Belgian literature, taken in the widest sense of the term, falls into
three groups, consisting of works written respectively in Flemish,
Walloon and French. The earlier Flemish authors are treated under DUTCH
LITERATURE; the revival of Flemish Literature (q.v.) since the
separation of Belgium from the Netherlands in 1830, and Walloon
Literature (q.v.), are each separately noticed. The earlier French
writers born on what is now Belgian territory--e.g. Adenes le Rois, Jean
Froissart, Jean Lemaire des Belges and others--are included in the
general history of French Literature (q.v.). It remains to consider the
literature written by Belgians in French during the 19th century, and
its rapid development since the revolution of 1831.
Belgian writers were commonly charged with provincialism, but the
prejudice against them has been destroyed by the brilliant writers of
1870-1880. It was also asserted that Belgian French literature lacked a
national basis, and was merely a reflection of Parisian models. The most
important section of it, however, has a distinctive quality of its own.
Many of its most distinguished exponents are Flemings by birth, and
their writings reflect the characteristic Flemish scenery; they have the
sensuousness, the colour and the realism of Flemish art; and on the
other hand the tendency to mysticism, to abstraction, is far removed
from the lucidity and definiteness associated with French literature
properly so-called. This profoundly national character disengaged itself
gradually, and has been more strikingly evident since 1870. The earlier
writers of the century were content to follow French tradition.
The events of 1830-1831 gave a great stimulus to Belgian letters, but
the country possessed writers of considerable merit before that date.
Adolphe Mathieu (1802-1876) belongs to the earlier half of the century,
although the tenth and last volume of his _Oeuvres en vers_ was only
printed in 1870. His later works show the influence of the Romantic
revival. Auguste Clavareau (1787-1864), a mediocre poet, an imitator of
the French and Dutch, produced some successful comedies, but he ceased
to write plays before 1830. Edouard Smits (1789-1852) showed romantic
tendencies in his tragedies of _Marie de Bourgogne_ (1823), _Elfrida_
(1825), and _Jeanne de Flandre_ (1828). The first of these had a great
success, partly no doubt because of its patriotic subject. For four
years before 1830 Andre van Hasselt (q.v.) had been publishing his
verses in the _Sentinelle des Pays-Bas_, and from 1829 onwards he was an
ardent romanticist. A burst of literary and artistic activity followed
the Revolution; and van Hasselt's house became a centre of poets,
artists and musicians of the romantic school. The best work of the
Belgian romanticists is in the rich and picturesque prose of the 16th
century romance of Charles de Coster (see DE COSTER), and in the
melancholy and semi-philosophical writings of the moralist Octave Pirmez
(q.v.). The _Poesies_ (1841) and the _Chansons_ (1866) of Antoine Clesse
(1816-1889), have been compared with the work of Beranger; and the
Catholic party found a champion against the liberals and revolutionists
in the satirical poet, Benoit Quinet (b. 1819). Among the famous
dramatic pieces of this epoch was the _Andre Chenier_ (1843) of Edouard
Wacken (1819-1861), who was a lyric rather than a dramatic poet; also
the comedies of Louis Labarre (1810-1892) and of Henri Delmotte
(1822-1884). Charles Potvin (1818-1902), a poet and a dramatist, is best
known by a patriotic _Histoire des lettres en Belgique_, forming vol.
iv. of the Belgian compilation, _Cinquante ans de liberte_ (1882), and
by his essays in literary history. Eugene van Bemmel (1824-1880)
established an excellent historical tradition in his _Histoire de la
Belgique_ (1880), reproducing textually the original authorities, and
also edited a Belgian Encyclopaedia (1873-1875), the _Patria Belgica_.
Baron E.C. de Gerlache (1785-1871) wrote the history of the Netherlands
from the ultramontane standpoint. The romanticists were attacked in an
amusing satire, _Les Voyages et aventures de M. Alfred Nicolas_ (1835),
by Francois Grandgagnage (1797-1877), who was a nationalist in the
narrowest sense, and regarded the movement as an indefensible invasion
of foreign ideas. The best of the novelists of this period, excluding
Charles de Coster, was perhaps Estelle Ruelens (_nee_ Crevecoeur;
1821-1878); she wrote under the pseudonym of "Caroline Graviere." Her
tales were collected by the bibliophile "P.L. Jacob" (Paris, 1873-1874).
