Editing Claude Debussy (section)

=== Literary ===
[[File:Pickwick by Kyd 1889.jpg|thumb|upright|alt=19th century watercolour of the Dickens character Samuel Pickwick: a short, portly bald man of mature years, wineglass in hand|[[Hommage à S. Pickwick Esq. P.P.M.P.C.|S. Pickwick Esq. P.P.M.P.C.]]]]Despite his lack of formal schooling, Debussy read widely and found inspiration in literature. Lesure writes, "The development of [[free verse]] in poetry and the disappearance of the subject or model in painting influenced him to think about issues of musical form."<ref name=grove/> Debussy was influenced by the [[Symbolism (movement)|Symbolist]] poets. These writers, who included Verlaine, Mallarmé, Maeterlinck and [[Arthur Rimbaud|Rimbaud]], reacted against the realism, naturalism, objectivity and formal conservatism that prevailed in the 1870s. They favoured poetry using suggestion rather than direct statement; the literary scholar Chris Baldrick writes that they evoked "subjective moods through the use of private symbols, while avoiding the description of external reality or the expression of opinion".<ref>Baldrick, Chris. [http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198715443.001.0001/acref-9780198715443-e-1111 "Symbolists"], ''The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms'', Oxford University Press, 2015, retrieved 13 June 2018 {{subscription}}</ref> Debussy was much in sympathy with the Symbolists' desire to bring poetry closer to music, became friendly with several leading exponents, and set many Symbolist works throughout his career.<ref>Phillips, C. Henry. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/726316 "The Symbolists and Debussy"], ''Music & Letters'', July 1932, pp. 298–311 {{subscription}}</ref>

Debussy's literary inspirations were mostly French, but he did not overlook foreign writers. As well as Maeterlinck for ''Pelléas et Mélisande'', he drew on [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]] and [[Charles Dickens|Dickens]] for two of his Préludes for piano – "La Danse de Puck" (Book 1, 1910) and "[[Hommage à S. Pickwick Esq. P.P.M.P.C.]]" (Book 2, 1913). He set [[Dante Gabriel Rossetti]]'s ''[[The Blessed Damozel]]'' in his early cantata, ''La Damoiselle élue'' (1888). He wrote incidental music for ''[[King Lear]]'' and planned an opera based on ''[[As You Like It]]'', but abandoned that once he turned his attention to setting Maeterlinck's play. In 1890 he began work on an orchestral piece inspired by [[Edgar Allan Poe]]'s ''[[The Fall of the House of Usher]]'' and later sketched the libretto for an opera, ''[[La chute de la maison Usher (opera)|La chute de la maison Usher]]''. Another project inspired by Poe – an operatic version of ''[[The Devil in the Belfry]]'' did not progress beyond sketches.<ref>[http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780192806871.001.0001/acref-9780192806871-e-2066"Debussy, Claude"], ''The Oxford Companion to English Literature'', ed Dinah Birch, Oxford University Press, 2009 retrieved 7 May. 2018 {{subscription}}</ref> French writers whose words he set include [[Paul Bourget]], [[Alfred de Musset]], [[Théodore de Banville]], [[Leconte de Lisle]], [[Théophile Gautier]], [[Paul Verlaine]], [[François Villon]], and Mallarmé – the last of whom also provided Debussy with the inspiration for one of his most popular orchestral pieces, ''Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune''.<ref name=grove/>