Poems Without Frontiers

Sully-Prudhomme was born in Paris and studied law after an eye problem precluded an engineering career. He published Stances et Poemes in 1865 to great acclaim. He wrote numerous works striving for classical simplicity with great elegance infused with his appreciation of philosophy and science. He remained unmarried and suffered near partial paralysis from a stroke in 1870.

He was elected to the French Acadamie in 1881 and, although concentrating less on poetry in later life, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1901.

He died in Paris in 1907