Abstract: This article examines how in two poems “Salut” and “Brise marine” Mallarmé exploits the traditions of the propemptikon, a sea poem in the lyric tradition of Greek Antiquity in order to demonstrate how he exploits that form by aligning it with the stylistic imagination of the second half of the 19th century in order to celebrate the trivial nature of every day life, turning his back on cosmic and idealist poetry.
