M maeterlinck years of life. Biography of Maurice Maeterlinck
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The work of Maurice Maeterlinckfull nameMaurice Polydor Marie Bernard Maeterlinck)
1862, Ghent, Belgium -1949, Nice
Maurice Maeterlinck - Belgian playwright, prose writer, essayist, author of philosophical treatises. He wrote only in French. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. One of the first symbolists. Symbolism in drama.
Lawyer by training - studied law at the University of Ghent. Having received a diploma in 1885, he goes to Paris in order to improve in jurisprudence, but those six months that he spent in Paris were entirely devoted to literature. In Paris, he met Stéphane Mallarmé and one of the founders of symbolism, Auguste Villiers de Lisle-Adan, and attended literary circles. On the advice of the decadent writer Joris Carl Huysmans, Maeterlinck read the 14th-century Flemish mystic Jan van Rausbroek's Ornament of Spiritual Marriage, and in 1891 translated it into French.
At the end of the last century in French literary environment were in great vogue all sorts of questionnaires. In 1891, when symbolism was celebrating its fifth anniversary, the journalist Jules Huret sought out Paul Verlaine at the then-famous Café François First, located on Boulevard Saint-Michel, and asked him questions about symbolism. "Symbolism? - the poet was surprised. - I don't know anything about him... Must be a German word, right? I wish I knew what they could express. However, I don't care. When I suffer, when I enjoy or cry, I know for sure: this is not symbolism. Jules Huret in the questionnaire did not pass by the young Belgian symbolists, who in many ways set the tone literary life that time. And one of the first to answer his questionnaire was 29-year-old Maurice Maeterlinck - by that time he was already the author of the book of poems "Greenhouses" and several plays that immediately gained fame, including "Princess Malene" and "The Blind". “I don’t think that a symbol by itself can give rise to a living work, but any living creation is always symbolic. The image may confuse me, but if it is organic and accurate, then it means that it is subject to the universal law more strictly than my mind ... "And in the essay "Confessions of a Poet", answering questions posed to him by another critic, Edmond Picard, Maeterlinck added: “I listen attentively and more and more concentratedly to all obscure voices human soul... I would like to study everything that is not formulated in a living being, everything that has no expression either in life or in death, everything that seeks an echo in the very heart ... ". Maeterlinck's dramaturgy became the artistic embodiment of these tasks, and his natural-philosophical works became the theoretical embodiment.
In 1889 the first poetry book Maeterlinck " Greenhouses ", permeated with moods of decadence: "desires buried under reaped silences", sadness, melancholy, "numb soul". In the same 1889, Maeterlinck's play was published - a fairy tale play " Princess Malene ”, which subsequently brought Maeterlinck big success. The first book of poems and the first drama did not find their reader at first and were not sold out. In the same year, the head of the French symbolists Stéphane Mallarmé arrived in Ghent, Maeterlinck was introduced to him, who soon after this meeting sent his play to Mallarmé in Paris. The French symbolists highly appreciated the play, they found in it ideas and images consonant with the philosophy of symbolism. Already in 1890, Maeterlinck became famous. One of the influential critics of the newspaper "Figaro" wrote that "Princess Malene" is "the most work of genius of our time, which, by the strength of its unusualness and naivety, is worthy of comparison with Shakespeare. The play was created based on the fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm "The Malene Girl". Maeterlinck depicts a person outside of society, shows the inner movement of the individual, his person and the world are tragic and bifurcated. The language of the play is complex, the basis of the text is subtext. Fate, Fate, which subjugate people - the main theme of Maeterlinck's dramas. He introduces a special type of hero - "warned". “Warned” are, as a rule, children, old people, blind people, young girls, because they intuitively can come closer to understanding Fate, see it, feel its presence in the world by secret signs.
