247
found the secret of lines which, while they did not yet have the color, brilliancy, and variety that the Romanticists presently gave to verse, charmed the ear with a harmony and a music unattained before. His long poems, with more or less of philosophical intention, especially Jocelyn (1836), are important works, but it was as a lyric poet that he made his chief impression.
Works: _Méditations poétiques_, 1820; _Nouvelles Méditations_, 1823; _Harmonies poétiques et religieuses_, 1830; _Recueillements poétiques_, 1839; _Poésies inédites_, 1839; _Poésies inédites_, 1873; republished under the same names in various collected editions of his Oeuvres since 1860.
For reference: Faguet, _Études littéraires sur le dix-neuvième siècle_, 1887; Sainte-Beuve,_ Premiers lundis_, vol. i; _Portraits contemporains_, vol. i; F. Brunetière, _Évolution de la poésie lyrique_, vol. i; _Histoire et littérature_, vol. iii, 1892; F. Reyssié, la Jeunesse de Lamartine_, 1891; E. Deschanel, _Lamartine, 2 vols., 1893; J. Lemaître, les Contemporains, vol. vi, 1896; E. Zyromski, _Lamartine poète lyrique_, 1898.
58. LE LAC. Written September 17-23, 1817; from _les Méditations poétiques_. The lake here celebrated is Lake Bourget in Savoy. Here the poet met in 1816 Mme. Charles, wife of the well known physicist, with whom he fell very much in love and who is immortalized by him under the names Julie and Elvire. She died Dec. 18, 1817. Cf. Anatole France, l'Elvire de Lamartine, 1893. When this poem was written Lamartine already knew that she was hopelessly ill. This experience of his colors many poems of his first two volumes. Le Lac has often been set to music; most successfully by the Swiss composer Niedermeyer (1802-1861). For interesting variants in the text see Reyssié, _la Jeunesse de Lamartine_, p. 201.
<