The article is devoted to the student period of the work of the French poet Paul Verlaine, who joined the 1860s. to the group "Modern Parnassus". The author analyzes both early "Parnassian" poems written under the influence of the masters of the older generation - Gauthier, Banville, Lecomte de Lille, Menard, Baudelaire - and the memories of a mature artist; the distinctive features of the "Parnassian" technique of verse are determined.