author
Aloysius Bertrand
1807–1841
A restless Romantic voice with a gift for dark, dreamlike scenes, he is best known for shaping the prose poem into something haunting and new. His singular masterpiece, Gaspard de la nuit, would go on to influence Symbolist and Surrealist writers.
1 Audiobook
Gaspard de la nuit: Fantaisies à la manière de Rembrandt et de Callot
by Aloysius Bertrand
About the author
Born Louis Jacques Napoléon Bertrand in Ceva, Piedmont, on April 20, 1807, he became known by the pen name Aloysius Bertrand. He grew up largely in Dijon and later worked as a poet, playwright, and journalist, building a reputation as an original figure within French Romanticism.
He is most remembered for Gaspard de la nuit, a collection published after his death in 1842. The book is widely credited with introducing the prose poem into French literature, and its richly visual, medieval, and fantastical atmosphere made it an important influence on later Symbolist and Surrealist writers.
Bertrand died in Paris on April 29, 1841, at just 34. Although he published little in his lifetime, his reputation steadily grew, and he is now seen as a pioneering writer whose brief career left a lasting mark on French poetry.