Life and Writings of Maurice Maeterlinck

éatre (1901) Maeterlinck has said that they were written as libretti for musicians who had asked for them, and that they contain n

graine, Bellangère, and Selysette-at once suggests a symbolic intention, which we are the more inclined to suspect when w

tion, of Mme Leblanc, whose ideas, as expressed in Le Choix de la Vie, are

ey are the passive creatures of the former plays, they endure their incarceration without the least attempt to effect

o fondle him than to harm him; and when Ardiane throws the door open, announces her intention of returning to freedom, and invites them to follow her, they remain at Bluebeard's side. The play has for its sub

bares the arms and shoulders of the timid wives. "Really, my young sisters," she says, "I do not wonder that he did not love you as he

human soul remaining pure while the body it dwells in is steeped in sin. To Anselma Heine, the nun is "one who has been made richer, one who has lived"; and it may indeed be the poet's intention to show us that the flesh is holy and is not contaminated

in Mary. In Gottfried Keller's story, Beatrice, the door-keeper of the monastery, feels her heart turn sick with longing for the world outside. "When she could no longer hold back her desire, sh

him that she has fled from the cloister "to see the world." He laughs at this, and offers, if she will go with him, to put her on the way. He lifts her on to his saddle, and merril

shears the long hair that had once folded him in flame, dons the nun's gown in which she had come to the castle so many years ago, and wanders in the howling wind and through the whirling autumn leaves

k bakes Him a dish of fritters. Beatrice alone gets nothing ready: she is tired of life, and living more in the past than in the present. But when the festive day arrives and the nuns begin their chant, it happens that a grey-haired knight comes riding past the convent door with his eight stalwart sons, all on their way to the Emperor's wars. Hearing the service

other hand, sinks lower than harlotry: when her body is beyond buying she sells her hand. She is a depraved being. It would be humbug to make out that the depravity of men forced her into such dirt. If she had been good, she could have died; if she is not good, what feelings is the drama to awaken in us? Feelings of pity perhaps, but not of sympathy; and when we have

xtinct magazine printed the poem Et s'il revenait and Sutro's translation of the Death of Tintagiles. Adelaide Anne Procter had made a poem out of the legend; John Davidson's splendid ballad (worth all

verse in which it is said to be written. Typographically it is arran

yeux sont plus doux Que les yeux

t excess and imprudence may have an innocent or even heroic cause. Drunkards and debauchees are not necessarily criminals; they may be drawn into excess because they are weak and amiable (we all know very charming men who like drink; and what excellent uncles city bachelors often make). You are imprudent if you jump into the water in very cold weather to save somebody, and the consequences, let us say consumption for yourself and your child

wer. Again (this argument is in the section "La Chance," Chapter VII), look at animals. Compare the fate of the pampered race-horse with that of the tortured cab-horse: for all your talk of predestination, it is a case of injustice. But to the animals we work to death we are as the powers behind Nature are to us. Should we then expect more justice from Nature than we mete out to animals? Let us not condone our culpability by any appeal to Nature: Nature is not concerned with justice; her one aim, as was shown in The Life of the Bee, is to maintain, renew, and multiply

, is devoted to the "reign of matter." Maeterlinck here (Chapter V) takes the

ed that few of these objections withstand a loyal and attentive examination; and it may be asserted that all those who have tried this diet have re

dalene), though Guido Colonna is Golaud redivivus; Prinzivalle is at all events a passable shadow of Othello, and Monna Vanna is a heroine who positively develops (let us admit that Selysette had developed too). A play rhetorical in style; pictorial even-a city lit up by fireworks, the Leaning Tower of Pisa all aflame "your Hugo-flare against the night," (William Watson might have jeered). A play with a situation which might have been written specially for that dear old lady, Mrs Grundy;

