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Jean Moréas (born Ioannis A. Papadiamantopoulos, Ιωάννης Α. Παπαδιαμαντόπουλος; April 15, 1856 - April 30, 1910), was a Greek^[1][2][3] poet, essayist, and art critic, who wrote mostly in French but also in Greek, in his youth^[4].

Moréas was born into a distinguished Athenian family. His ancestry included two well-known figures of the Greek War of Independence, namely his paternal grandfather and namesake Ioannis Papadiamantopoulos (1766-1826), born in Corinth but of ultimately Epirote descent,^[5] (he was executed after the fall of Messolonghi)^[6] and his maternal granduncle Iakovos Tombazis (c. 1782-1829),^[7] a renowned Arvanite from Hydra, who became the first admiral of the Greek navy.^[8] Moreas' father was Adamantios Papadiamantopoulos, a judge, scholar and poet.^{[9][10][11][12]} He received a French education, and came to Paris in 1875 to study law at the University of Paris. While in France, he began to move in literary circles, and became acquainted with Les Hydropathes, a group of French writers that included Alphonse Allais, Charles Cros, Guy de Maupassant, and Léon Bloy. He was also an acquaintance of the Greek artist Demetrios Galanis and the Romanian poet Ion Minulescu. He published poetry in Lutèce and Le Chat noir, and collected his poems into two editions, Les Syrtes ("The Sandbanks") and Cantilènes, which were strongly influenced by Paul Verlaine.

He was initially an adherent of the school of Symbolism, and wrote the Symbolist Manifesto (1886), which he published in Le Figaro, in part as a means of distancing the aesthetic of the rising generation of young writers from the "decadent" label that the press had placed on them. He was considered one of the most important Symbolist poets until the early 1890s.

In 1891, as Symbolism became more openly associated with anarchism, he published Le Pèlerin passioné which rejected Northern European and Germanic influences, such as Romanticism (as well as some aspects of Symbolism), in favor of Roman and Ancient Greek influences. This work laid the foundation for the École Romane, whose aesthetic provided Charles Maurras with the ideological framework for the far-right Action Française.

Moréas also wrote Les Demoiselles Goubert, a novel, in connection with Paul Adam. His most important publications were:

• Les Syrtes (1884)
• Les Cantilènes (1886)
• Le Pèlerin passioné (1891)
• Stances (1893)
• Contes de la vielle France (1904)

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• (French) Moréas' poems

[edit] Further reading

• A. Embiricos, Les étapes de Jean Moréas, Lausanne, 1948
• R. Georgin, Jean Moréas, Paris, 1930
• Jean de Gourmont, Jean Moréas, Paris, 1905
• Robert A. Jouanny, Moréas, écrivain français, Paris, Lettres modernes, 1969
• Robert A. Jouanny, Moréas, écrivain Grec, Lettres Modernes Minard, Athènes, 1975
• R. Niklaus, Jean Moréas, a Critique of His Poetry and Philosophy, La Haye, 1967
• J. Weber, Jean Moréas u. die französische Tradition, Nuremberg, 1934

French Wikisource has original text related to this article: Jean Moréas

Greek Wikisource has original text related to this article: Ζαν Μορεάς