Émile Nelligan is a Quebec poet. His writing was influenced by a number of poets, including Baudelaire, Rimbaud and Verlaine. His work is part of the Parnassian, Romantic and Symbolist movements. His themes include childhood, madness, music, love, death and religion.
Suffering from early and chronic neuroses, Émile Nelligan was committed to a psychiatric asylum, where he remained until his death in 1941.
Although he never completed his first collection of poetry, he is considered Quebec's first great poet. In all, he wrote 170 poems, sonnets, rondeaux, songs and prose poems, mostly between the ages of 16 and 19.
Today, several schools, libraries, a provincial electoral district on the Island of Montreal and a hotel in Old Montreal bear his name. Many of his poems have been set to song or reprinted in part. He has also been the subject of several symposia, films, novels, poems, a ballet and an opera.
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1879: Émile Nelligan is born on December 24 in Montreal.
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1896: Émile Nelligan publishes his first poem, Rêve fantasque, in the Montreal newspaper Le samedi under the pseudonym Émile Kovar.
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1897: Émile Nelligan abandons his studies.
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1897: Invited by his friend Arthur de Buissières, he becomes a member of the Montreal Literary School, and is sponsored by Joseph Mélançon and the priest Louis Dantin. However, he resigns a month later.
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1898: Émile Nelligan's father, who did not appreciate his lifestyle, sent him on a trip to England to learn a trade in the merchant navy. However, Nelligan returns to Montreal in a hurry.
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1898: In December, at his mother's insistence, Émile Nelligan is readmitted to the Montreal Literary School.
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1899: Émile Nelligan gives a public reading of three of his poems, including La romance du vin. This will be his last public appearance.
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1899: At his parents' request, Émile Nelligan is committed to the Retraite Saint-Benoît in Montreal.
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1904: Louis Dantin publishes a collection of Émile Nelligan's poems with Beauchemin.
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1925: Émile Nelligan is transferred to the Saint-Jean-de-Dieu asylum (now Montreal Mental Health University Institute).
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1941: Émile Nelligan dies on November 18 at the Saint-Jean-de-Dieu Asylum in Montreal.
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1952: Luc Lacoursière publishes Poésie complètes: 1896-1899 with Fides.
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1960: Some of Émile Nelligan's poems are translated into English.
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1966: Poèmes choisis published by Fides.
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1982: Éditions des Forges publishes 31 autograph poems: 2 hospital diaries.
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1983: All of Émile Nelligan's poems are translated into English.
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1989: Éditions de la Différence makes possible the publication of Des jours anciens.
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1991: Claude Beausoleil publishes Le Récital des anges: 50 poems by Émile Nelligan with Éditions des Forges and Paul Wyczynski, Poèmes autographes with Fides.
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1997: Poèmes choisis: le récital de l'ange is published by Éditions du Noroît.