LA JEUNE BELGIQUE IN LETTERS
Although for many, perhaps most, of my readers, Belgian literature is
summed up in the one word, Maeterlinck, it is nevertheless true that the
writers of this little country have been no unworthy spokesmen for so
sturdy and independent a race. Even when the nation lay stupefied in the
relentless grasp of Spain, among the exiles who sought refuge in Holland
was at least one poet, Vondel, who is remembered with pride today.
From the earliest days of Belgian fable the name of the chronicler,
Lucius de Tongres, has come down to us. Like many another monk, he wrote
in his humble cell the annals of the warring tribes. We think of the
Nibelungen Lied as the especial property of Germany, but "The epic of
the Franks belongs to our provinces," says the Belgian writer, Potvin,
"and the Siegfried of the Nibelungen is called the _hero of the Low
Countries_."
Later, when troubadour and trouvère sang of love and war from Provence
to Normandy, there were minstrels also in the castles of Flanders and
Brabant. Jean Bodel of Arras, in his "Chansons des Saxons," sang of
resistance to the power of Charlemagne, and it was the trouvères of the
Walloon country who first borrowed from the Britons the cycle of the
_Table Ronde_. The greatest poet of the reign of Philip of Alsace, at
the end of the twelfth century, was Chrestien de Troyes, a native of
Brabant, whose writings were imitated in England and Germany.
The "Chambers of Rhetoric," formed in the sixteenth century to provide
entertainment for the people, exerted so great an influence in promoting
a taste for art and literature among Belgians in general that our own
Motley could find nothing with which to compare it except the power of
the press in the nineteenth century. These chambers were really
theatrical guilds, composed almost entirely of artisans, and they not
only produced plays and recited original poetry but also arranged
pageants and musical festivals. In 1456, the Adoration of the Lamb was
reproduced as a tableau vivant by the chamber of rhetoric at Ghent. The
"Seven Joys of Mary" was given at Brussels for seven years, beginning in
1444, and was the best acted mystery of that time. Jean Ruysbroeck was
called the "Father of Flemish Prose," while Jean le Bel (a Walloon)
started a school of writers which rivaled that of France.
The treatment these rhetoricians received from the Spanish sovereigns is
sufficient proof that they were the mouthpiece of the people and voiced
their aspirations for freedom in both church and state--Charles V was
their persecutor, Philip II their executioner.
When the long struggle with Spain ended in the subjugation of the
Spanish Netherlands and art and literature were stifled in the southern
provinces of the Low Countries, Vondel, the Fleming, produced in his
safe retreat in Holland plays which are worthy of notice today. About
the same time the poet who is known as "le père des Flamands, le Vieux
Cats," had many followers, and his works were so popular that they were
called "The Household Bible."
Another exile, Jacques van Zèvecote, a native of Ghent, who also
emigrated to Holland during the Spanish oppression, was a great poet.
His hatred of Spain found expression in these vigorous lines:--
"The snow will cease to be cold,
The summer deprived of the rays
Of the sun, the clouds will be
Immovable, the huge sand-hills on the shore
Leveled, the fire will cease to burn,
Before you will find good faith
In the bosom of a Spaniard."
Under Napoleon the chambers of rhetoric were revived. In 1809, the
_concours_ of Ypres celebrated a "hero of the country." In 1810, Alost
called on Belgian poets to sing "The Glory of the Belgians." A young
poet named Lesbroussart won the prize in a fine poem full of the old
national spirit of the race. Jenneval, the author of the "Brabançonne,"
the national anthem, was killed in a battle between the Dutch and the
Belgians outside Antwerp, in the revolution of 1830.
About 1844 Abbe David, and Willems, a free thinker, started literary
societies, and later followed Henri Conscience and Ledeganck. Ledeganck
was called the Flemish Byron, and another poet, van Beers of Antwerp,
was often compared to Shelley. To the early years of free Belgium
belonged also Charles de Coster, whom Verhaeren calls "the father of
Belgian literature."
