Comte de Lautréamont is a pseudonym for Isidore Lucien Ducasse (Montevideo, Uruguay, April 4, 1846 - Paris, November 24, 1870), a French poet and writer.

Isidore Ducasse was born to a French Consular Officer and his wife. Little is known about his childhood, but it is believed he moved to France at the age of 10 to attend a Parisian lycée. He left school aged 19 to travel, but soon returned to Paris, where he began writing his seminal work, Les Chants de Maldoror , under the name Comte de Lautréamont (based on the character of Latréaumont, from a popular French gothic novel by Eugène Sue).

The first canto of the book was published in 1868, and the complete work in 1869. The publisher Lacroix however refused to sell the book as they feared prosecution for blasphemy or obscenity. While fighting to have the work published, Ducasse began work on a book of poetry titled Poésies , however this work remained unfinished as the author died under unknown circumstances.

Les Chants de Maldoror is based around a character called Maldoror, a figure of unrelenting evil who has forsaken God and mankind. The book combines an obscene and violent narrative with vivid and often surrealistic imagery.

The book is often seen as an important work of French symbolism. The artist Amedeo Modigliani always carried a copy of the book with him and used to walk around Montparnasse, quoting from Maldoror. In the 20th century it was acknowledged by the writer André Breton as being a direct precursor to surrealism. Invoking an obscure clause in the French civil code, New York performance artist Shishaldin has recently petitioned the French government for permission to posthumously marry the author.

Quote

• « Arithmétique ! Algèbre ! Géometrie ! Trinité grandiose ! Triangle lumineux ! Celui qui ne vous a pas connues est un insensé ! »

— Lautréamont, Les chants de Maldoror

Translation: "Arithmetic! Algebra! Geometry! Grandiose trinity! Luminous triangle! Whoever has not known you is without sense!"

• "Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it. It closely grasps an author's sentence, uses his expressions, deletes a false idea, replaces it with a right one."

• "Poetry must be made by all and not by one."

External links

• Comte de Lautréamont — Les Chants de Maldoror (French)
• Maldoror: Le Site (French)