Afternoon of the Faun

In regards to the Faune poem: I believe Mallarme was deliberate in his choice of the pastoral form popularized by Virgil in his Bucolica for his subject of the woodland satyr, and, though its meter is far less formal than his Latin counterpart, the dream-like imagery and the musical intonations of the language still manage to capture the essence of classical antiquity and can be seen as Mallarme’s attempt to escape the mundane world of modern urbanized France.