The play "Princess Malene" was not intended to be staged. But Maeterlinck, yielding to numerous requests, gives her to the theater. Inspired by his success, he leaves his legal career and decides to devote himself entirely to literature. In May 1891, in Paris, at the Art Theater, the premiere of the play “ Unbidden" (1890). Maeterlinck becomes a recognized author, the initiator of a new direction in drama. There is practically no action in this short drama - this is the so-called. "static theater", or "theater of silence", "theater of expectation", to which Maeterlinck's early dramas, in which expectation is reproduced, can be attributed. "Unbidden" is Maeterlinck's first drama about death, the entire action of the play takes place in a room where the family is waiting for the doctor and a message about the health of the mother in labor. A young woman dies, In the next one-act drama - "Blind" (1890) - a metaphor for death is a group of blind people lost in a dark forest. The concept of the world and man: an island, a shelter for the blind, a dead priest who was their guide. Among the blind there was only one seer - a newborn child, he screams in fear, because he foresees the secret of the future, which inspires him with horror. With the help of these allegorical images, Maeterlinck represents the whole of humanity, which has lost the meaning of life and is blind in its egoism.
The plays Unbidden, The Blind, There, Inside (1894), The Death of Tentagil (1894), Aladdin and Palomides (1894) Maeterlinck himself attributed to the puppet theater (“puppet theater”). The meaning of this term is twofold. Maeterlinck turns to puppet theater because, unlike live actors, puppets can better represent a person in general, embody a symbol, convey the archetype of his characters, while any actor will bring too much personal into his game. At the same time, Maeterlinck's heroes are indeed puppets, because they themselves do not choose their own life path, but obey Rock - a terrible unknowable force standing over a person.
In 1891, the play “ seven princesses "- a fairy tale about a prince who must wake up seven princesses from a deadly sleep, the prince saves everyone except his beloved. Maeterlinck soon realizes that the laws of the "static theater" are too rigid and strict, they cannot always reveal the author's ideas. In 1892 he wrote a five-act drama " Peléas and Melisande "- the story of criminal passion with a tragic ending. In this play, conflict appears and the plot develops, but the development of events is deliberately slowed down and is perceived as a tragic dream. external action slowed down internally, all attention is focused on the hidden complex mental life person. deep psychological characteristics heroes are still missing. The characters of the play represent, as it were, two types - initiates and people with ordinary consciousness. The play does not indicate a specific historical time, the space is also conditional (castle, park, dungeon, forest), thus the action in it acquires a general, universal character. The world in the play is divided into the cognizable real world and the mysterious world, terrible in its unknowability. As in early plays, all the characters are dominated by Fate, and the characters are powerless to oppose anything. evil fate. Later, Maeterlinck begins to reconsider his positions, his heroes become able to resist Doom. In 1896, the play “ Ariana and Bluebeard (subtitled "Vain Liberation"). Maeterlinck again creates a play on the plot of a fairy tale, in this case fairy tales by Charles Perrault. As before, there is a Mystery in the play, but now it has lost its transcendental unknowable essence. Ariana opens the forbidden door to the dungeon with the key and finds Bluebeard's previously disappeared wives there. Maeterlinck gives them the names of the heroines of his plays: Selysette, Melisande, Igrena, Aladdin, etc. Ariana frees everyone from the terrible dungeon, gives them the opportunity to become free, but they themselves remain at the mercy of Bluebeard. Conclusion: the cause of lack of freedom is in the person himself, and only with the help of his own courage and activity of a person can evil be defeated. In treatises written at the same time, Maeterlinck comes to the conclusion that man is not only an insignificant part of the unknowable universe, but at the same time - a unique personality. This position enables Maeterlinck to combine the universal and the individual personal in the depiction of a person's character, his characters become more active, because they have hope for success.
The best and most popular of Maeterlinck's plays is « Blue bird» (1908). In Russia, it was first staged by Stanislavsky in 1908 in the Moscow Art Theater. In this play, Maeterlinck returns to the symbolic fairy-tale style of his works of the 1890s, as a result, fairy-tale fantasy and allegory appear in the play. Maeterlinck refers to the fairy tale genre because the fairy tale is the deepest and simplest expression of the collective consciousness, appeals to human feelings. In a dream, the woodcutter's children Tiltil and Mitil set off with the Soul of Light in search of the Blue Bird. They overcome many difficulties and, returning home, they see a dove in their house, which seems to be a real Blue Bird to their neighbor. The blue bird is an ambiguous image referring to the "blue flower" of Novalis. In this play, the Blue Bird is primarily a symbol of free knowledge. The story of one of the heroes of this play - Tyltile - Maeterlinck then continues in the extravaganza play "Betrothal" (1918).
