MAETERLINCK--BELGIAN SYMBOLIST AND POET-PLAYWRIGHT (1911)
The prize of 1911 has been awarded:
Maeterlinck, Maurice, born 1862: “because of his many-sided literary
activity and especially because of his dramatic creations which are
marked by wealth of fancy and poetic idealism that sometimes, in the
fairy play’s veiled form, reveals deep inspiration and, also, in a
mysterious way, appeals to the reader’s feeling and imagination.”[85]
The first decade of the Nobel prizes was over and a new group of
candidates was coming into the literary limelight in 1911. There
was hopeful speculation that the award might go to either Russia or
America, the two larger countries that have not yet been included.
There was, however, a new type of poetry and drama, and a writer of
unique personality, that were attracting widespread interest--namely,
the mystical and symbolic plays by Maurice Maeterlinck. The
announcement that he was the winner for 1911 caused much pride to the
little kingdom of Belgium. Maeterlinck wrote most of his plays in
French so they gained readers more quickly than those of his Belgian
predecessors and contemporaries. _On the Scent_, the drama by Charles
Van Lerberghe, has been compared to Maeterlinck’s earlier work by
Barrett H. Clark in _A Study of the Modern Drama_.[86] Other Belgian
playwrights commended by Mr. Clark are Henri Maubel and Edmond Picard.
[Illustration:
_By courtesy of Dodd, Mead & Co._
MAURICE MAETERLINCK]
Maeterlinck was not quite fifty years old when the Nobel honor came to
him. He was born in Ghent, in 1862, of good ancestry. He recalled the
surroundings of his early life--the gardens and the sea and the ships
in sight. Especially was he interested in the Flemish peasants as they
sat, in quiet, stolid attitudes, in the doorways of their cottages
or by the smoking lamps. One group impressed his boyhood memory, as
he saw them on his way from school--seven toothless brothers and a
sister. Their lethargy and inert lives awakened him, in young manhood,
to psychological curiosity; their strange traditions and unreasoning
fears are reflected in some of his plays. His father was anxious to
have him study law, so he read and practised for a little time in
Ghent--long enough “to lose a case or two,” he said with humorous
reminiscence. He spent seven years at a Jesuit College, and showed a
mind of philosophical trend. He thought that in Paris he might come
into contact with men of literary rank and scholars. Villiers was
his especial influence there; another inspirational friend was Octave
Mirabeau to whom Maeterlinck dedicated his first published plays,
_Princess Maleine_ and _Pelléas and Mélisande_. In too extravagant
praise Mirabeau hailed Maeterlinck as “the Belgian Shakespeare” and
Maeterlinck became the victim of flattery, on one hand, and ridicule
on the other. He bore himself with calm dignity then as he has all his
life; his serene manner and low voice, in contrast with his muscular
physique, have been noted by many acquaintances.
Before the death of his father, in 1889, he returned to Belgium and
lived there for seven years, continuing his studies of nature and
metaphysics, writing marionette plays, and more serious dramas, and
making translations from authors of other tongues, including English,
that left impressions upon his mind. He declared that the three
writers who exerted the strongest influence during these formative
years were Emerson, Novalis, and Ruysbroeck, the medieval mystic whose
writings were translated by Maeterlinck when he was a student at the
Jesuit College. To visitors from America he delights to show his worn
copy of Emerson. In his collected studies, _On Emerson and Other
Essays_, translated by Montrose J. Moses, he summarizes the Concord
philosopher’s thoughts about “the greatness of man’s spiritual nature,
about the forces of the soul.” In conclusion of his vital influence,
he writes: “Emerson has come to affirm simply this equal and secret
grandeur of our life. He has encompassed us with silence and with
wonder. He has placed a shaft of light beneath the feet of the workman
as he leaves the workshop. He has shown us all the powers of heaven and
earth, at the same time intent on sustaining the threshold on which
two neighbors speak of the rain that falls or the wind that blows. And
above these two passers-by who accost each other, he has made us see
the countenance of God who smiles with the countenance of God. He is
nearer than any other to our common life. He is the most attentive,
the most assiduous, the most honest, the most scrupulous, and probably
the most human of guides. He is the sage of commonplace days, and
commonplace days are, in sum, the substance of our being.”[87]
In 1896 Maeterlinck returned to Paris and there he has made his home.
