17 Most Famous French Poets Of All Time

Want to learn more about French poets who shaped the poetry world? This article will give you a list of the most famous French poets plus their impressive works.

The French are an intellectual lot and this is evident from the multitude of great poets the country has produced.

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Some of the poems of these famous French poets and poetesses gained worldwide fame and have been adapted into plays, films, or songs.

If you’re wondering who they are, this list of the 17 most famous French poets of all time guide will help you learn about them, their famous pieces, and how they influenced the literary world.

17 Most Famous French Poets

Poems are often used as expressions of emotions or to narrate stories and these great French poets listed below did just that with their poems.

They spanned different eras and were passionate about the themes they chose to write about which made them widely celebrated.

These poets of France were spread across multiple periods like the Renaissance, Romanticism, Symbolism, and Surrealism, with each contributing significantly to the cause.

Whether it’s poems about love, social and political views, fictional, or even poems based on their lives, here are the best French poets whose poems you should read.

1. Victor Hugo (1802 – 1885)

You may know him as one of the famous French writers because of his popular novels, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831) and Les Misérables (1862), but Hugo also had a knack for poems.

In 1822, Victor Marie Hugo published his first collection of poetry called Odes et poésies diverses when he was only 20 years old.

However, everyone realized his potential in poetry when he released his Odes et Ballades (1826) collection.

Subsequently, each new release further cemented his stature as one of the greatest French poets. Throughout his six-decade-long career, Victor was at the forefront of the Romanticism period.

Some of Hugo’s famous Poems and highly praised works are Les Châtiments (1853), Les Contemplations (1856), and La Légende des siècles (1859) poem collections but his poem Demain dès l’aube (Tomorrow, at dawn; 1856) stands out from Les Contemplations.

And to honor his great achievements, a statue was built by Jean Boucher at the Candie Gardens, Guernsey, and his house in Paris was converted into a museum, Maison de Victor Hugo which is today one of the must-visit museums in Paris.

2. Charles Baudelaire (1821 – 1867)

The works of Charles Baudelaire, one of the most prolific poets of France shifted the literary world from ideologies of Romanticism to Symbolism and Surrealism.

He even explored controversial topics which is why many considered him and his viewpoints far ahead of their time.

His most famous and influential work was his 1857 poetry collection Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil) which described how beauty transformed during Paris’ transition to industrialization during the mid-19^th century.

He is known to have popularized the term “modernity” which expresses life’s fleeting moments in a modern metropolis.

His work influenced a whole generation of poets during and after his time including Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud.

3. Jacques Prévert (1900 – 1977)

Jacques Prévert might have hated writing in his early years but he went on to become one of the best French poets of the Surrealism period.

Though he wrote a number of poems, it is his collection of poems called Paroles (1946) that catapulted his career and broke records back then. It sold more than 500,000 copies.

His poem Les Feuilles Mortes (1945) also became an internationally acclaimed song with renditions performed by Edith Piaf (in French) and Nat King Cole (in English).

He was also known for Spectacle (1951), Histoires (Stories; 1963), and Choses et Autres (Things and Others; 1973).

Also, a number of his work has been translated into various languages around the world, but mostly into English.

To show you how influential Prévert was, his work is still widely taught in French schools and in French language textbooks published worldwide.

4. Paul Verlaine (1844 – 1896)

Paul Marie Verlaine, like Victor Hugo, began writing poetry at an early age and like Charles Baudelaire, was a Symbolist poet of the 19^th century.

His first published poem was La Revue du progrès in 1863 but it was his first published collection of Poèmes saturniens (1866) that made him be looked at as a French poet who would become something in the literary world.

However, his life was nothing short of scandals. He grew tired of his wife and decided to get involved with his fellow French poet, Arthur Rimbaud.

Their affair took them on various travels but one jealous and drunken moment made Verlaine shoot Rimbaud. Thankfully, Rimbaud was hurt just slightly and Verlaine didn’t get away with the crime. He got arrested.

He wrote Romances sans Paroles (Songs without Words; 1874) when he was in prison which described his travels with Arthur Rimbaud plus the life he spent with his then estranged wife. His other notable works are Sagesse (1881) and Amour (1888).

As his final days approached, his addiction to drugs and alcohol increased and that is what killed him. Nevertheless, his work stayed alive even up to date.

5. Guillaume Apollinaire (1880 – 1918)

Another personality among the best French poets is Le Pont Mirabeau‘s (The Mirabeau Bridge) author Guillaume Apollinaire.

He is one of the foremost poets of the early 20^th century and is considered to be the forefather of Surrealism.

In fact, Guillaume coined the terms “Cubism,” “Orphism,” and “Surrealism” to describe artistic movements in 1911, 1912, and 1917, respectively, and made them widely used.