In 1911, Maeterlinck was awarded the Nobel Prize "for his many-sided literary activity, especially for dramatic works marked by a wealth of imagination and poetic fantasy". Due to illness, Maeterlinck could not attend solemn ceremony, and the award was presented to the Belgian Ambassador to Sweden. Maeterlinck was soon offered to become a member of the Académie française, but he declined the offer because he would have to renounce his Belgian citizenship in order to do so.
In the preface to the collection of his dramas, Maeterlinck wrote:
Depicting the absolute and incorrigible weakness of man, we will come closest to the last and fundamental truth of our being, and if even one of the characters thrown into this hostile nothingness manages to rise to a few gestures of warmth and tenderness, to a few penetrating words of fragile hope, pity and love, it means that we did what was in our power when we pushed the world to the borders of that huge and motionless beginning that paralyzes us and reduces the desire to live.
After 1918 Maeterlinck's theater changed its character, moving closer to neo-romantic or realistic. IN last years In his lifetime, Maeterlinck wrote more articles and philosophical treatises than plays. In total, Maeterlinck wrote 23 philosophical treatises - from early aesthetic reflections own creativity(book "Treasure of the humble", 1896) and works, dedicated to the problems ethics and knowledge (the first of them, “Wisdom and Destiny”, appeared in 1898), to the last theosophical works “Before God” (1937), “The Great Gate” (1939), “Another World, or star clock"(1942). In the treatise "Death" (1913) metaphysical problems are raised - it tends to pantheism. Of greatest interest today are those of them that are devoted to the direct study of nature, and especially those that were written in the "star" decade of Maeterlinck's work, in the nine hundred years, when his most famous plays were also written - natural philosophical essays "Bee Life" (1901), "The Mind of Flowers" (1907), "Termite Life" (1926). “At first, he developed the artistic possibilities of the mystery,” Borges remarks about Maeterlinck, “then he wanted to reveal these secrets.”
In the study of the world of wildlife, Maeterlinck's main area of \u200b\u200binterest is extraordinary . Plants, bees, ants, termites, spiders are unusual - he devotes a separate work to each of these species of wildlife and sees the universal mind in each of them. He considers main feature world of nature, a certain mind inherent in this whole world, which in each separate form may appear in its infancy, but is compensated by the common efforts to conquer living space, survival and evolution. Maeterlinck writes about flowers as people. He sees the difference between flowers and people only in the morality and morality of people, but at the same time a person can find many good examples in any manifestation of nature: from signs of "cautious, lively thought", samples of courage, sensitivity, "romantic desires" to the focus of "the latest most fruitful human discoveries." As a result, Maeterlinck comes to the fundamental principles of natural philosophy: “Having appeared last on this earth, we only look for what already existed before us, and, like amazed children, we again pass the road that life has already made before us.” To describe all natural phenomena, Maeterlinck uses a dictionary from social life person. This is love and drama, happiness and death, resourcefulness, cunning, foresight, exploitation, he resorts to a technical dictionary and speaks of a living organism as a mechanism or joints of mechanisms. According to Maeterlinck, the world of man and the world of plants are not only inseparable - they are identical. He writes: “Truly, it can be said that thoughts appear in flowers in the same way as in us. /.../ It is important for us to understand the nature, structure, methods and, perhaps, the purpose of the universal mind, from which all reasonable acts that take place on our earth follow. Maeterlinck constantly draws attention to the fact that by nature he is primarily an artist, not a researcher, and the metaphor is more important for him than the exact scientific method. In The Life of Bees, the author acts not only as an artist-researcher, but also as a historian of the issue, bibliographer and practitioner. In "The Life of Bees", as in "The Mind of Flowers", he constantly collides two worlds - man and nature, in order to return each time to the issues of ethics and morality that concern him most. The study of the life of a bee swarm leads the author to a rather pessimistic conclusion from the point of view of individual freedom: “Wherever progress is noticed, it is the result of more and more complete sacrifice of personal interest to the common”. “We state once again,” he remarks, “that genius belongs to the species, to universal life or nature, and that the individual is almost devoid of reason. In man alone, there is a competition between the mind of the species and the individual, a striving more and more sharp and active towards some kind of balance, which is the great secret of our future. In natural philosophical treatises, Maeterlinck tried to answer the questions of his youth, when he so enthusiastically wanted to study everything that was “not formulated” in a living being.