He refused to renounce his Belgian citizenship, however, that he might
become a member of the French Academy; during the war he did valiant
service in many ways for his native country. In his home town to-day,
and at Brussels, the visitor is told of Belgian pride in Maeterlinck;
the people say, “You know he has lived in Paris almost all his life but
he is a true patriot, just the same.” To the years in Belgium, between
1889 and 1896, belong such plays as _The Blind_, _The Intruder_,
_The Seven Princesses_, _Alladine and Palomides_ and _The Death of
Tintagiles_. It is a question whether he has surpassed, in dramatic
vigor combined with mystic beauty, that play of earlier period,
_Pelléas and Mélisande_. Like the story of _Paolo and Francesca_, which
it resembles in theme, it has an appealing quality both on the stage
and in the book. The tragic death of Mélisande, after the murder of her
lover and the birth of her daughter, reflects a high-light of dramatic
power. The lines are simple in diction, masterly in structure and
suggestion.
One of the first translators of Maeterlinck into English was Richard
Hovey, the brilliant American poet who died in his prime. In two
decorative volumes, first issued in Chicago (Stone & Kimball) in
1894-1896, he interpreted, as well as translated, these earlier plays
already cited. The Introduction in the first volume is informing
for all students of modern drama. Mr. Hovey defined Symbolism, as
distinguished from Realism and Expressionism; he joined with the name
of Maeterlinck, such other exponents of Symbolism as Mallarmé, Gilbert
Parker, and Bliss Carman. Two traits distinguished the Belgian from
other symbolists of his day, according to this interpreter--“the
peculiarity of his technique, and the limitation of his emotional
range.” The use of reiteration is cited as a French characteristic
for effective emphasis. “The danger-border between the tragic and
the ridiculous” is a menace to Maeterlinck. More true of his earlier
than his later plays is another restriction noted by Mr. Hovey: “His
master-tone is always terror--terror, too, of one type--that of the
churchyard.... He is the poet of the sepulchre, like Poe--as masterly
in his own methods as Poe was in his, and destined, perhaps, to exert
the same wide influence.”[88] _Premonition_ plays a large part in the
plays of Maeterlinck from _The Blind_ and _Home_ to _Joyzelle_.
In Paris, under the stimulus of literary associates and the comradeship
of Georgette Le Blanc (the actress who became his wife), Maeterlinck
wrote three plays that register his dramatic climax--_Joyzelle_, _Monna
Vanna_ (1903) and _The Blue Bird_ (1908). Probably, the last symbolic
drama was the primal cause of the Nobel award. The idealism, the
delicate fancy, the imaginative charm, the fascinating characters in
every scene, real or fantastic, and the pervasive message for every
age and land, give to this play a perennial appeal. As Maeterlinck
affirmed, this play, like others of the type, may lose some of its
“mystic transparency” and symbolism on the stage but it has been
alluring both as acted play and as a film. Why there should have been
“a sequel” to such a perfect, complete play as _The Blue Bird_ is a
question that has troubled many a critic. Resentment against _The
Betrothal_, the continuance of this fairy-tale play, however, gives way
before appreciation of its fine passages and strong message. At the
same time, the impression lingers that Tyltyl, like Peter Pan, should
“never have grown up.” Alexander Teixeira de Mattos has made a fine
translation of _The Betrothal_ and Edith Wynne Mattison was a charming
“Fairy Berylune,” when the play was given in New York. Here Maeterlinck
ventured almost too near the borderland between fantasy and farce,
especially in Act II, where the girls, who would marry Tyltyl, reveal
their lower natures.
The versatility of Maeterlinck is evidenced by comparing such plays,
within ten years, as _Joyzelle_ and _The Blue Bird_, _Monna Vanna_
and _Mary Magdalene_. _Joyzelle_ has elements of dramatic ecstasy
with a tragic undertone. Professor William Lyon Phelps has summarized
well the salient qualities of this play and its heroine in _Essays on
Modern Dramatists_ (New York, 1921). _Monna Vanna_, written especially
for Maeterlinck’s wife, is a rare blend of intense emotionalism and
convincing characters with a crisis which challenges the reason.