Henri Conscience, the Walter Scott of Flanders, was born in 1812, when
Belgium was under the rule of France. His father was a Frenchman, his
mother a Fleming. He first wrote in French, but in 1830 he said, "If
ever I gain the power to write, I shall throw myself head over ears into
Flemish literature." In 1830 he volunteered as a soldier in the army of
Belgian patriots.
His first historical romance, "Het Wonder-Jaar," written in Flemish, is
said to have been "the foundation-stone on which arose the new Flemish
school of literature." His two finest historical novels, "The Lion of
Flanders" and "The Peasants' War," describe the revolt of the Flemings
against French despotism, for "to raise Flanders was to him a holy aim."
The net profit to the author from the first of these books was six
francs!
The most artistic work that Conscience ever did, however, is found in
his tales of Flemish peasant life, one of which, "'Rikke-Tikke-Tak,'"
says William Sharp, "has not only been rendered into every European
tongue, but has been paraphrased to such an extent that variants of it
occur, in each instance as an indigenous folk-tale, in every land, from
Great Britain in the west to India and even China in the east."
Conscience says of himself, "I write my books to be read by the
people.... I have sketched the Flemish peasant as he appeared to me ...
when, hungry and sick, I enjoyed hospitality and the tenderest care
among them."
"After a European success ranking only after that of Scott, Balzac,
Dumas, Hugo, and Hans Andersen, Henri Conscience is still," wrote
William Sharp in 1896, thirteen years after the great Fleming's death,
"a name of European repute; is still, in his own country, held in the
highest honour and affection."
The Walloon country provided the historians, of whom Vanderkindère was
one of the ablest. Charles Potvin, born at Mons in 1818, was a Walloon
journalist and prolific writer on a variety of subjects. He held the
position of professor of the history of literature at the Royal Museum
of Industry in Brussels, was director of the _Revue de Belgique_, which
he founded, and was curator of the Wiertz Museum in Brussels. He was
poet, writer on political subjects, historian of art and literature,
critic and essayist; "a power in Belgian politics and literature, a
leader of democrats and free-thinkers." In his long life--he died in
1902--he produced a great number of works, among which were "La
Belgique," a poem, the "History of Civilization in Belgium," the
"History of Literature in Belgium," and a work on "Belgian
Nationality."
Camille Lemonnier, of Liège, wrote three or four novels before 1880. He
was a brilliant writer, who "touched modern society at almost every
point" in his books, but will perhaps be remembered chiefly as the
_doyen_ of the little band of "_la jeune Belgique_."
The students at Louvain in 1880, with their rival magazines, really laid
"the foundation of a literature which is in many respects the most
remarkable of contemporary Europe." At the head stand Maeterlinck and
Verhaeren. Edmond Glesener, a hero of Liège, is well known for his
novels.
In 1887, with the publication of the periodical, _La Parnasse de la
Jeune Belgique_, began a renaissance of poetry, which became distinctly
modern Belgian in character. Maurice Warlemont (Max Waller) was the
generally recognized founder of this paper. Verhaeren and other noted
contributors also wrote for the _Pléiade_, which was a famous Parisian
periodical at that time.
Maeterlinck is the best known of these modern Belgian writers, for many
of his plays have been well translated into English, and some have been
produced with great success in this country. He wrote at first in
Flemish, but soon changed to French. I admire his symbolic and
allegorical language, so mysterious and full of charm. It is said of his
earlier poems that "they require a key and are not literature but
algebra." Maeterlinck "has the happy faculty of making people think they
think."
Apropos of this mysticism of Maeterlinck's I may give the bon mot of a
witty Frenchman in regard to the Jeune Ecole Belge. He said that their
ambition was to write obscurely, and if the first writing seemed easy to
understand, they would scratch it out, and try again. At the second
attempt, if no one could understand it but the writer--that was still
too simple. If the public could not understand the third, nor the writer
himself, it was quite perfect.