His 1913 collection called Alcools (Alcohols) is what established Guillaume’s reputation as a fine poet.

He also published a poetry collection called Calligrammes: Poems of Peace and War 1913-1916, pioneering the word.

The typeface and spatial arrangement of the words in these poems had equal importance as their meaning, like in Il Pleut (The Rain; 1916).

6. Paul Éluard (1895 – 1952)

One of the founders of the Surrealist movement and a great French poet was Eugène Émile Paul Grindel, or Paul Éluard as he chose to be called.

His poems Capitale de la douleur (Capital of Sorrow; 1926), La Rose Publique (The Public Rose; 1934), and Les Yeux fertiles (The Fertile Eyes; 1936) were widely recognized and considered some of the best of that period.

His other prominent works are Liberté (Liberty), La terre est bleue comme une orange (The Earth is Blue like an Orange).

Later, Éluard spread messages of hope, peace, and liberty clandestinely during World War II through his poetry which gained him immense respect.

7. Jean de la Fontaine (1621 – 1695)

Modern French poets can take a leaf out of Jean de la Fontaine’s book, or should I say poetry?

As popular as Aesop’s fables were, Jean was also well-known for his fables that taught life lessons like right vs. wrong.

The Contes et Nouvelles en vers (Tales and Novels in Verse; 1664-), his life’s greatest work, was published in volumes.

The first 5 released when he was alive, while the last set was posthumous. He was an excellent poet and storyteller who overshadowed all the other poets in the 17^th century and became the most widely-read poet of the time.

8. François Villon (1431 – 1463)

Born François de Montcorbier, François Villon took on the last name of Guillaume de Villon, chaplain of Saint-Benoît-le-Bétourné, who raised him after his father passed away.

Unlike other French poets, little is known about Villon except that he was rebellious and spent some time in prison and what is known about him seems to have come from his own writings, especially from Le Petit Testament and Le Grand Testament.

At one point after graduation from the university, he was banished from Paris after a scuffle broke between him and a priest and when knives were brought out, the latter sustained wounds which later killed him. After various petitions, King Charles VII pardoned him.

But that’s not all! He was also involved in the robbery of five hundred gold crowns from a certain chapel.

It is possibly due to this “anti” nature that he stood out among the poets of the time and features in this list of French poets and is widely considered the best-known French poet from the late middle ages.

His most famous works include L’Épitaphe Villon, Le Petit Testament and Le Grand Testament, or as he called them Le Lais, and Le Testament, respectively.

9. Paul Valéry (1871 – 1945)

On top of being one of the famous French poets, Paul Valéry was an essayist and philosopher who also had a special interest in aphorisms.

Before he became one of the most famous French poems of the 20th century, Valéry was just an unknown person (at least in the French poetry world) working as a private secretary.

After the death of his employer, he became more invested in writing and was even elected to the Académie française and traveled all across Europe spreading the gospel of French culture and literature.

Fast forward to 1892, during a heavy storm, something changed him, and a few years later, in 1898, he completely gave up writing for 2 decades in what was termed the “great silence”

He produced his notable works only after his comeback which began with the release of La Jeune Parque (The Young Fate) in 1917.

It was considered one of the greatest French poems of the 20th century establishing him as a household name. Another beautiful work of his is Charmes, which was published in 1922.

He also went back and reworked some poems he had published earlier further cementing his stance in the French poetry sphere.

What you may not know about Paul Valéry is that he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature 12 times.

10. Arthur Rimbaud (1854 – 1891)

Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud commonly known as Arthur Rimbaud, whose inspiration came from Charles Baudelaire is considered one of the founders of the French Symbolist movement.

He was also Paul Verlaine’s travel partner with whom he is believed to have shared a romantic relationship.

Unlike other poets of France who became famous writers as adults or even after their death, Rimbaud’s work reached its height when he was just a teenager but he stopped writing literature when he was 20 years old and his last work was an incomplete set of prose poems called Illuminations (1886).

Among his other famous works are Le Dormeur du Val (The Sleeper of the Valley; 1870) and Une Saison en Enfer (A Season in Hell; 1873).

After retiring from formal writing, he traveled across the world as an explorer until he died from cancer just after turning 37.

11. Anna de Noailles (1876 – 1933)

Princess Anna Elisabeth Bibesco-Bassaraba de Brancovan had a royal lineage like no other French poet.

She wrote some of the best French poetry and was considered one of the finest poetesses of her time.

She was also a novelist and wrote an autobiography. Some of the poems she is known for are romantic-themed ones like Le Cœur innombrable (The Numberless Heart; 1901), Les Éblouissements (Resplendence; 1907), and Poème de l’amour (Poem of Love; 1924).

