Chapter 29

THE MUMMY’S FOOT

THE MUMMY’S FOOT

BY THÉOPHILE GAUTIER

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Théophile Gautier, great colorist and globe-trotter, was born at Tarbes, in 1811, and died at Neuilly in 1872. He began life as a painter, then turned to poetry, and finally adopted prose for the expression of his ideas, writing some three hundred volumes in all of poetry, romances, parodies, critiques, histories, tales, etc.After being presented to Victor Hugo, he became an enthusiastic apostle of Romanticism. He lived in an atmosphere of Oriental splendor noticeable in “The Mummy’s Foot.” His style is unusually rich and sensuous, with a refined fancy finely chiseled. He has exerted a considerable influence on the present generation of writers.Though Gautier has expressed few original ideas and few opinions, and is discursive, he is, as his friend Baudelaire said of him, “an unimpeachable poet, a finished magician in French letters.”

Théophile Gautier, great colorist and globe-trotter, was born at Tarbes, in 1811, and died at Neuilly in 1872. He began life as a painter, then turned to poetry, and finally adopted prose for the expression of his ideas, writing some three hundred volumes in all of poetry, romances, parodies, critiques, histories, tales, etc.

After being presented to Victor Hugo, he became an enthusiastic apostle of Romanticism. He lived in an atmosphere of Oriental splendor noticeable in “The Mummy’s Foot.” His style is unusually rich and sensuous, with a refined fancy finely chiseled. He has exerted a considerable influence on the present generation of writers.

Though Gautier has expressed few original ideas and few opinions, and is discursive, he is, as his friend Baudelaire said of him, “an unimpeachable poet, a finished magician in French letters.”

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