Maurice Maeterlinck was born on August 29, 1862. As a boy, he lived at
Oostacker, in Flanders, and was sent to the College of Sainte Barbe, a
Jesuit school, where he studied for seven years. Among his friends in
this college was Jean Grégoire le Roi, who later became a well-known
poet. Even in those days Maeterlinck contributed to a literary review,
and like Verhaeren, he studied for the bar. At the age of twenty-four he
went to Paris, where he continued his friendship with le Roi.
Maeterlinck had a thin, harsh voice, which was much against him as a
lawyer, and he soon gave up that profession and turned his entire
attention to literature. He is short, stocky, Flemish in appearance, but
is a dreamer, shy, solitary, and moody.
[Illustration: MAURICE MAETERLINCK.]
In 1889, his first book of poems, "Serres Chaudes," was published. After
this he returned to Oostacker, and when he was not writing tended his
bees, which have always interested him.
In reading his earlier poems, I find they are principally concerned with
souls, hothouses, and hospitals. Some of them have a strange prophetic
note, and are also good examples of his style.[9]
[9] Translated by Edward Thomas.
This is an extract from "The Soul":
"And lo, it seems I am with my mother,
Crossing a field of battle.
They are burying a brother-in-arms at noon,
While the sentinels are snatching a meal."
The same strain is found in this bit from "The Hospital":
"All the lovely green rushes of the banks are in flames
And a boat full of wounded men is tossing in the moonlight!
All the king's daughters are out in a boat in the storm!
And the princesses are dying in a field of hemlock!"
Here is another passage. Does it not make one wonder what its meaning
can be?
"Do you not hear me calling, white deer with no horns?
I have been changed to a hound with one red ear;
I have been in the path of stones and the wood of thorns,
For somebody hid hatred, and hope, and desire, and fear
Under my feet that they follow you night and day."
From 1889 to 1896 Maeterlinck wrote many poems and eight plays. His
first play, "La Princesse Maleine," was a masterpiece, and is said to
have made an "epoch in the history of the stage." The author was named
the Belgian Shakespeare. Many of his plays, however, have a fairy-like
and unreal quality, so they have been termed "bloodless" or unhealthy. A
short synopsis of "La Princesse Maleine" will give an idea of the plot.
The scene opens at the betrothal banquet of the young Princess Maleine.
The fathers of the two young people quarrel over the arrangements. The
betrothal is broken, and war is declared between their countries. In the
attack on the castle, in the next act, the mother and father of the
Princess are killed, and she disappears with her nurse into the forest.
While escaping, she hears that her lover is to wed another. She decides
then that she will try to obtain a position as her rival's attendant and
learn the truth.
As she is very beautiful, she succeeds in arranging it, and is taken to
her rival's castle. The young Prince discovers Maleine's identity, and
realizes that, after all, she is the only one he really loves. The
mother of the spurned princess determines to poison Maleine, but the
physician does not make the potion deadly, and as she sickens slowly,
the wicked queen, tired of waiting for her death, twists a cord of hair
around Maleine's neck and kills her. The scene of the last act is the
cemetery near the castle where Maleine's funeral is going on. The lover
stabs the Queen in revenge for the girl's murder, and then kills
himself. The animals in the play all appear. The black hound is there,
bats and moles gather about; swans are seen in the castle moat, and
peacocks among the cypresses; owls perch on the crosses, and sheep graze
near the tombstone.
Among Maeterlinck's books of essays the best known are "The Bee," "The
Unknown Guest," and "Our Eternity." In one of his essays he writes that
he loves the idea of silence so much that the words of the people in his
plays "often seem no more than swallows flying about a deep and still
lake, whose surface they ruffle seldom and but for a moment."
Maeterlinck has continued writing poems and essays as well as plays. The
two dramas called "Palleas" and "Melisande" were put on the stage in
1893, and were greatly praised. In 1902 appeared "Le Temple Enseveli."
"Le Trésor des Humbles" was dedicated to Georgette Le Blanc, an actress,
who helped him write it. Later they were married and settled in Paris.
