Jean Lorrain

Alexandre Burin (University of Durham)

Ed. by Jennifer Yee, University of Oxford
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.05: French Writing and Culture: The Nineteenth-Century , 1800-1900.
Vol. editors: David Elwyn Evans (University of St Andrews), Edward Forman (University of Bristol), Elisabeth Gerwin (University of Lethbridge), Nigel Harkness (University of Newcastle upon Tyne), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield), Jennifer Yee (University of Oxford)

Dates

Born 9 Aug 1855
Died 30 Jun 1906
Activity c. 1880-1906

Places

Born in France
Active in France

Activities

Primary

Poet

Other

Novelist
Playwright / Dramatist
Travel writer

Resources

Lorrain's Works

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Considered to be the highest paid journalist and certainly one of the most scandalous writers of

fin de siècle

Paris, Jean Lorrain spent over thirty years carefully documenting high and low cultural life through writings as diverse as chronicles and gossip columns, poems, novels, plays, songs, tales and short stories. His polymorphous oeuvre can be seen as the transition from Symbolism and Decadence to twentieth century literature. Self-proclaimed “le fanfaron du vice” [the braggart of vice] (Rachilde,

Portraits d’hommes

[

Portraits of men

], 77), Lorrain was a complex literary figure. Recurring topics in his work and life include masks and disguises, hybridity, homosexuality, Satanism, high and low society, and popular culture. Indeed Jean Lorrain’s oeuvre provides a repository in…

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3143 words

Citation: Burin, Alexandre. "Jean Lorrain". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 16 December 2016 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=13814, accessed 22 November 2024.]