Table of contents and colophon, from a book of poems by Paul Verlaine titled "Parallèlement"

Paul Verlaine (1844, 1896) was a French Symbolist poet whose innovations in prosody and sound fundamentally altered late 19th-century verse. Working primarily in poetry, he championed the musicality of language through irregular metre, assonance, and subtle rhyme schemes, departing sharply from the formal rigidity of his predecessors. His collections including Fêtes galantes and Romances sans paroles established a lyrical mode that prioritized atmosphere and emotion over narrative clarity. Verlaine's influence on modernist literature extends across multiple languages and generations.