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LEMONNIER, ANTOINE LOUIS CAMILLE (184...

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Originally appearing in Volume V16, Page 416 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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LEMONNIER, See also:ANTOINE See also:LOUIS CAMILLE (1844– ) , Belgian poet, was See also:born at Ixelles, See also:Brussels, on the 24th of See also:March 1844. He studied See also:law, and then took a clerkship in a See also:government See also:office, which he resigned after three years. Lemonnier inherited Flemish See also:blood from both parents, and with it the See also:animal force and pictorial See also:energy of the Flemish temperament. He published a See also:Salon de Bruxelles in 1863, and again in 1866. His See also:early friend-See also:ships were chiefly with artists; and he wrote See also:art criticisms with recognized discernment. Taking a See also:house in the hills near See also:Namur, he devoted himself to See also:sport, and See also:developed the intimate sympathy with nature which informs his best See also:work. Nos Flamands (1869) and Croquis d'automne (187o) date from this See also:time. See also:Paris-See also:Berlin (187o), a pamphlet See also:pleading the cause of See also:France, and full of the author's horror of See also:war, had a See also:great success. His capacity as a novelist, in the fresh, humorous description of See also:peasant See also:life, was revealed in Un See also:Coin de See also:village (1879). In Un Male (1881) he achieved a different See also:kind of success. It deals with the amours of a poacher and a See also:farmer's daughter, with the See also:forest as a background. Cachapres, the poacher, seems the very embodiment of the See also:wild life around him.

The rejection of Un See also:

Mule by the See also:judges for the quinquennial See also:prize of literature in 1883 made Lemonnier the centre of a school, inaugurated at a banquet given in his See also:honour on the 27th of May 1883. Le Mort (1882), which describes the remorse of two peasants for a See also:murder they have committed, is a masterpiece in its vivid See also:representation of terror. It was remodelled as a tragedy in five acts (Paris, 1899) by its author. Ceux de la See also:glebe (1889), dedicated to the " See also:children of the See also:soil," was written in 1885. He turned aside from See also:local subjects for some time to produce a See also:series of psychological novels, books of art See also:criticism, &c., of considerable value, but assimilating more closely to See also:French contemporary literature. The most striking of his later novels are: L'Hysterique (1885); Happe-See also:chair (1886), often compared with See also:Zola's Germinal; Le Possede (189o); La Fin See also:des See also:bourgeois (1892); L'Arche, See also:journal d'une maman (1894), a quiet See also:book, quite different from his usual work; La Faute de Mme Charvet (1895); L'Homme en amour (1897); and, with a return to Flemish subjects, Le Vent dans See also:les See also:moulins (19o1); See also:Petit Homme de Dieu (1902), and Commie va le ruisseau (1903). In 1888 Lemonnier was prosecuted in Paris for offending against public morals by a See also:story in Gil See also:Bias, and was condemned to a See also:fine. In a later See also:prosecution at Brussels he was defended by Edmond See also:Picard, and acquitted; and he was arraigned for a third time, at See also:Bruges, for his Homme en amour, but again acquitted. He represents his own See also:case in Les Deux consciences (1902). L'Ile See also:vierge (1897) was the first of a trilogy to be called La Legende de la See also:vie, which was to trace, under the fortunes of the See also:hero, the See also:pilgrimage of See also:man through sorrow and See also:sacrifice to the conception of the divinity within him. In See also:Adam et See also:Eve (1899), and Au Cceur frais de la fore"t (19o0), he preached the return to nature as the salvation not only of the individual but of the community. Among his other more important See also:works are G.

See also:

Courbet, et ses oeuvres (1878); L'Histoire des See also:Beaux-Arts en Belgique 1830—1887 (1887); En Allemagne (1888), dealing especially with the Pinakothek at See also:Munich; La Belgique (1888), an elaborate descriptive work with many illustrations; La Vie beige (1905); and See also:Alfred See also:Stevens et son oeuvre (1906). Lemonnier spent much time in Paris, and was one of the early contributors to the Mercure de France. He began to write at a time when Belgian letters lacked See also:style; and with much toil, and some initial extravagances, he created a See also:medium for the expression of his ideas. He explained something of the See also:process in a See also:preface contributed to Gustave See also:Abel's Labeur de la See also:prose (1902). His prose is magnificent and sonorous, but abounds in neologisms and See also:strange metaphors. See the Revue de Belgique (15th See also:February 1903), which contains the See also:syllabus of a series of lectures on Lemonnier by Edmond Picard, a bibliography of his works, and appreciations by various writers.

End of Article: LEMONNIER, ANTOINE LOUIS CAMILLE (1844– )

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