RETTÉ, ADOLPHE. — French poet, b. in Paris in 1863, d. at Beaune on 8 Dec. 1930. Belonging to the first Symbolist group, with Jean Moréas and Gustave Kahn; he played a notable part in two of the many journals of that movement, *La Vogue* and *L'Ermitage*.
Almost hallucinatory are the phantasmagorias of his first collections of verse: *Cloches en la nuit* (1889), *Thulé des Brumes* (1891), *Une belle dame passa* (1893), *L'Archipel en fleurs* (1895). From excessive artifice, accompanied by anarchic poses and, perhaps, even the abuse of narcotics, R. gradually moved toward an inspiration directly tinged with the free nature of the Fontainebleau forest (*La forêt bruissante*, 1896; *Dans la forêt*, 1903) and then to a renunciation of Symbolism (*Le symbolisme, anecdotes et souvenirs*, 1903; *Réflexions sur l'anarchie*, 1904); then to a frank conversion to Catholicism, confirmed in two of his most interesting books: *Du diable à Dieu* (1907) and *La maison en ordre* (1923). After his conversion he published books of edification: *Le règne de la bête* (1908); *Un séjour à Lourdes* (1909); *Notes sur la psychologie de la conversion* (1911); *Le soleil intérieur* (1923); *Les rubis du calice* (1924), etc.; and works of criticism: *Léon Bloy* (1923); *Fusqu'à la fin du monde* (1926); *En attendant la fin* (1933).