Here he lived a quiet life, writing constantly, and was seen by only a
few of his friends.
"Monna Vanna" was his first play in which the action was assigned to a
definite period. It was supposed to take place at the end of the
fifteenth century. A few years ago, it was well given in this country,
Mary Garden impersonating the heroine. Her rendering of the part was
widely discussed. "Sister Beatrice" was also produced in America, and
"Mary Magdalene" has been translated into English, as well as "The
Bluebird." The last named was beautifully given in New York, and was
superbly staged and very spectacular. It was so artistic, so original
and mysterious, and unlike anything that one had ever seen before, you
knew at once that it was the work of Maeterlinck. People swarmed to see
it, people went to hear it read, and people took it home to read.
Maeterlinck is now over fifty years old, and is at the height of his
popularity. He spends the winter at Katchema, near Grasse, in the south
of France, the summers at the ancient Benedictine Abbey of St.
Wandrille. During the war he has been lecturing in behalf of his native
country.
I quote from an address made by him in Milan: "It is not for me to
recall here the facts which hurled Belgium into the abyss of glorious
distress where she now struggles. She has been punished, as no nation
ever was punished, for doing her duty as no nation ever did it. She has
saved the world, in the full knowledge that she could not be saved.
"She saved the world by throwing herself across the path of the
barbarian horde, by allowing herself to be trampled to death in order to
give the champions of justice the necessary time, not to succour
her--she was aware that she could not be succoured in time--but to
assemble troops enough to free Latin civilization from the greatest
danger with which it has ever been threatened.
"The spectacle of an entire people, great and humble, rich and poor,
savants and unlettered, sacrificing themselves deliberately for
something which is invisible--that, I declare, has never been seen
before, and I say it without fear that any one can contradict me by
searching through the history of mankind. They did what had never been
done before, and it is to be hoped, for the good of mankind, that no
nation may ever be called upon again to do it."
Among other well-known Belgian authors Eugène Demolder may be mentioned.
In his historical novel, "Le Jardinier de la Pompadour," he has made the
eighteenth century live again in pages "vibrant with prismatic colours."
A charming characteristic of this book is the exquisite pictures of
flowers and woods. The critic Gilbert quotes a page, of which he says,
"It opens the story like a whiff of perfumes, for it symbolizes the
charm and the freshness of rural France in flower."
The works of Leopold Courouble are greatly enjoyed. He represents the
humour of Brabançon fiction. As the old painters of Flanders gave
expression to Flemish gaiety in their immortal canvases, so has
Courouble concentrated in "Les Fiançailles de Joseph Kaekebroeck" the
whole spirit of a race.
Le Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul is noted as a critic and essayist,
and has had five of his works crowned by the French Academy. Henri
Pirenne, author of "Histoire de la Belgique," is at the head of the list
of Belgian historians today. (There have been a number of patriotic
books written foreshadowing this war. Balzac wrote "France et Belgique,"
and it has been said that Balzac was the inspiration of the modern
writers of Belgium.)
Grégoire le Roi, Maeterlinck's friend, is described by Bithell as "the
poet of retrospection"--"the hermit bowed down by silver hair, bending
at eventide over the embers of the past, visited by weird guests draped
with legend." It is said "the weft of his verse is torn by translation,
it cannot be grasped, it is wafted through shadows."
Charles van Lerberghe wrote his play of the new school, "Les Flaireurs,"
in 1889, before Maeterlinck had published anything, but his work
resembles the latter's somewhat in style. He was born in 1862, of a
Flemish father and a Walloon mother, which resulted in a sort of dual
personality. Van Lerberghe was "a man for whom modern life had no more
existence than for a mediæval recluse," and he passed his happiest years
in an old-world village in the Ardennes. He died in 1907, having
published besides the play already mentioned, only three little books of
poetry, "Entrevisions," "La Chanson d'Eve," and "Pan"--small but
classic. Maeterlinck speaks of his verse as having a sort of "lyric
silence, a quality of sound such as we have not heard in our French
poetry." The early poems of Rossetti are suggested by his work.