Giovanna, or Monna Vanna, wife of Guido Colonna, commander of the
garrison at Pisa, will remain as Maeterlinck’s most vital heroine.
Prinzivalle, general of the Florentines and her boyhood lover, is an
idealized hero for his age but convincing in his chivalry. Medieval
atmosphere and dramatic action accentuate the strong dialogue of this
play. Ten years later, in 1913, appeared _Mary Magdalene_. In his
Introduction, Maeterlinck relates, with some feeling, his effort to
win cordial response from Paul Heyse, who had written a play on the
same theme and with certain situations that the Belgian wished to
use. Meeting with a refusal, “none too courteous I regret to say,”
he decided to take his privilege of using Biblical words and his
previously conceived situation. He gives to Mary Magdalene a few
masterly lines; to Joseph of Arimathea, she says, “We save those whom
we love; we listen to them afterwards.” To the Roman Verus, who would
have her save Jesus by yielding herself to him, she replies: “I should
perhaps sin against all that he loves, to save what I love. I could
save him in spite of himself; but no longer in spite of myself. If I
bought his life at the price which you offer, all that he wished, all
that he loved, would be dead. I cannot plunge the flame into the mire
to save the lamp.”[89]
The war left deep scars upon Maeterlinck’s spirit; they are reflected
in such essays and plays as _The Wrack of the Storm_, _Belgium at
War_, _The Burgomaster at Stilemonde_, _The Cloud that Lifted_, and
_The Power of the Dead_. Some of the essays, or chapters, in the
book first mentioned, deal with psychometry, the interest which is
expanded in other books like _The Great Secret_, _Our Eternity_, _The
Unknown Guest_, and _The Light Beyond_. That man is the product of
unseen forces, that he is molded by “hidden powers,” that humanity
and nature are always closely linked, were tenets that underlay such
books as _Treasure of the Humble_, _Life and Flowers_, and _The Life
of the Bee_. He became a beekeeper that he might study at first-hand
the traits of these workers and apply their analogy to humanity--much
as Dallas Lore Sharp has done more recently in _The Spirit of the
Hive_. In the beehives and the garden, Maeterlinck finds the same
complications and conflicts, the same “domination of the spirit of the
race,” as among men. In an essay in his earlier book, _Treasure of the
Humble_, he expressed a surety which has been verified with the passing
of the years: “A time may come perhaps--and many things herald its
approach--a time will come, perhaps, when our souls will know each
other without the intermediary of the senses.”
To penetrate beyond the tangible things of life requires courage but
brings light to the spirit. In his plays, _Ariadne and Blue Beard_
and _Sister Beatrice_, translated by Bernard Miall into English verse
(1916), and _The Miracle of Saint Anthony_, translated by Alexander
Teixeira de Mattos (1918), Maeterlinck has suggested the neglected but
magic “key” which may gain for us new adventures into “the prohibitions
of the tangible world.” The _premonition_ of his earlier plays has
become the _intuition_ which penetrates the unknown and supernatural.
Life has been symbolized by him as “a garden,” as an “inner temple,” as
analogous to the world of plants and “the swarm” of the bees. He seldom
reveals passionate feeling in his writings, but he exemplifies search
for truth, “care for moral stoic beauty.”[90] Intuition, as interpreted
by Bergson, he has expanded into the “raison mystique” by which one
may penetrate the unknown and the mystic. There are shades of gloom
and sadness in many of his plays; his characters are sometimes weak in
conflict with the forces about them; there are hints of fatalism in
plays like _The Intruder_, _The Death of Tintagiles_, and _Interior_,
but the keynote of Maeterlinck, in his maturity, has been that of
spiritual progress and mystic idealism.
FOOTNOTES:
[85] Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1911.
[86] New York, 1925, p. 161.
[87] _On Emerson and Other Essays_ by Maurice Maeterlinck, translated
by Montrose J. Moses, New York, 1912. By permission of Dodd, Mead & Co.
[88] _The Plays of Maurice Maeterlinck_, translated by Richard Hovey,
Chicago, 1894-96.
[89] _Mary Magdalene_ by Maurice Maeterlinck, translated by Alexander
Teixeira de Mattos, New York, 1910, Act IV. By permission of Dodd, Mead
& Co.
[90] _Some Modern Belgian Writers_ by Turquet Milnes, New York, 1917.