Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898) spent his life as a teacher of English in France. He contributed to various reviews but became known as a poet only some fifteen years before his death. Mallarmé might be called a high priest of poetry. He constantly polished his poems, striving to improve their harmonic effects and to refine the subtlety of the inner world he sought to portray. For this reason, some of his poetry seems obscure and difficult at first, but it repays careful study. Mallarmé is a poet's poet.

• "Stéphane Mallarmé. "Representative French Poetry. Ed. Victor E. Graham. 2nd edn. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965. 103-06.