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What is known about Krysinska
is the following:
Maria Anastazja Wincentyna Krysinska de Levila was born in Warsaw, Poland. Her birthdate is not known for certain, and the two possible years are 1857 and 1864; to my knowledge, no one has successfully performed the necessary archival research in Warsaw to clarify this date. |
| Anne de Bercy and Armand Ziwes
state that:
"Marie Krysinska était
la fille d'un avocat de Varsovie, M. Krysinski [...] Venue, à l'âge
de seize ans, à Paris, pour suivre au Conservatoire les cours de
composition et d'harmonie, elle préféra bientôt laisser
ses inspirations s'extérioriser librement et écrivit des musiques
aux rythmes étranges sur des poèmes de Verlaine et de Charles
Cros. Assidue aux réunions des Hydropathes, Marie Krysinska
vint avec eux à Montmartre et, dès les premiers temps, fut
admise aux goguettes du Chat Noir. Les auteurs et poètes montmartrois
lui inspirèrent des mélodies charmantes, dont certaines furent
rénies en un recueil chez Choudens." (272-73)
"Marie Krysinska was the daughter
of a lawyer from Warsaw, Mr. Krysinski [...] Having come to Paris at the
age of sixteen to take courses in composition and harmony at the Conservatory,
she soon preferred to let her inspirations flow freely and she wrote musical
accompaniment to the strange rhythms of [Paul] Verlaine's and Charles
Cros's poems. Present at their meetings, Krysinska went with the members
of the Hydropathes to Montmartre and, from the beginning, was part
of the merriment of the Chat Noir. The authors and poets in Montmartre
inspired her charming melodies, of which certain ones were published in
a collection by Choudens." (my translation) |
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In addition to her poems in
Le Chat Noir, some of her first publications appeared in La Libre
Revue. She married the painter Georges Bellenger (whose illustration
is seen here on the cover of her 1903 collection Intermèdes: Nouveaux
rythmes pittoresques) and kept her maiden name. She published three collections of poetry, two novels, a collection of prose tales, a number of non-fiction essays and book reviews, and set numerous poems to music (see Bibliography). Her poems illustrate free-verse poetry as it is theorized by Gustave Kahn, who, in his Symbolistes et Décadentes (1902), accused Krysinska of having claimed for herself the poetic invention which he thought himself to be the sole creator. |
| "... si ma mémoire est bonne, Mme Maria Kasterska a réussi, après de longues recherches, à retrouver le tombeau de la poétesse dans le cimetière de la commune de Saint-Ouen (Seine)" (93). | "... if I remember correctly, Ms. Maria Kasterska succeeded, after lengthy research, in finding the poet's tomb in the cemetary of the village of Saint-Ouen, in the Department of the Seine" (my translation). |
And Maria Szarama-Swolkieniowa states that Krysinska
| "... appartient à la pléiade de jeunes poètes de la fin du siècle, mais ce qui lui garantit un rang particulier c'est le fait qu'elle s'est montrée une des plus actives, sinon novatrices, qui ont pris part à la révolution poétique" (123). | "... was among the pléiade of young poets of the turn of the century, but what sets her apart from the others is that she proved to be one of the most active, if not innovative, poets who took part in the poetic revolution" (my translation). |