Life and Writings of Maurice Maeterlinck

d is not a whit more rosy than that of the naturalists. Vielé-Griffin did, it is true, preach the doctrine that the principle of all things is activity; and tha

-is elevating and consoling; and is a step onward to the complete victory won over pessimism by Verhaeren and Maeterlinck. But when we read the first plays of

drama in five acts, came out in 1889 in a first edition of thirty copies which Maeterlinck

e was not wrong when he called it "an important work which marks a date in the history of the contemporary theatre." But it was Octave Mirbeau's famous article in Figar

he squeaking flute of our day; but an admirable and a pure eternal masterpiece, a masterpiece which is sufficient to immortalise a name, and to make all those who are an-hungered for the beautiful and the great rise up and call this name blessèd; a masterpiece such as honest and tormented artists have, sometimes, in their hours of enthusiasm, dreamed of writing, and such as up to the pre

efuge at the Court of King Hjalmar at Ysselmonde. She soon has the old king in her power; and at the same time she lays traps for his son, Prince Hjalmar. The latter is betrothed to Princess Maleine, the daughter of King Marcellus; but at the banquet to celebrate the betrothal a fierce quarrel between the two kings breaks out, the consequence of which is a war in which King Hjalmar kills Marcellus and lays his realm waste. Before the outbreak of the war, however, Marcellus had immured Maleine, because she would not forget Prince Hjalmar, together with her nurse, in an old tower from which the two women, loosening the stones with their finger-nails, esca

ents accompany the action: there is a comet shedding blood over the castle, there is a rain of stars; there is the same eclipse of the moon as heralded the fall of C?sar; and if the graves are not tenantless, as they were in Rome, someone says they are going to be. It would be easy to draw up a list

aic or poetic diction. It is no doubt quite true that French people do not talk in this style; but, as van Hamel points out, it is the language of the taciturn Flemish peasants among whom the poet was living when

y what is happening in their souls. "It is closely connected with what Maeterlinck has written about Silence.[5] This second, unspoken dialogue, which, as a matter of fact, for our poet is the real one, is made possible by various expedients: by pauses, gestures, and by other indirect means of this nature. Most of all, however, by the spoken word itself,

part from the comets and other phenomena which portend ruin, he is constantly heightening the mystery by something eerie, all of it, no doubt, on close inspection, attributable to natural causes, but, if the truth must be told, perilously near the ridiculous. The weeping willows, and the o

I am af

t we are in

there walls r

there are walls and

nd nobody

e plenty of unknown thing

og at the door, are some of the things that are effective. And if Webster's manner

pectacle of human beings acting under the mastery of various passions; Maeterlinck's intention is to suggest the helplessness of human beings, and the impossibility of their resistance in the hands of Fate. Maleine-who is no heavier than a bird-who cannot hold a flower in her hand-is the poor huma

. In Grimm's tale the wicked princess had her head chopped off; but the fairy-tale was a dream dreamt in the infancy of the soul; now the soul is awakening to the consciousness of its destiny; and we are beginning to fee

by what the showman makes the dolls do whether he is a good or an evil being. The fact that Hjalmar is modelled on Hamlet, and Queen Anne on Queen Gertrude only proves that the dramatist is not yet full master of his own powers; and, if we look closely, we shall find that the unconscious puppets resemble their living patterns only as shadows resemble the shapes that cast them. We need not expect from characters that shadow forth states of mind-feelings of helplessness, terror, uneasiness, "blank misgivings..." sadness-the deliberate or headlong action we are accustomed to in beings of flesh an

rivelling of his terror-stricken conscience should be effective (as melodrama) on the stage. "Look at their eyes!" he says, pointing

been influenced by Schopenhauer "qui ar

, 24th Aug

n German like th

ce to Thé

les) pp. 173-4. That Maeterlinck was meditating the famous chapter on "Silence" in The Treasure of the Humble when he wrote Princess Maleine may be inferred from Act ii.

's Maeterl

the strangling of Little

e to Théat