Louisa SIEFERT

Louisa Siefert was a French poet, novelist and playwright born in Lyon into a Protestant family of German origin. Afflicted from adolescence by a severe bone disease that shaped her short life, she developed a distinctive poetic voice combining personal lyricism, Protestant spirituality, stoicism and republican ideals. Her first collection, Rayons perdus (1868), achieved immediate success and earned the admiration of Charles Asselineau, Victor Hugo, Leconte de Lisle, Michelet and Théodore de Banville. She also contributed to literary journals and published several poetry collections, a verse drama and a novel. Arthur Rimbaud praised her poetry in his correspondence. Although largely forgotten after her early death at the age of thirty-two, her work has recently attracted renewed scholarly attention through the study of her manuscripts, correspondence and literary legacy.