Besides being a famous French writer, she was also the muse of several artists who painted her portraits ( including self-taught painter Jacques Émile Blanche ) and made sculptures of her, like Auguste Rodin’s clay model displayed in the Musée Rodin in Paris.

Anna was the first woman to become a Commander of the Legion of Honor and was honored with the Grand Prix of the Académie Française in 1921 making her one of the most famous French women of all time. She was also a socialist feminist.

12. Antoinette Deshoulières (1638 – 1694)

Antoinette Deshoulières was an intelligent poetess who grew up acquiring quite a bit of knowledge.

Her father was a maître d’hôtel to the queens Marie de Medici and Anne of Austria, so Antoinette grew up in royal courts furthering her learning.

She wrote all forms of poetry from odes and chansons to ballads and elegies. Her immense talent even led to Voltaire calling her the “best of women French poets”.

Antoinette was the personification of beauty with brains, hence her literary prowess with good looks attracted many admirers.

She is mostly known for La mort de Cochon (1688) and Oeuvres de Madame Des Houllières (published by her daughter) after her demise.

13. Edmond Rostand (1868 – 1918)

Edmond Eugène Alexis Rostand was not only a poet but also a dramatist who is best known for his play Cyrano de Bergerac (1897).

Edmond was born into a wealthy family and had access to good education where he studied literature, philosophy, and history.

Due to his talented nature, he wrote poems and acted in plays simultaneously and was even given an opportunity to write a three-act play for the state theatre which was titled Les Romanesques (1894).

The most well-known work of Edmond, a neo-romanticist, was his first volume of poems Les Musardises, published in 1890.

H republished many poems but his last work Le Vol de la Marseillaise was published in 1922 even though he had passed away earlier in 1918 due to the Spanish flu.

14. Stéphane Mallarmé (1842 – 1898)

Étienne Mallarmé took on the pen name Stéphane Mallarmé and was a foremost French symbolist poet of the 19^th century.

While he was inspired by Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane’s works influenced writers of his era and that of the early 20th century, and his poems were converted into songs and musical pieces.

For several years, he held salons on Tuesdays for intellectuals which were attended by the likes of W.B. Yeats, Paul Valéry, and Paul Verlaine, among others, where they discussed poetry and philosophy.

Though he had not yet become a famous poet, these meetings made him a respected figure in the literary world. During this time, he was also a teacher, a job he held to support himself as he developed his career in poetry.

He is known for poems such as L’après-midi d’un faune (1876), Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard (A roll of the dice will never abolish chance; 1897).

15. Alfred de Musset (1810 – 1857)

Listing the greatest French poets without mentioning Alfred Louis Charles de Musset-Pathay wouldn’t be fair.

Alfred was well-known for writing his autobiographical novel La Confession d’un enfant du siècle (The Confession of a Child of the Century; 1836), where he recounts his love affair with fellow writer George Sand told from his point of view. The novel was made into movies in 1999 and 2012.

Similarly, his poem Mimi Pinson (1845) was made into two films in 1924 and 1958.

His first widely known collection of poems was Contes d’Espagne et d’Italie (Tales of Spain and Italy; 1829).

But way before he became one of the first writers of the Romanticism era, thanks in part to his charming looks, he had tried studying medicine, law, drawing, and law but eventually gave up to follow writing where he became a household name.

To honor his great achievements, he was bestowed the Légion d’honneur in 1845.

16. Louise Labé (1524 – 1566)

The last woman on this list of French poets is Louise Labé, a feminist poet of the Renaissance Period.

She belonged to an upper-middle class family and was the daughter of a well-known ropemaker, Pierre Charly.

She was known as La Belle Cordière (The Beautiful Ropemaker) because of her lineage. She was popular for her work called Euvres de Louïze Labé Lionnoize (1556).

17. Jean Cocteau (1889 – 1963)

The last French poet on the list is Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau who donned many hats — a poet, novelist, playwright, filmmaker, visual artist, and critic.

He was at the forefront of surrealist and avant-garde movements. He wrote several poems like La Lampe d’Aladin (1909), Allégories (1941), and La Crucifixion (1946). Apart from this, his most notable work is the novel Les Enfants Terribles (1929).

Cocteau earned the honor of being a commander of the Legion of Honor and was made a member of the Académie Française.

He also held the position of Honorary President of the Cannes Film Festival.

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Final Thoughts on the Best Poets from France

These poets had a way with words no wonder they are widely recognized as some of the best poets from France.

The next time you want to increase your knowledge of French culture or brush up on your French, just pick up one of these and practice translating them into your language.

Otherwise, I hope you liked the list of famous French poets and if I missed out on your favorite poet/poetess, let me know in the comments below.

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