View source for Stuart Merrill

{{short description|American poet}}

{{French literature sidebar}}
'''Stuart Fitzrandolph Merrill''' (August 1, 1863 in [[Hempstead (village), New York|Hempstead, New York]]<ref name="rq">{{cite web
|url = http://home.jps.net/~nada/merrill.htm
|title = Ramez Qureshi on Stuart Merrill's The White Tomb: Selected Writing
|accessdate = 2007-09-12
|last = Qureshi
|first = Ramez
}}</ref> &ndash; December 1, 1915 in [[Versailles (city)|Versailles]], [[France]]) was an American poet, who wrote mostly in the [[French language]].  He belonged to the [[Symbolism (movement)|Symbolist]] school. His principal books of poetry were ''Les Gammes'' (1887), ''Les Fastes'' (1891), and ''Petits Poèmes d'Automne'' (1895).
[[File:Stuart Merrill - reading.jpg|left|220px]]

==Life==
[[File:Stuart Merrill - portrait (young).jpg|thumb|220px|Portrait of the young Stuart Merrill.]]
[[File:Stuart Merrill - old.jpg|thumb|220px|Stuart Merrill in old age.]]
Merrill was the product of a conservative, wealthy, Protestant upbringing. In 1866, his father George received a diplomatic appointment to [[Paris]], where Merrill would learn French and live for the next 19 years. [[Stéphane Mallarmé]] was one of Merrill's school instructors. His classmates included future symbolists [[René Ghil]] and [[Pierre Quillard]]. Merrill ran a weekly journal, ''Le fou'', before returning to the States in 1884 to attend law school.<ref name="rq"/>  On April 15, 1887, he went to Madison Square Theater in New York to hear [[Walt Whitman]] give his famous "[[Walt Whitman's lectures on Abraham Lincoln|Death of Abraham Lincoln]]" lecture. Afterwards, he had the opportunity to meet Whitman, an experience he later recorded in the magazine "Le Masque."<ref>Stuart Merrill, ''Walt Whitman'' (Toronto: Henry S. Saunders, 1922)</ref>

Also in 1887, Merrill published his first book of poems, ''Les gammes'', in Paris, receiving wide critical acclaim in Europe. As his literary career took off he participated in radical political causes, siding with the [[Anarchism|anarchists]] in the famous [[Haymarket riots]].  When [[George Bernard Shaw]] attempted to circulate a petition in London calling for the release of [[Oscar Wilde]], imprisoned for [[homosexuality]], Merrill made a similar attempt to get notable artists and intellectuals in the United States to voice support for Wilde. Merrill's father disinherited him for his politics, but his mother continued to support him financially throughout his life.<ref name="rq"/>

In 1890, Merrill published ''Pastels in Prose'', a collection of his translations of French prose poems. This was his only book to be published in America during his lifetime. The same year, he returned to Europe permanently. He married in 1891. For the years 1893–1908, his address was [[:fr:Quai de Bourbon|53 Quai de Bourbon]], [[Île Saint-Louis]], Paris. Several more books, including ''Les fastes'' in 1891 and ''Petits poèmes d’automne'' in 1895,<ref name="rq"/> were published before his death of heart disease in 1915. In 1927 a small traffic way in the [[17th arrondissement of Paris]] took the name [[:fr:Place Stuart-Merrill|Place Stuart-Merrill]].

==Works==
* ''Les gammes'' (''The Ranges''), Vanier, Paris, 1887
* ''Pastels en Prose'', Harper & Brothers, New York, 1890
* ''Les Fastes'' (''The Record''), 1891
* ''Petits Poèmes d'Automne'' (''Little Autumnal Poems''), 1895
* ''Les quatre saisons'' (''The Four Seasons''), Mercure de France, Paris, 1900
* ''Walt Whitman'', Henry S. Saunders, 1922
* ''Prose et vers : œuvres posthumes'' (''Prose and Verse: Posthumous Works''), A. Messein, Paris, 1925
* ''The White Tomb: Selected Writing'', Talisman House, 1999

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
{{Wikiquote}}
{{Wikisourcelang|fr}}
* {{Gutenberg author | id=32109}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Stuart Fitzrandolph Merrill}}
* {{Librivox author |id=12347}}
* [http://www.blackcatpoems.com/m/stuart_merrill.html Poems by Stuart Merrill]
* [http://poesie.webnet.fr/auteurs/merrill.html Selected poems (in French)]
* {{LCAuth|nr99008060|Stuart Merrill|2|}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Merrill, Stuart}}
[[Category:1863 births]]
[[Category:1915 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Hempstead (village), New York]]
[[Category:French-language poets]]
[[Category:American male poets]]
[[Category:French-language American poets]]
[[Category:French-language American writers]]
[[Category:Symbolist poets]]
[[Category:French–English translators]]
[[Category:19th-century American translators]]
[[Category:19th-century American male writers]]
[[Category:American expatriates in France]]