Théophile Gautier

Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier (August 31, 1811 - December 23,1872) is principally known as a French poet. However, he was also a dramatist, novelist, journalist and literary critic.

He was born in Tarbes in the Hautes-Pyrénées departement, in the southwestern region of France, and he went to Paris as a small child. He had an idea of becoming a painter, but his inclinations turned him in the direction of poetry, and these ambitions were furthered on meeting Victor Hugo. He also received help from Honoré de Balzac, who gave him work at the Chronique de Paris.

Gautier, along with the poets Arthur Rimbaud and Charles Baudelaire and a doctor, Jacques-Joseph Moreau, founded a club dedicated to experimenting with drugs, principally hashish, called the Club des Hashischins. In an article published in Revue des Deux Mondes in 1846, Gautier detailed their experiments.

He visited Spain in 1840 in the wake of the civil war then being waged. He made a living from journalism although he found the work 'humiliating', seeking and finding escape in travel and poetry. He is remembered for the quote: "Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality."

Theophile Gautier died on December 23, 1872 and was interred in the Cimetière de Montmartre, Paris, France.