"If poetry is music van Lerberghe is a poet. The charm of his verses is
unique," writes Bithell. Are not these stanzas on "Rain" exquisite?
"The rain, my sister dear,
The summer rain, warm and clear,
Gently flees, gently flies,
Through the moist atmosphere.
"Her collar of white pearls
Has come undone in the skies.
Blackbirds, sing with all your might,
Dance, magpies!
Among the branches downward pressed,
Dance, flowers, dance, every nest,
All that comes from the skies is blest."
"Fernand Severin, who was lecturer in French literature at the
University of Ghent, is a poet of great charm. His diction is apparently
that of Racine, but in substance he is essentially modern." The
following lines, from the translation by Bithell, will give an idea of
the grace and beauty of his style:
"Her sweet voice was a music in mine ear;
And in the perfume of the atmosphere
Which, in that eve, her shadowy presence shed,
'Sister of mystery,' trembling I said,
'Too like an angel to be what you seem,
Go not away too soon, beloved dream!'"
Albert Mockel is a fine musician and an excellent critic, as well as a
good poet, a combination which is very rare. He is learned, subtle and
brilliant. "Chantefable un peu Naïve" and "Clartés" contain musical
notations of rhythms.
I give here part of one of his poems called
THE CHANDELIER
"Jewels, ribbons, naked necks,
And the living bouquet that the corsage decks;
Women, undulating the soft melody
Of gestures languishing, surrendering--
And the vain, scattered patter of swift words--
Silken vestures floating, faces bright,
Furtive converse, gliding glances, futile kiss
Of eyes that flitting round alight like birds,
And flee, and come again coquettishly;
Laughter, and lying ... and all flying away
To the strains that spin the frivolous swarm around."
I also give an extract from his "Song of Running Water," that is quite
lovely.
"O forest! O sweet forest, thou invitest me to rest
And linger in thy shade with moss and shavegrass dressed,
Imprisoning me in swoon of soft caresses
That o'er me droop thy dense and leafy tresses."
"Verhaeren is the triumph of the Belgian race, the greatest of modern
poets," writes Stefan Zweig, who has translated many of his works.
Verhaeren is much admired by the Germans and Austrians, but is not so
well known in this country, as few of his books have been translated
into English. As Rubens with his brush depicted carousals and excesses,
so did Verhaeren depict the wildness and madness of youth with his
clever pen.
Emile Verhaeren was born in Flanders at St. Amand on the Scheldt, the
twenty-first of May, 1855. His parents were considered well-to-do and
owned a house and garden of their own on the edge of the town,
overlooking the yellow cornfields and the wide river. It was here
Emile's boyhood was spent, watching the peasants sow and reap, and the
white sails of the boats slowly drifting down to the great ocean. He was
blue-eyed and golden-haired in those days. The people loved him then,
and they love him now. As a boy he was sent to the Jesuit College of
Sainte Barbe, in Ghent, and it was hoped that he might in time join the
order. There he began writing verses, and there too he met the poet,
Georges Rodenbach, and Maeterlinck and Charles van Lerberghe, all of
whom later became famous. Emile refused to become a priest and he did
not wish to enter his uncle's workshop, so when his courses were
finished at Sainte Barbe, he was sent to Louvain to study law. His
student days were wild in the extreme.
[Illustration: EMILE VERHAEREN.]
In 1881 he went to Brussels to practice, but he was not a success as a
lawyer. Here he met artists and authors, and like many poets became
eccentric in his dress. "Les Flamandes" is the name of his first book.
When it was published his conservative parents were scandalized and the
critics were very severe, but all had to admit the primitive vitality
and savage strength of his work. "Les Moines" is his second book. These
sonnets describe the monks and are unlike his other poems.
As Verhaeren was unbridled in his studies as well as his follies, he had
a severe nervous breakdown. While convalescing he wrote "Les Soirs, Les
Débâcles, Les Flambeaux Noirs," which are extraordinary descriptions of
his physical and mental sensations during his illness.
