Jules Laforgue (1860-1887) was born in Montevideo of Breton parents but his early years were spent at Tarbes in the Hautes Pyrénées. He came to Paris as an adolescent and later spent five years in Germany (1881-1886), where he met and married a young English woman. He died of tuberculosis after seven months of marriage. Laforgue is a poet of anguish concerned with the ultimate meaning of life. He sees personal daily routine in relation to eternal verities and expresses poignantly the struggle which he feels within himself.

• "Jules Laforgue." Representative French Poetry. Ed. Victor E. Graham. 2nd edn. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965. 109-11.
• Laforgue, Jules. Poèmes. 2 vols. Paris: Mercure de France, ca. 1920. Internet Archive.