In 1939, when the second World War, Maeterlinck moved to Portugal, but when it became obvious that Portugal could also be occupied, Maeterlinck moved to the USA with his wife. He lived in America throughout the war and returned to Nice to his mansion only in 1947. He died in 1949 from a heart attack. During his lifetime, he was a convinced atheist, so he was not buried according to church rites.
Maurice Maeterlinck short biography Belgian writer, playwright is described in this article.
Maurice Maeterlinck short biography
Maurice Polydor Marie Bernard Maeterlinck was born on August 29, 1862 in Ghent, into a wealthy Flemish family. His father was a notary, and his mother was the daughter of a wealthy lawyer.
From 1874 to 1881 he attended a Jesuit college. The boy was interested in poetry and literature, but his parents insisted that he study law at Ghent University. Having received a diploma in 1885, Maurice went to Paris to improve his law, but those 6 months that he spent in Paris were entirely devoted to literature.
Upon his return to Ghent, Maeterlinck worked as a lawyer and continued to write literature. In the Parisian monthly Pleiades, M.'s short story "The Murder of the Innocents" is published, and in 1889 he publishes the poetry collection "Greenhouses" and the play-tale "Princess Malene". After positive feedback he leaves the practice of law and devotes himself to literature.
In 1894, the writer wrote three plays for puppets: Aladdin and Palomides, There, Inside, and The Death of Tentagil. The playwright turns to the puppet theater because, unlike live actors, puppets can play a symbol.
In 1895 Maurice met Georgette Leblanc, an actress and singer who became his companion for 23 years. She was his wife, secretary and impresario, she kept him calm. Georgette also played the main roles, mostly powerful women, in the plays of the playwright.
In 1896 Maeterlinck and Leblanc moved from Ghent, where his plays had become the subject of ridicule, to Paris.
"The Blue Bird" - Maeterlinck's most popular play, was first staged in 1908. The story about one of the heroes of this play, Tyltila, M. continues in the extravaganza play "Betrothal".
In 1911, Maeterlinck was awarded the Nobel Prize "for his many-sided literary activity, especially for dramatic works, marked by a wealth of imagination and poetic fantasy." Due to illness, the playwright was unable to attend the ceremony, and the award was presented to the Belgian Ambassador to Sweden, Charles Wouters.
During the First World War, the writer tried to enroll in the Belgian Civil Guard, but did not get into it because of his age. The playwright's patriotic activity thus consisted in giving propaganda lectures in Europe and the USA. During this time, his relationship with Leblanc soured, and they separated after the war. In 1919, Maeterlinck marries Rene Daon, an actress who played in The Blue Bird. In the last years of his life he wrote more articles than plays; from 1927 to 1942, 12 volumes of his works were published.
The famous Belgian writer Maeterlinck was born on August 29, 1862 in a wealthy family in the city of Ghent. His father was a professional notary, his mother was the daughter of a lawyer. The family of the future writer enjoyed great respect among the inhabitants of the city.
Childhood and youth
Before Maurice was 12 years old, his parents organized for him the biography of Maurice Maeterlinck, by his own admission, did not start in the most rosy colors. In 1874, the boy was sent to a Jesuit college to study. The writer himself called this time one of the most unpleasant segments of his life.
The parents wanted their son to follow in his father's footsteps and also become a notary. However, the child did not show any interest in either law or history. All Maurice Maeterlinck was interested in was books and music.
In 1881, the young Maeterlinck still had to obey the will of his father and he entered the law department of the University of Ghent. But the teenager continues to spend all his leisure among books. In 1885, Maeterlinck received a diploma in education. And again, under pressure from his parents, he takes the next step - he leaves for Paris to continue his studies at the Sorbonne. However, as before, all free time turns out to be dedicated to literature.