After he recovered he married and traveled in Europe and in England.
Then for a time he gave lectures at the Université Libre in Brussels.
"Les Villes Tentaculaires," which describes the monster city, is called
magnificent. "Les Aubes" and the "Campagnes Hallucinées" were published
at the same time, and "La Foule" and "Vers la Mer" in the book entitled
"Les Visages de la Vie" are also fine.
Among Verhaeren's plays, "Le Cloître" is taken from his book of poems,
called "Les Moines." It is peculiar in having no woman in the cast, but
it was well given and proved successful. "Les Aubes" and "Hélène de
Sparte" were others of his plays.
The three following poems by this author are marvelous pieces of
description and thoroughly characteristic of Belgium:
A CORNER OF THE QUAY
"When the wind sulks, and the dune dries,
The old salts with uneasy eyes
Hour after hour peer at the skies.
"All are silent; their hands turning,
A brown juice from their lips they wipe;
Never a sound save, in their pipe,
The dry tobacco burning.
"That storm the almanac announces,
Where is it? They are puzzled.
The sea has smoothed her flounces.
Winter is muzzled.
"The cute ones shake their pate,
And cross their arms, and puff,
But mate by mate they wait,
And think the squall is late,
But coming sure enough.
"With fingers slow, sedate,
Their finished pipe they fill;
Pursuing, every salt,
Without a minute's halt,
The same idea still.
"A boat sails up the bay,
As tranquil as the day;
Its keel a long net trails,
Covered with glittering scales.
"Out come the men: What ho?
When will the tempest come?
With pipe in mouth, still dumb?
With bare foot on sabot,
The salts wait in a row.
"Here they lounge about,
Where all year long the stout
Fishers' dames
Sell, from their wooden frames,
Herrings and anchovies,
And by each stall a stove is,
To warm them with its flames.
"Here they spit together,
Spying out the weather.
Here they yawn and doze;
Backs bent with many a squall,
Rubbing it in rows,
Grease the wall.
"And though the almanac
Is wrong about the squall,
The old salts lean their back
Against the wall,
And wait in rows together,
Watching the sea and the weather."
FOGS
"You melancholy fogs of winter roll
Your pestilential sorrow o'er my soul,
And swathe my heart with your long winding sheet,
And drench the livid leaves beneath my feet,
While far away upon the heaven's bounds,
Under the sleeping plain's wet wadding, sounds
A tired, lamenting angelus that dies
With faint, frail echoes in the empty skies,
So lonely, poor, and timid that a rook,
Hid in a hollow archstone's dripping nook,
Hearing it sob, awakens and replies,
Sickening the woeful hush with ghastly cries,
Then suddenly grows silent, in the dread,
That in the belfry tower the bell is dead."
THE OLD MASTERS
"In smoky inns whose loft is reached by ladders,
And with a grimy ceiling splashed by shocks
Of hanging hams, black puddings, onions, bladders,
Rosaries of stuffed game, capons, geese, and cocks,
Around a groaning table sit the gluttons
Before the bleeding viands stuck with forks,
Already loosening their waistcoat buttons,
With wet mouths when from flagons leap the corks--
Teniers, and Brackenburgh, and Brauwer, shaken
With listening to Jan Steen's uproarious wit,
Holding their bellies dithering with bacon,
Wiping their chins, watching the hissing spit.
* * * * *
"Men, women, children, all stuffed full to bursting;
Appetites ravening, and instincts rife,
Furies of stomach, and of throats athirsting,
Debauchery, explosion of rich life,
In which these master gluttons, never sated,
Too genuine for insipidities,
Pitching their easels lustily, created
Between two drinking bouts a masterpiece."
Even amid the ruins of their country, Belgian writers, like the Belgian
people, are indomitable. Verhaeren, from his retreat in London, sends
out words that are a pæan of victory, and the bugle note of "Chantons,
Belges, chantons!" by another author, is a call to great deeds in the
future.