Although he was known as “the Master” to his friends and admirers by the time of his death in 1896, French poet Paul Verlaine endured a rocky relationship with the public during his life. Verlaine's literary reputation declined in his final years—in part because of his scandalous behavior—even as he was identified as a major influence on the burgeoning symbolist movement. Verlaine was also one of the models for the Decadent movement that began in the 1870s. As much as for his literary reputation, however, Paul Verlaine’s fame rests on his stormy personal relationship with the poet Arthur Rimbaud.
