ABSTRACT
With the arrival of the poet Verlaine into the world of Fauré’s mélodies, something new and special comes into focus: it must have been with something of the same sense of destiny that Schubert came across Goethe’s poetry in 1814. Fauré is truly Verlaines composer, although he was not the first to set the poet to music. Some fourteen months older than Fauré, Verlaine was the youngest poet apart from Grandmougin with whom Fauré had so far collaborated (when he eventually did so in 1887). Because their association came towards the end of the poet’s life and career it seems appropriate to begin this chapter with an outline of Verlaines extraordinarily turbulent biography.
