Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Lille, Hauts-de-France, France
About Albert Samain
- Albert Victor Samain (3 April 1858 – 18 August 1900) was a French poet and writer of the Symbolist school. Born in Lille, his family were Flemish and had long lived in the town or its suburbs.
- At the time of the poet's birth, his father, Jean-Baptiste Samain, and his mother, Elisa-Henriette Mouquet, conducted a business in "wines and spirits" at 75 rue de Paris.
- Samain's father died when he was quite young; it was necessary for him to leave school and seek a trade.
- He moved to Paris in around 1880, where his poetry won him a following and he began mixing with avant-garde literary society, and began publicly reciting his poems at Le Chat Noir.
- His poems were strongly influenced by those of Baudelaire, and began to strike a somewhat morbid and elegiac tone.
- He also was influenced by Verlaine; his works disclose a taste for indecisive, vague imagery.
- Samain helped found the Mercure de France, and also worked on the Revue des Deux Mondes. Samain published three volumes of verse: Le jardin de l'infante (1893), which made him famous; Aux flancs du vase (1898) and Le Chariot d'or (1901).
- His poetic drama Polyphème was set to music by Jean Cras.
- Samain died of tuberculosis. Camille Saint-Saëns set poems of Samain to music: "Six Mélodies sur des poésies d'Albert Samain" op.31 (1902-1906; orchestrated 1921)
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