thirty volumes of ballads and, according to Amy Lowell, for creating the polyphonic prose form in his 'Ballades francaises'.

Paul Fort was born in Reims, Marne departement, France in 1872.

Paul Fort sought out the company of avant-garde artists and befriended Andre Gide and Pierre Louys.

Paul Fort then devoted himself to poetry, publication, and advancing new writers.

Paul Fort died on 20 April 1960, in Montlhery, a suburb south of Paris where he had lived since 1921, and is buried in the Cimetiere de Montlhery.

At 17, Paul Fort frequented the Left Bank hangout of the Symbolist poets, the Cafe Voltaire, where the discussion included contemporary theatre.

The group aimed to break with the reigning Naturalistic scene, including the Theatre Libre created in 1887 by Andre Antoine, even though Paul Fort admired Antoine and hoped to create a new theatre that would bring together the best of all theater forms, including naturalistic drama.

Indeed, the theater Paul Fort founded, The Mixed Theater, which debuted on 23 June 1890, announced an eclectic program of varying styles in both new works and long forgotten plays.

Paul Fort engaged the leading Symbolist painters of the era to design and paint the sets and backdrops, particularly the "Prophets" of the Nabis group.

Paul Fort earned further acclaim in 1894 as Sara in the long-awaited stage presentation of Auguste de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam's 1890 Symbolist drama Axel.

Paul Fort eventually married writer Maurice Pottecher and joined him in his own regional theatre endeavor, the Theatre du Peuple, in Bussang, France.

Lugne-Poe performed in ten plays altogether for Paul Fort, interpreting, most notably, the Maeterlinck roles of the Old Man in L'Intruse and the First Blind Man in Les Aveugles, as well as Satan in Jules Bois' Les Noces de Sathan.

Paul Fort gave his first poems to the Mercure de France in 1896.

Paul Fort begins to publish into the Le Livre d'art magazine in 1892 where it was relaunched in 1896 with Maurice Dumont.

Paul Fort was a leading jury member of the Prix Jeunesse that was created in 1934.

Paul Fort's work was banned by the CNE at the end of war, but the interdiction was rescinded in a second list published in the Les Lettres francaises of 21 October 1944.

Paul Fort's nephew married the daughter of Alfred Vallette, director of Mercure de France, and Marguerite Eymery, who wrote under the nom de plume Rachilde.

Paul Fort was buried at Montlhery on his own property, called Argenlieu.

Paul Fort is mentioned by Ernest Hemingway as a customer of La Closerie des Lilas, in A Moveable Feast.

Paul Fort is mentioned in The Diary of Anais Nin, in the entry for October 1936 where Nin recounts the evening when they met at a party.