Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki, known as Guillaume Apollinaire (French pronunciation: [ɡijom apɔliˈnɛʁ]; Rome, August 26, 1880 – November 9, 1918, Paris) was a French poet, writer and art critic born in Italy to a Polish mother.
Among the foremost poets of the early 20th century, he is credited with coining the word "surrealism" and writing one of the earliest works described as surrealist, the play Les Mamelles de Tirésias (191...
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Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki, known as Guillaume Apollinaire (French pronunciation: [ɡijom apɔliˈnɛʁ]; Rome, August 26, 1880 – November 9, 1918, Paris) was a French poet, writer and art critic born in Italy to a Polish mother.
Among the foremost poets of the early 20th century, he is credited with coining the word "surrealism" and writing one of the earliest works described as surrealist, the play Les Mamelles de Tirésias (1917, used as the basis for a 1947 opera).
Two years after being wounded in World War I, he died at age 38, a victim of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.
Born Wilhelm Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky and raised speaking French, among other languages, he emigrated to France and adopted the name Guillaume Apollinaire. His mother, born Angelica Kostrowicka, was a Polish noblewoman born near Nowogródek (now in Belarus). Apollinaire's father is unknown but may have been Francesco Flugi d'Aspermont, a Swiss Italian aristocrat who disappeared early from...
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