Guillaume Apollinaire was born Wilhelm Albert Vladimir Apollinaris Kostrowitzky in Rome. He was raised in a multi-lingual household and spoke French from an early age, eventually emigrating to Paris. Here he became a popular member of the artistic community based in Montparnasse, which notably included Pablo Picasso, André Breton and Jean Cocteau. Apollinaire is said to have been the first to use the phrase 'surrealism' to describe his work, and his 1917 play Les Mamelles de Tirésias (Tiresias' Tits) became an early public staement of the movement Breton would go on to popularise.

Apollinaire is distinguished as one of the greatest French poets and playwrights of the early 20^th century, also producing essays, art criticism and novels. He died in during a Spanish flu pandemic in1918 after serving in World War I.