The principle of the surreal
26 August 1880 9 November 1918 pseudonym Wilhelm Apollinaire de Kostrowitsky, Guillaume Apollinaire was born in Rome on 26 August 1880. The illegitimate son of an Italian officer and a Polish moved to France as a teenager, eventually settling in Paris, where since 1908 thanks to bond with Marie Laurencin shall contact with the avant-garde artistic circles and with personalities such as Maurice de Vlaminck, André Derain, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Henri Matisse. The interest for the modern led him to support the Futurism of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and the metaphysical paintings of Giorgio De Chirico. Of 1910 are the sixteen tales entitled "The Heresiarch & c.", while in 1911 publishes poems by "Bestiary or Orfe cortege" and in 1913 the fundamental "Alcools", a collection of the best poems composed between 1898 and 1912, which constitutes one of the most important poetry lyrics of the last century. This work deeply renew the French literature and is today considered the masterpiece of Apollinaire together with the wonderful "Calligraphy" (1918). Among other works in prose include "the poet assassinated" (1916), collection of novellas and short stories between the mythical and the autobiographical, inspired by experiences on the front lines of World War I, and the drama "the breasts of Tiresias" (written in 1903 and published in 1918), the introduction of which appears for the first time the definition of a work. He died in Paris on November 9, 1918.