The whole of this literature derived more or less from foreign sources,
and, with the exception of Charles de Coster and Octave Pirmez, produced
no striking figures. De Coster died in 1879, and Pirmez in 1883, and the
new movement in Belgian literature dates from the banquet given in the
latter year to Camille Lemonnier (q.v.) whose powerful personality did
much to turn "Young Belgium" into a national channel. Lemonnier himself
cannot be exclusively claimed by any of the conflicting schools of young
writers. He was by turns naturalist, lyrist and symbolist; and it has
been claimed that the germs of all the later developments in Belgian
letters may be traced in his work. The quinquennial prize of literature
had been refused to his _Un male_, and the younger generation of artists
and men of letters gave him a banquet which was recognized as a protest
against the official literature, represented by Louis Hymans
(1829-1884), Gustave Frederix (b. 1834), the literary critic of
_L'Independance belge_, and others. The centres around which the young
writers were grouped were two reviews, _L'Art moderne_ and _La Jeune
Belgique_. _L'Art moderne_ was founded in 1882 by Edmond Picard, who had
as his chief supporters Victor Arnould and Octave Maus. The first editor
of _La Jeune Belgique_ was M. Warlomont (1860-1889), known under the
pen-name of "Max Waller." This review, which owed much of its success to
Waller's energy, defended the intense preoccupation of the new writers
with questions of style, and became the depository of the Parnassian
tradition in Belgium. It had among its early contributors Georges
Eekhoud, Albert Giraud, Iwan Gilkin and Georges Rodenbach. Edmond Picard
(b. 1836) was one of the foremost in the battle. He was well known as an
advocate in Brussels, and made a considerable contribution to
jurisprudence as the chief writer of the _Pandectes belges_ (1886-1890).
His _Pro arte_ (1886) was a kind of literary code for the young Belgian
writers. His novels, of which _La Forge Roussel_ (1881) is a good
example, were succeeded in 1902-1903 by two plays, _Jericho_ and
_Fatigue de vivre_.
Georges Eekhoud, born at Antwerp on the 27th of May 1854, was in some
ways the most passionately Flemish of the whole group. He described the
life of the peasants of his native Flanders with a bold realism, making
himself the apologist of the vagabond and the outcast in a series of
tragic stories:--_Kees Doorik_ (1883), _Kermesses_ (1883), _Nouvelles
Kermesses_ (1887), _Le Cycle patibulaire_ (1892), _Mes Communions_
(1895), _Escal Vigor_ (1899) and _La Faneuse d'amour_ (1900), &c.
_Nouvelle Carthage_ (1888) deals with modern Antwerp. In 1892 he
produced a striking book on English literature entitled _Au siecle de
Shakespeare_, and has written French versions of Beaumont and Fletcher's
_Philaster_ (1895) and of Marlow's _Edward II._ (1896).
The earlier work of "Young Belgium" in poetry was experimental in
character, and was marked by extravagances of style and a general
exuberance which provoked much hostile criticism. The young writers of
1870 to 1880 had not long to wait, however, for recognition both at home
and in Paris, where many of them found hospitality in the pages of the
_Mercure de France_ from 1890 onwards. They divided their allegiance
between the leaders of the French Parnassus and the Symbolists.
The most powerful of the Belgian poets, Emile Verhaeren (q.v.), is the
most daring in his technical methods of expressing bizarre sensation,
and has been called the "poet of paroxysm." His reputation extends far
beyond the limits of his own country.
Many of the Belgian poets adhere to the classical form. Albert Giraud
(born at Louvain in 1860) was faithful to the Parnassian tradition in
his _Pierrot lunaire_ (1884), _Pierrot narcisse_ (1891) and _Hors du
siecle_ (1886). In the earlier works of Iwan Gilkin (born at Brussels in
1858) the influence of Charles Baudelaire is predominant. He wrote
_Damnation de l'artiste_ (1890), _Tenebres_ (1892), _Stances dorees_
(1893), _La Nuit_ (1897) and _Promethee_ (1899). The poems of Valere
Gille (born at Brussels in 1867), whose _Cithare_ was crowned by the
French Academy in 1898, belong to the same group. Emile van Arenberghe
(born at Louvain in 1854) is the author of some exquisite sonnets.
Fernand Severin (b. 1867) in his _Poemes ingenus_ (1900) aims at
simplicity of form, and seems to have learnt the art of his musical
verse direct from Racine. With Severin is closely associated Georges
Marlow (b. 1872), author of _L'Ame en exil_ (1895).
Georges Rodenbach (1855-1898) spent most of his life in Paris and was an
intimate of Edmond de Goncourt. He produced some Parisian and purely
imitative work; but the best part of his production is the outcome of a
passionate idealism of the quiet Flemish towns in which he had passed
his childhood and early youth. In his best known work, _Bruges la Morte_
(1892), he explains that his aim is to evoke the town as a living being,
associated with the moods of the spirit, counselling, dissuading from
and prompting action.
