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MAETERLINCK, MAURICE (1862— )
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See also:MAETERLINCK, See also:MAURICE (1862— ) , Belgian-See also:French dramatist and poet, of Flemish extraction, was See also:born at See also:Ghent on the 29th of See also:August 1862. He was educated at the See also:College Sainte-Barbe, and then at the university - of his native See also:city, where, at the See also:age of twenty-four, he was enrolled as a See also:barrister. In 1887 he settled in See also:Paris, where he immediately became acquainted with See also:Villiers de l'Isle-See also:Adam and the leaders of the symbolist school of French See also:poetry. At the See also:death of his See also:father, Maeterlinck returned to See also:Belgium, where he thenceforth mainly resided: in the See also:winter at Ghent, in the summer on an See also:estate at Oostacker. He had by this See also:time determined to devote his whole See also:life to poetry, a See also:dedication which his See also:fortune permitted. His career as an author began in 1889, when he published a See also:volume of See also:verse, See also:Serres chaudes, and a See also:play, La Princesse Maleine, the latter originally composed in See also:metre, but afterwards carefully rewritten in See also:prose, the vehicle which the author continued to use for his dramatic See also:work. Maeterlinck was at this time totally unknown, but he became famous through an See also:article by See also:Octave See also:Mirbeau, prominently published in the Paris See also:Figaro, entitled " A Belgian See also:Shakespeare." The See also:enthusiasm of this See also:review and the excellence of the passages quoted combined to make Maeterlinck the talk of the See also:town. Maeterlinck, among his Belgian See also:roses, continued to work with extreme deliberation. In 1890 he published, in See also:Brussels, two more plays, L'Intruse and See also:Les Aveugles; followed in 1891 by Les See also:Sept princesses. His strong leaning to See also:mysticism was now explained, or defined, by a See also:translation of the Flemish• See also:medieval visionary, the Admirable Ruysbroeck, which Maeterlinck brought out in 1891. In 1892 appeared what has been perhaps the most successful of all his plays on the See also:stage, Pellet's et Melisande, followed in 1894 by those very curious and powerful little dramas written to be performed by See also:marionettes: Alladine et Palomides, Interieur and La Mort de Tintagi.les. In 1895 Maeterlinck brought out, under the See also:title of Annabella, a translation of See also:Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a TV See also:bore, with a See also:preface. Two philosophical See also:works followed, a study on See also:Novalis (1895) and Le Tresor See also:des humbles (1896). In 1896 he returned to See also:drama with Aglavaine et Selysette and to lyric verse with Douze chansons. A monograph on the See also:ethics of mysticism, entitled La Sagesse et la destinee, was issued, as a See also:kind of commentary on his own dramas, in 1898; and in 1901 Maeterlinck produced a fascinating volume of prose, founded upon observations made in his apiaries at Oostacker, in which See also:philosophy, See also:fancy and natural See also:history were surprisingly mingled—La See also:Vie des abeilles. In 1902 he published Le See also:Temple enseveli and See also:Molina Vanna; in 1903 Joyzelle. In 1901 he began to issue, in Brussels, an edition of his See also:complete dramatic works. The nature of Maeterlinck's writings, whether in prose or verse, has been strictly homogeneous. Few poets have kept so rigorously to a certain defined direction in the practice of their See also:art. Whether in philosophy, or drama, or lyric, Maeterlinck is exclusively occupied in revealing, or indicating, the See also:mystery which lies, only just out of sight, beneath the See also:surface of See also:ordinary life. In See also:order to produce this effect of the mysterious he'aims at an extreme simplicity of diction, and a symbolism so realistic as to be almost See also:bare. He allows life itself to astonish us by its strangeness, by its inexplicable elements. Many of his plays are really highly pathetic records of unseen emotion; they are occupied with the spiritual adventures of souls, and the ordinary facts of time and space have no See also:influence upon the movements of the characters. We know not who these See also:orphan princesses, these See also:blind persons, these See also:pale Arthurian knights, these aged guardians of desolate castles, may be; we are not informed whence they come, nor whither they go; there is nothing See also:concrete or circumstantial about them. Their life is intense and consistent, but it is wholly of a spiritual See also:character; they are mysterious with the mystery of the movements of a soul. These characteristics, which make the dramatic work of Maeterlinck so curious and unique, are See also:familiar to most readers in Pelleas et Melisande, but are carried, perhaps, to their farthest intensity in Aglavaine et Sel ysette, which seems to be written for a phantom stage and to be acted by disembodied See also:spirits. In spite of the violence of his See also:early admirers, and of the fact that the See also:form of his dramas easily See also:lent itself to the cheap ridicule of parodists, the See also:talent of Maeterlinck has hardly met with opposition from the See also:criticism of his time. It has been universally See also:felt that his spirit is one of See also:grave and disinterested See also:attachment to the highest moral beauty, and his seriousness, his serenity and his extreme originality have impressed even those who are bewildered by his diaphanous See also:graces and offended at his nebulous mysticism. While the crude enthusiasm which compared him with Shakespeare has been shown to be ridiculous, the best See also:judges combine with Camille Mauclair when he says: " Maurice Maeterlinck est un homme de genie authentique, un tres See also:grand phenomene de puissance mentale a la fin du xixe siecle." In spite of the shadowy See also:action of Maeterlinck's plays, which indeed require some See also:special conditions and contrivances for their performance, they are frequently produced with remarkable success before audiences who cannot be suspected of mysticism, in most of the countries of See also:Europe. In his philosophical writings Maeterlinck shows himself a See also:disciple of Novalis, of See also:Emerson, of Hello, of the Flemish See also:Catholic mystics, and he evolves from the teachings of those thinkers a See also:system of See also:aesthetics applicable to the See also:theatre as he conceives it. (E. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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