Apollinaire, Guillaume, pseudonym of Wilhelm Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky 1880-1918
French poet

Born in Rome of Polish descent, he settled in Paris in 1900, and became a leader of the movement rejecting poetic traditions in outlook, rhythm and language. The bizarre, Symbolist and fantastic elements of his work have affinities with the Cubist school in painting. His poetry includes L'Enchanteur pourrissant (1909, 'The Decaying Magician'), Le Bestiaire (1911, Eng trans 1977), Alcools (1913, Eng trans 1964) and Calligrammes (1918). He was wounded in World War I, and during his convalescence wrote the play Les Mamelles de Tir�sias (1918, 'The Breasts of Tiresias'), for which he coined the term 'surrealist', and the Modernist manifesto L'Esprit nouveau et les po�tes (1946, 'The New Spirit and the Poets').

Bibliography: S Bates, Guillaume Apollinaire (1967); P M Adema, Guillaume Apollinaire: le mal-aim� (1952)