Anna de Noailles

23 Jul, 2026

"The beauty of the world is in the eye."

Introduction

When I first read De Noaille's poetry, I was mesmerized. Yes, "mesmerized" is indeed the word that best suits what I am trying to describe; it took me some time to believe that such work existed and that I had not known about it until relatively recently. Before reading her, I had never experienced to this extent the feeling of being struck in the face—and beyond—by words emanating such beauty.

I admittedly feel fortunate knowing French, since this made it possible for me to discover De Noailles' works in their original form instead of translated ones, which hold the inevitable risk (especially in poetry) of altering the writer's authentic style or the poem's aesthetic. At the same time though, translation is exactly what makes it possible for a larger number of readers to come across a work, and that is undeniably wonderful. 

However, it should be said that even if I had wished to read the entirety of one of De Noaille's poetry collections, let us say in English, I would not have been able to. The reason lies in external factors; as it appears, Anna de Noailles has not been appreciated enough outside of France for at least some of her full works to be translated. Only a selection of her poems can be found in the anthology Life of Poems, Poems of a Life that was published in 2012 and translated to English by Norman R. Shapiro, but this is it all. Even though more than one century has already passed since the publication of De Noailles' first poetry collection, her only accessible piece of work to a wider audience is an assembly of some poems.

While one could think of certain possible reasons for this being the case, such as her way of expression being outdated or the translation being challenging when it comes to rhyming, I do not discard that a potential explanation could also be found in the underestimation and the deliberate neglect of poetical traditions; although Anna de Noailles also wrote novels, poetic prose and essays, she was recognized mostly for her poems, often written in octosyllable and alexandrine verse.

If by now none of her full works have been translated, especially the poetic ones, I would hardly bet for it to happen any time soon, since nowadays, poetry seems to have taken a different turn, with the short, free verse apparently thriving out there... In any case, this on its own, alongside the fact that beautiful things are rarely created anymore, would cause separate discussions, keeping also in mind that I am not the most suitable person to talk about poetry due to my knowledge of it being quite limited.

Anyway, after having been rumbling for some time, one could still wonder who Anna de Noailles is and why we have to mention her. So, let us get to know a little bit more about this interesting (and eccentric, allow me to say) figure of the late 19th and early 20th century, during the Belle Époque in France.

A short biography

Anna De Noailles was born on 15 November 1876 in Paris. She was the second of three children of the Aristocrat Grégoire Bibesco-Bassarabaan, a prince in exile from modern Romania, and Ralouka Mussurus, a woman of Greek ancestry, raised in England.

Apart from being fully educated at home and knowing French, English, German, Romanian and Greek, De Noailles was also highly exposed to art from a young age, since her parents were actively involved in music and poetry; her mother was a professional musician and pianist, while her father loved with a passion to recite stories and poems he knew by heart. The Noailles lived primarily in Paris, but they would often spend the warm months in Amphion, in their private estate.

In 1886, De Noailles' father passed away, when she was only nine years old—a loss that affected her profoundly. In her later years she would use writing as a tool to express the way this family tragedy had scarred her heart forever. The denial of the inevitable fate that eventually finds us all never faded out from her but continued to haunt her mind and soul when more people from her close circle passed away—including her mother—and she often dealt with death in her poems, giving voice to her deepest fears.

While reading her works, one could perceive that many aspects of De Noailles' life actually shaped her writing; from the early foundations that were set in her family to later events that developed in her personal life. One of the major themes found in her works is that of nature, which she praised passionately in many of her poems. Highly inspired by her roots too, she would sometimes re-call figures from Greek antiquity, or even Roman ones deriving from her travels to Italy. However, we could not omit an additional theme of great importance encountered in her texts—that of love. As mentioned in the passage of Diane Josefowicz's article, originating from the book Anna de Noailles: Un mystère en pleine lumière by François Broche:

"Toward the end of 1909, the poet Anna de Noailles swept into the grand lobby of the Hôtel Liverpool, in the rue de Castiglione in Paris, on her way to meet a young writer by the name of Rainer Maria Rilke. [...] She advanced a step, stopped again, and began: 'Monsieur Rilke, what is love for you?'".¹

In 1897, Anna de Noailles married Count Mathieu de Noailles, with whom she had a son three years later, and in 1933 she died at the age of 56 without any documented medical cause. One of her last words, according to Countess Murat, was 'No essential organ is affected in me, and yet I am going away. I am dying of my own accord...'"²

Writing career

Anna de Noailles published her first poetry collection in 1901. Although she had already been part of high society since her marriage, her intelligence and the blooming of her literary career made her very appreciated. In 1902, she won the Price Archon-Despérouses, in 1920, her first poetry collection was awarded by the French Academy, in 1921, she received the Literary Price and in 1931, Anna de Noailles was the first woman admitted to the Royal Academy of French Language and Literature of Belgium. 

During her relatively short life she met a considerable number of people that belonged to the French elite, but not only, such as Albert Einstein, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Jean Cocteau, or Paul Valéry. She was often asked by visual artists to paint her portrait, while there is also a sculpture of her made by Auguste Rodin in the Metropolitan Museum, NY. In the later years of the 19th century, Anna de Noailles developed a friendship with Marcel Proust through correspondence, exchanging letters mostly concerning De Noailles' poetry.

List of her key works

POETRY:

Le Coeur innombrable (1901)
L’Ombre des jours (1902)
Les Éblouissements (1907)
Les Vivants et les Morts (1913)
Les Forces éternelles (1920)
Poème de l’amour (1924)
L’Honneur de souffrir (1927)

NOVELS:

La Nouvelle Espérance (1903)
Le Visage émerveillé (1904)
La Domination (1905)

OTHER:

De la rive d’Europe à la rive d’Asie (1913)
Les Innocentes, ou La Sagesse des femmes (1923)
Exactitudes (1930)
Le Livre de ma vie (1932)

⁎⁎⁎

Offering to Nature

Deep-hearted Nature, supporting the heavens,
None more than I would have so ardently loved
The light of days and the sweetness of things,
The shimmering water and the nurturing earth.

The woods, ponds, and fertile plains
Have touched my eyes more than human gazes.
I have leaned upon the beauty of the world
And my hands have held the seasons’ fragrances.

I have worn your suns like a crown
On my noble and simple brow,
My games have matched the labors of fall,
And I have wept with love in your summers’ arms.

I have come to you without fear or prudence,
Giving you my reason for good and evil,
Embracing as my only joy and knowledge
Your impetuous soul with animal cunning.

Like an open flower for nesting bees
My life has distilled balms and songs,
And like a basket my morning heart
Offers you ivy and pliant boughs.

Yielding like water reflecting the trees
I have known the burning desires of your nights,
Which arouse in the hearts of men and beasts
Beautiful impatience and divine will.

Nature, my arms enfold you all alive,
Ah! must my eyes fill with darkness some day,
And must I go to the land without wind or color
Where light and love will never meet…³

(From Le Coeur innombrable)

Note: No AI was used to write this post.