Background
He obtained a humble position in one of the ministries of the French government. He began writing verse and frequented Leconte de Lisle's Saturday salons. Leconte de Lisle, leader of the Parnassians, had little taste for Coppée'sCoppee's sentimental stories in verse and his quest for popularity. Coppée'sCoppee's early poetry was, however, influenced by Leconte de Lisle.
In 1866 CoppéeCoppee published Le Reliquaire and in 1868, Les IntimitésIntimites. His success began with a short play, Le Passant (1869), and he became one of the best-known French dramatists of the later years of the nineteenth century. His longer plays on historical subjects, Madame de Maintenon, Les Jacobites, Severo Torelli, Pour la couronne, had a lesser reputation. Meanwhile, he published a number of volumes of verse, including PoèmesPoemes modernes in 1869, Les Humbles in 1872, and Contes en vers in 1881. He was admitted to the French Academy in 1884.
In 1898, after a short illness, CoppéeCoppee wrote La bonne souffrance, a testimonial to his conversion to Roman Catholicism. At the time of the Dreyfus case he was set up by his friends, against ÉmileEmile Zola, as the representative of "good literature."
Coppée'sCoppee's plays and his poetry lack vigor, and his sentimentality is often excessive. After his death, May 23, 1908, his reputation diminished rapidly. Zola, however, praised him at one time for having raised the banner of naturalism in poetry.