Guillaume Apollinaire

French poet (1880–1918)

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Lived 1880–1918, aged 38France

France WritersWriter / Author

Wikipedia
79 languages
Cross-language footprint
Era
1880–1918
Aged 38
Known for
Exploits of a Young Do…
1986

Summary

Updated 2026-08-25

He coined "Cubism" and "Surrealism" before either movement had finished forming, wrote poems stripped of all punctuation, and died of flu two years after a war wound — at 38, having named the future of art twice.

Biography

About

Born Kostrowicki in 1880, of Polish, Swiss, and Italian descent, Apollinaire grew up under the influence of Symbolist poetry but broke free early, refusing any single school. In 1911 he named Cubism; in 1912, Orphism; in 1917, Surrealism — a term he applied to Erik Satie's work and then to his own play The Breasts of Tiresias, one of the first Surrealist literary pieces and later the basis for Poulenc's 1947 opera. He wrote without punctuation, chased imagination over theory, and co-founded the magazine Les Soirées de Paris in 1912 while working as a journalist and art critic across Paris. Wou…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Guillaume Apollinaire

Guillaume Apollinaire

saidundated

The poems I am writing at the moment will be much closer to your present way of thinking. I am trying to renew poetic style,but within a classical framework.

Guillaume Apollinaire

saidundated