, and very troublesome to read as prose. From the point of view of style it is quite impossible to consider it as a gre

pes seen vaguely through a gloaming of romance; they move in the full light of reality. Monna Vanna, in short, is a

hing the other party says-if you love, you must believe. Historically, the characters are untrue: Marco could not have read Maeterlinck at the time he lived, and, not having read Maeterlinck, he could not be so wise as he is; Monna Vanna could not have read either Maeterlinck or Ibsen, and therefore she could not ha

return is awaited. He comes with this message: Florence has decided to annihilate Pisa. There is to be no question of a capitulation; the town is to be taken by assault, and the citizens butchered. Florence is pressing Prinzivalle to deliver the final assault; but he has intercepted letters by which it appears that he is unjustly accused of trea

. There is no attempt on the dramatist's part to belittle the sacrifice she is willing to make; she has, at the time she makes up her mind, the time-honoured idea as to the importance of the sexual act. But she is an altruist, like the bees:

and he might make himself dictator; Trivulzio, therefore, has denounced him to "the grey-headed, toothless, doting fools at home." Prinzivalle unmasks Trivulzio, who attempts to stab him, but only succeeds in gashing his face. Trivulzio very noble in his way; all for Florence. Excitement of the audience: will Vanna come? She comes; is she naked under her cloak? She has been wounded on the shoulder by a stray shot; just a scratch, but enough to serve as an excuse for exciting the audience. Prinzivalle tells her to show him the wound, and she half opens her c

she gives him the lie he asks for: "Il m'a prise," she cries out. But she claims Prinzivalle as her own prey, and has him conducted to the dungeons on the understanding that she will end his life herself. The spectators, however, who have an advantage over Guido in that they hear various asides, understand that she will rescue the Florentine general and elope with him. Guido can believe

that the man who makes such an infamous condition will not dream of keeping his promise. But the dramatist makes the heroine tell Prinzivalle that the one man who could have given her a favourable account of his character (and who, as

e 5th March, 1903. Browning's play, too, is set in the fifteenth century on the eve of a battle between Pisa and Florence; and, like Prinzivalle, "Luria holds Pisa's fortunes in his hand." Both Luria and Prinzivalle are "utter aliens "

gh of course it would have been very easy to alter the whole. I admire Browning, who, in my opinion, is one of the greatest of English poets. For that reason I regarded him as belonging to classic and universal literature, and as a poet whom everybody ought to know; and I thought I was entitled to borrow a situation, or rather the

lagiarist in Monna Vanna, he was a plagiarist, too, in Joyzelle (1903), for in a postscript of his lette

on his enchanted island comes his long-lost son Lancéor. The first person the newcomer meets is Joyzelle, who is destined to be his bride if she stands the trials prepared for her. The young couple fall

e, has half opened the veils that invest her, and unbound her long hair. (Men always fall into traps when their instinct leads them, their frailties being necessary for the designs of life.) Joyzelle discovers her lover in the act of

the years and misfortunes that pass.... It is he alone, it is thou alone, and in thee nothing can change without making love grow.... He who is all in thee; thou who art all in him, whom I see, whom

hom they surrender themselves blindly can educate them to a higher love. This is the idea

angers. She feigns consent, however, and promises to come at night; but she makes Merlin restore Lancéor there and then. When she comes to the old man's couch, it is with a dagger ready; she finds him sleeping, and lifts the dagger, but Arielle prevents the blow. Her trials are over; she has stood the last test. Merlin explains matters to his son: "She might have yielded," he says, "might have sacrificed herself, her love; she might have despaired-and then she would not have been the one love c

e 20th May, 1903. In the same year Maeterlinck's comedy, Le Miracle de St Antoine (The Miracle of St Anton

interpretation given on the following

Enseveli, Chapte

enschen, nachdem die M?dchen und Frauen ihre natürlichen Reize entdeckt hab

II and XXIX of L'Evolution

December, 1911, by the

German translator of Maeterlinck's works-Bühne und Welt, November-Heft 2, 1902) had been specially wri