Bedros Dourian
(1851 - 1872)
Bedros Dourian is important historically because he is the first poet to write purely subjective poetry in the vernacular. The famous satirist Hagop Baronian was his Armenian schoolteacher in his native Istanbul. He read the contemporary French literature of his time, Hugo, Lamartine, and de Musset. His own poetry is highly sentimental and lyrical and won a large audience of admirers after he died of tuberculosis at 21.