Stéphane Mallarmé

Mallarmé, Stéphane (1842–98), French poet, forefather of the symbolists. He held that poetry should suggest or evoke the transcendental, not describe in literal terms. Although the language of his poems is obscure and nontraditional, he had considerable influence on French poetry. His works include Herodias (1869), The Afternoon of a Faun (1876), which inspired Debussy, and A Throw of the Dice Will Never Eliminate Chance (1897).