Joséphin (Joseph Marie) Soulary (23 February 1815 - 28 March 1891), French poet, son of a Lyon merchant of Genoese origin (Solari).
He was born in Lyon and entered a line regiment when he was sixteen, serving for five years,[1] during which he published his first poems. Some small lyrical works of a patriotic nature were published under the pseudonym "S. Grenadier" in the journal L'Indicateur de Bordeaux.[citation needed] He was Chef de Bureau in the prefecture of the Rhône from 1845 to 1867, and in 1868 he became librarian to the Palais des Arts in his native town.[1] He became a member of the Parnassiens, with Alphonse Lemerre including some of Soulary's poems in the 1871 and 1876 volumes of the collection Le Parnasse contemporain. Soulary died at Lyon.
His Œuvres poetiques were collected in three volumes (1872–1883). His Sonnets humoristiques attracted great attention, and charmed their readers by the mixture of gaiety and tragedy. His mastery over the technical difficulties of his art, especially in the sonnet, won him the title of the "Benvenuto of rhyme."[1]
Further reading
Paul Marieton: Soulary et la Pléiade lyonnaise (Paris: Marpon, 1884)