The most famous of all modern Belgian writers, Maurice Maeterlinck
(q.v.), made his debut in a Parisian journal, the _Pleiade_, in 1886. He
succeeded more nearly than any of his predecessors in expressing or
suggesting ideas and emotions which might have been supposed to be
capable of translation only in terms of music. "The unconscious self, or
rather the sub-conscious self," says Emile Verhaeren, "recognized in the
verse and prose of Maeterlinck its language or rather its stammering
attempt at language." Maeterlinck was a native of Ghent, and the first
poems of two of his fellow-townsmen also appeared in the _Pleiade_.
These were Gregoire le Roy (b. 1862), author of _La Chanson d'un soir_
(1886), and _Mon Coeur pleure d'autrefois_ (1889); and Charles van
Lerberghe (b. 1861), author of a play, _Les Flaireurs_ (1890) and a
collection of _Poemes_ (1897).
Max Elskamp (born at Antwerp in 1862) is the author of some volumes of
religious poetry--_Dominical_ (1892), _Salutations, dont d'angeliques_
(1893), _En symbole vers l'apostolat_ (1895)--for which he has devised
as background an imaginary city. Eugene Demolder (b.1862) also created a
mythical city as a setting for his prose _contes_ in the _Legende
d'Yperdamme_ (1897).
Belgian literary activity extends also to historical research. Baron
Kervyn de Lettenhove (1817-1891) wrote a _Histoire de Flandre_ (7 vols.,
1847-1855), and a number of monographs on separate points in Flemish and
English history. Though an accurate historian, he allowed himself lo be
prejudiced by his extreme Catholic views. He was a vehement defender of
Mary Stuart. Louis Gachard (1800-1885) wrote many valuable works on 16th
century history; Mgr. Nameche (1810-1893) completed the 29th volume of
his _Cours d'histoire nationale_ before his death; Charles Piot (b.
1812) edited the correspondence of Cardinal de Granvelle; Alphonse
Wauters (1818-1898), archivist of Brussels, published many
archaeological works; and Charles Rahlenbeck (1823-1903) wrote
enthusiastically of the history of Protestantism in Belgium. One of the
most masterly writers of French in Belgium was the economist Emile de
Laveleye (q.v.). In aesthetics should be noted the historian of music,
Francois Joseph Fetis (1784-1871); F.A. Gevaert (1828-1908), author of
_Histoire et theorie de la musique d'antiquite_ (2 vols., 1875-1881);
and Victor Mahillon (b. 1841) for his work in acoustics and his
descriptive catalogue (1893-1900) of the museum of musical instruments
belonging to the Brussels conservatoire. In psychology Joseph Delboeuf
(1831-1896) enjoyed a great reputation outside Belgium; Elisee Reclus
(b. 1830), though a Frenchman by birth, completed his _Geographie
universelle_ (1875-1894) in exile at Brussels; and Ernest Nys has
written many standard works on international law. In the history of
literature an important work is compiled by Ferdinand van der Haeghen
and others in the _Bibliotheca Belgica_ (1880, &c.), comprising a
description of all the books printed in the Netherlands in the 15th and
16th centuries. The vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul (1836-1907) was
well known in France as the author of _Sainte-Beuve inconnu_ (1901), _La
Genese d'un roman de Balzac_ (1901), _Une Page perdue de H. de Balzac_
(1903), and of numerous bibliographical works.
See F.V. Goethals, _Histoire des lettres, des sciences et des arts en
Belgique_ (4 vols., 1840-1844); Fr. Masoin, _Histoire de la
litterature francaise en Belgique de 1815 a 1830_ (1903); F. Nautet,
_Histoire des lettres belges d'expression francaise_ (3 vols., 1892 et
seq.), written from the point of view of young Belgium, and by no
means impartial; A. de Koninck, _Bibliographie nationale_ brought down
to 1880; _Biographie nationale de Belgique_ (1866, &c.) in progress;
see also articles by Emile Verhaeren in the _Revue des revues_ (15th
June 1896), by Albert Mockel in the _Revue encyclopedique_ (24th July
1897); a collection of criticisms chiefly on Belgian writers by Eugene
Gilbert, _France et Belgique; etudes litteraires_ (1905); Frederic
Faber, _Histoire du theatre francais en Belgique_ (5 vols.,
1878-1880). An excellent anthology of Belgian poets was published by
K. Pol de Mont with the title of _Modernites_ (1898). (E. G.)