Confrontation with parents
Upon return to hometown Gent Maeterlinck continues to engage in literature along with jurisprudence. The biography of Maurice Maeterlinck at this stage is a struggle between his own vocation and the desire to please his parents. All his works written at this time, Maeterlinck prints in France - so that he would not become known in his native city.
In 1889, the first collection of his poems, entitled Greenhouses, was published. In the same year, already in Brussels, the writer publishes the play "Princess Malene", asking his mother for 250 francs for this. The writer borrowed the plot of this work from However, he remade the usual story about an evil queen killing her children into a drama about the confrontation between the main character and an irresistible fate.
First edition
At first, events unfolded according to normal scenario- about a dozen books were sold out, Maeterlinck gave a few more to friends and acquaintances. However, suddenly, on August 24, 1890, an article appeared in the Paris edition of Le Figaro with the remark of the critic Octave Mirbeau that " unknown writer Maurice Maeterlinck created the most ingenious work of our era."
The critic Mirbeau writes a letter to Maeterlinck, in which he earnestly asks him to devote all his free time to literary creativity. It was the intervention of Mirbeau that helped the writer overcome the resistance of his parents. Now the biography of Maurice Maeterlinck is radically changing its direction.
Beginning of a writing career
He does final choice. His works are being published in local press and receive well-deserved critical acclaim. Inspired Maeterlinck leaves jurisprudence forever. Now literature is all that Maurice Maeterlinck is busy with. His plays are highly rated by critics, some of them even call the novice writer the new Shakespeare.
It is known that Maeterlinck was very prone to the use of metaphors and subtexts in his works. Therefore, at first, he wrote mainly fairy tales and plays. His characters communicate with each other in short, but very capacious and meaningful phrases. Maurice especially succeeds in writing plays for puppets - after all, unlike live actors, it is much easier to convey a symbol and express subtext through an artificial puppet.
Major works
In 1895, the writer first meets a girl who became his companion, secretary, and assistant in all matters - Georgette Leblanc. And in 1896 the couple moved to the capital of France - Paris. Since that time, Maeterlinck has written many metaphorical stories, which are included in his collections. These are Treasure of the Humble, Wisdom and Destiny, and Life of Bees. In the latter, for example, the vain human life is compared to the life of bees.
One of the most popular works Maeterlinck - "The Blue Bird" - was staged by Stanislavsky in Moscow. The premiere took place in 1908. The performance was a great success theater scenes other capitals - London, Paris, New York. For the first time here they learn about what constitutes the world that Maurice Maeterlinck created. Quotes from his works are heard everywhere. For example, “Who loves me and whom I love, they will always find me…”, “To see and not to love means to look into the darkness”, “Don't worry. They play that they are happy ... "
Features of the writer's work
The world, where allegories and metaphors come to the fore, is the only dimension of its kind created by Maurice Maeterlinck. Interesting Facts about his work, for example, are described in the book "Great Writers of the 20th Century". As an example, here is the story of the writer "The Blind". All of his characters live on the island, and none of them are sighted. These people are waiting for the arrival of an unknown messiah - the Savior. And only one child, who turned out to be sighted, sees him.
This whole story is full of metaphors. island means human life, and the ocean surrounding it - suspense and death. The lighthouse on the shore of the island symbolizes science. A sighted child is a prototype of the new art. This is a traditional transcript of one of the writer's stories. However, as expected, a symbol can have many meanings.
Biography of Maurice Maeterlinck: recent years
From latest compositions Maeterlinck saw the light of very few works. The reason for this was, perhaps, the creative exhaustion of the writer. He began to repeat himself. In 1932, the writer was awarded the title of Count by the King of Belgium. In 1940, the writer emigrated to the States with his family. In 1947 he returned to Europe. Maeterlinck died of a heart attack on May 6, 1949 in Nice.
Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck(French Maurice (Mooris) Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck; August 29, 1862, Ghent - May 6 (according to some sources - May 5th) 1949, Nice) - Belgian writer, playwright and philosopher. Wrote on French. Laureate Nobel Prize in literature for 1911. The author of the philosophical play-parable "", dedicated to eternal search a man of an enduring symbol of happiness and knowledge of being - the Blue Bird. Maeterlinck's works reflect the soul's attempts to reach understanding and love.
Maurice Maeterlinck was born in Belgium, the son of a wealthy notary. My father also owned several greenhouses. The family was French-speaking, so Maeterlinck later wrote most of his writings in French. Many of his first works (mainly legal developments) have not survived, as they were destroyed by the author, only fragments have survived.
In September 1874, the parents sent the writer to study at the Jesuit College. In this college, only the works of writers on religious themes, and reading the works of French romantic writers was forbidden. It was this attitude that developed in the writer the condemnation of the Catholic Church and religious organizations.
While studying Maeterlinck wrote several poems and short stories, but his father insisted that he pursue a career in law.
Maeterlinck became popular thanks to his early plays written between 1889 and 1894. The characters in these plays do not have a limited understanding of their nature and the world in which they live.
As a supporter of the ideas of Schopenhauer, Maeterlinck believed that man is powerless against fate. He believed that actors could easily be replaced by puppet puppets and even wrote plays such as There Inside (1894) and The Death of Tentagil (1894) for puppet theater.
Thus, the idea of "static drama" was formulated, according to which the task of the author was to create something that would not express emotions, but instead of them external causes human behavior.
In philosophical essays Maeterlinck refers to the philosophy and aesthetics of symbolism. In the most famous philosophical works"The Life of Bees" (1901), "The Life of Termites" (1926) and "The Life of Ants" (1930), the writer tried to explain the life and activities of man through analogies taken from observations of nature. Ezhen Mare, an African poet and researcher accused the author of plagiarism, because of the last two essays written by the author. After changing the subject of creativity, his popularity fell in many countries, but in France, interest in his work remained unchanged. In 1930, Maeterlinck bought a castle in Nice, and in 1932 became a count, at the initiative of the Belgian King Albert I.
In 1940 Maeterlinck fled the German occupation in the United States, returned to France in 1947 due to health problems.
August 29 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Maurice Maeterlinck, Belgian playwright, poet, Nobel Prize winner.
Belgian playwright, Nobel Prize winner in literature Maurice Maeterlinck (Maurice Maeterlinck) was born on August 29, 1862 in the city of Ghent (Belgium), into a wealthy family. His father was a notary, and his mother was the daughter of a wealthy lawyer.
Maeterlinck was interested in poetry and literature since childhood, but his parents insisted that he study law at the University of Ghent.
After graduating from university in 1885, Maurice moved to Paris to improve his law. In Paris, Maeterlinck met the Symbolist poets Stephane Mallarme and Villiers de l'Isle Adam, who influenced him strong influence. Under this influence, Maeterlinck created and published his first work - a free translation of the book of the Flemish mystic philosopher Jan van Rausbroek "The Decoration of a Love Marriage".
"The Blue Bird" gained popularity not only for its fabulous fantasy, but also for its allegoricalness. The story about one of the heroes of this play, Tiltila, Maeterlinck continued in the extravaganza play "Betrothal" (1918).
In 1911, Maurice Maeterlinck was awarded the Nobel Prize "for his many-sided literary activity, especially for dramatic works, marked by a wealth of imagination and poetic fantasy."
In later years, Maeterlinck wrote more articles than plays; from 1927 to 1942, 12 volumes of his writings were published, the most famous of which is "The Life of Termites" (1926) - an allegorical condemnation of communism and totalitarianism. Other philosophical treatises of this period were included in the collections The Life of Space (1928), The Great Extravaganza (1929) and The Great Law (1933).
In 1939, when Nazi Germany threatened Europe, Maurice moved to Portugal and then to the United States, where he lived throughout the war and returned to France in 1947.
In addition to the Nobel Prize, Maeterlinck was awarded the Belgian Grand Cross of the Order of Leopold (1920) and the Portuguese Order of the Sword of Saint James (1939). In 1932, the King of Belgium granted the playwright the title of count.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources
