Maurice Maeterlinck

Maurice Maeterlinck (Ghent, August 29, 1862-Nice, May 5, 1949) was a Belgian French-language playwright and essayist, a leading exponent of Symbolist theatre.

Biography

He studied law at the University of Ghent (Flanders). In 1885 he published his first Parnassian-inspired poems in the literary and artistic magazine Jeune Belgique . In 1886 he abandoned his profession and moved to Paris, where he established a relationship with the writers who were to influence him the most: Stéphane Mallarmé and Villiers De L'Isle-Adam. The latter made him aware of the full depth of German idealism (Hegel, Schopenhauer). At the same time, he studied Ruysbroeck the Admirable, a Flemish mystic of the XIV century, from whom he translated in 1891 " Ornament des noces spirituelles", which led him to discover the intuitive riches of the Germanic world far removed from the predominant rationalism in French literature. In this spirit, and notably influenced by Novalis, he came into contact with the romanticism of Jena (Germany 1787-1831), around August and Friedrich Schlegel and the magazine Athenaeum , precursor, in a direct line of symbolism. In his works published between 1889 and 1896, this Germanic influence is reflected.

In 1890 it became very famous thanks to the writer Octave Mirbeau. In 1902 he wrote & # 34; Monna Vanna & # 34;, a play that will be performed by Georgette Leblanc, an actress whom he met in 1895 and who will be his companion until 1919, the year in which he marries the young woman Renee Dahon.

In 1921 he taught in the United States and, in this country, he spent World War II. During a short stay in Portugal, in 1937, he wrote the preface to Salazar's political speech: Une revolution dans la paix .

He had a certain influence, through his poetic theater, on some Spanish authors such as Federico García Lorca in his early plays.

Work

The poet
His book of poems Serres chaudes (The Greenhouses), published in 1889 by Leon Vanier, publisher of Paul Verlaine, evidences the line of the "depersonalization of writing" and reveals, in part, the Mallarmenian ideal: suggestion as the essence of every bouquet becomes the main generator of the act of pure creation. With the repetition of a word, Maeterlinck, he achieves a spiritual vibration, an inner resonance.

Ils célèbrent une grande fête chez les ennemis.
Il y a des cerfs dans une ville assiégée
Et une menagerie au milieu des lys. (Hôpital)

They are having a big party at the enemy's house
There are deer in a besieged city
And a menagerie in the midst of lilies (Hospital)

The verse is arrhythmic, freed from conventions. Guillaume Apollinaire is impressed by this new way of versifying. Maeterlinck abandons naturalism and Parnassianism to dedicate himself to allegorical poetry in which the image recalls medieval iconography, the painting of Pieter Brueghel the Elder or that of Hieronymus Bosch (Bosch).

In 1895, he meets Georgette Leblanc, singer, sister of Maurice Leblanc. With it he created, in 1897, at the Villa Dupont, a literary salon attended by, among others: Oscar Wilde, Paul Fort, Stéphane Mallarmé, Camille Saint-Saëns, Anatole France, and Auguste Rodin.

Maeterlinck, together with the great playwrights (Henrik Ibsen, Anton Chekhov, August Strindberg and Hauptmann) contributed to the transformation of the conception of drama. From 1889 to 1894, he published eight works expressing moods in an unreal and symbolic world. Three concepts stand out under these characteristics: static drama (immobile, passive and receptive characters in the face of the unknown); the sublime character (who fights uselessly against death, Fate or fatalism); the daily tragedy (no heroism, the simple fact of living is already a tragedy). The action, through the interpretation of the actors, must suggest the moods towards their destiny, the slow dream towards fatalism.

The essayist

The theater is followed by philosophical essays in which he addresses the life of nature and the mystery of man: The Treasure of the Humble (Le trésor des humbles) 1896; The life of the bees (La vie des abeilles) 1901; The intelligence of flowers (L'intelligence des fleurs), in 1907; The Life of Termites (La vie des termites) 1927; The life of ants (La vie des fourmis) 1930.

Controversy over plagiarism of a work by Eugène Marais

There is evidence that Maeterlinck's 1926 work, "The Life of the Termite", is a plagiarism of South African naturalist Eugène Marais's book &# 34;Die Siel van die Mier" (literally, "The soul of the ant", although it is usually translated into English as "The Soul of the Termite"). Marais considered taking legal action against Maeterlinck, but ultimately dismissed it due to the administrative difficulties that the lawsuit would entail.

World Hits

In 1908, Constantin Stanislavski staged the play The Blue Bird (L’Oiseau bleu) at the Moscow Art Theatre. This play will be performed with great success all over the world.

In 1911 Maeterlinck was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was made a count by King Albert I of Belgium and decorated by the French and Belgians as a reward for services rendered to the Allies in World War I.

One year before his death, he published Bulles bleues, a work in which he collected memories of his childhood.

Selection of works

• GreenhousesSerres chaudes(1889)
• Princess Malena (The Princesse Maleine(1889)
• The intruder (L'Intruse(1890)
• The blind (Les Aveugles(1890)
• The Seven Princesses (Les Sept princesses(1891)
• Fights and MelisendaPelléas et Mélisande(1892)
• Aladdin and PalomidesAlladine et Palomides(1894)
• The Death of Titangiles (The Mort of Tintagiles(1894)
• The treasure of the humble (Le Trésor des humbles(1896)
• The life of bees (La Vie des Abeilles(1901)
• Sor Beatriz (Soeur Béatrice), (1901)
• Monna Vanna (1902)
• The intelligence of flowers, ("L'Intelligence des fleurs") (1907) illustrations by Jules-Marie Canneel
• The Blue BirdL’Oiseau bleu(1909)
• The Great Secret (1921)
• The life of the termites (La Vie des Termites(1927)
• La Vie de l'Espace (1928)
• The life of ants (La Vie des Fourmis(1930)
• Before God (Devant Dieu(1936)
• Bulles bleues (1948)