Biography of Meterlink

The future writer came from a wealthy Flemish family. His father, Polydor, was a notary public, and his mother, Matilda Koletta Francoise in girlhood van den Bosch, the daughter of a wealthy lawyer. In addition to Maurice, the spouses had three more children: Oscar, Ernest and Maria. Maurice Meterlink spent a lot of time in the Ostakeker, a settlement located on the shore of the channel connecting the city of Gent and Turnzen.

He received primary home education. And from for a year, Meterlink studied at the Jesuit College of St. Barbara in the Gente. Already in those years, Maurice began to get involved in poetry. Emil Verkharn and Georges Rodenbach studied at the same college, who, like Meterlink, became writers and glorified Belgian literature throughout the world. All three subsequently recalled the years of teaching at college with disgust.

In the same place, Maurice has receded all respect for the church and religion for life. Despite the fact that Maurice was passionate about literature, his father insisted that he enter the Faculty of General University. It is precisely to this period that the first publications of Meterlink’s poems, testifying to the strong influence of French symbolism on it.

Poems appeared on the pages of the magazine "Young Belgium", which played a significant role in the development of Belgian literature. Having received a diploma in the year, Maurice left for a half -year internship in Paris. This trip finally determined the future of Meterlink. He immediately entered the highest literary environment, getting acquainted with the famous symbolic poets Stefan Mallarm and Auguste Vilier de Lil-adan, who took him in their circle.

The first period of Meterlink's work was associated with the formation of the symbolist concept of the world and symbolist poetics. His story “Beating the Babies” “Le Massacre des InnoCents” is a kind of attempt to capture in the word the picture of the same name by the Netherlands artist of the 16th century Peter Bruegel the Elder. Just like Bruegel, Meterlink transfers a biblical plot to a concrete historical era, depicting the mercilessness of the Spaniards who attacked the Dutch village.

At the same time, the monstrosity of the events described sharply contrasts with the impassive tone of the narrative. Returning to Gent, M. Meterlink worked as a lawyer for some time. In the year, his first poetry collection of “greenhouses” “Serres Chaudes” was published. The poems of the collection are filled with unclear hints, symbols, and outlandish combinations of images.

He created this work based on the fairy tales of the Grimm Brothers "Virgin Malein." Unlike a fairy tale, the play Meterlink is deprived of the usual happy finale. The triumph of good over evil is only moral. At the same time, the naive Malen is accompanied by some kind of secret, the explanations of which are not in the tragic finale. This heroine is the first among the so -called “warned” in the dramaturgy of Meterlink, to which the secrets of being are revealed, but they are not able to solve them.

The terrible play-tumlink play at first was not in great demand among readers. In total, about fifteen books were sold out, the author gave a dozen more for friends. However, on August 24, a review of the writer Oktav Mirbo appeared in the French newspaper Figaro on the play of Meterlink. The French writer enthusiastically responded to Princess Malen, writing that someone Maurice Meterlink created the "most ingenious work of our time." This review attracted attention to the work of a little -known Belgian author.

Emil Verkharn also responded to Meterlink’s play, which belongs to the following lines: “There has never been such independence in our literature from the generally accepted, such a feverish desire to free itself from all shackles.” The unexpected success of Princess Malen allowed Meterlink to forever abandon lawyer practice and completely immerse himself in literary work.

It should also be noted that Meterlink wrote his works in French. In these plays there is no dynamism in the development of the plot, the characters do not show themselves in actions, dutifully expecting that they will bring them an inevitably impending fate. Meterlink created in these works an oppressive atmosphere of constantly growing anxiety and fear. The characters of Meterlink are left alone with a mystery, mysterious forces rule over their fate, the essence of which no one can comprehend.

In the year, M. this drama inspired to create musical works of composers such as Claude Debyussi, Jan Sibelius, Arnold Schonberg. Being a symbolist, M. Meterlink decided to test his forces in the puppet theater, where it was easier to beat the symbolism of the work. These three plays are no longer inherent in the atmosphere of tragedy, characteristic of the first dramatic works of the writer.

From these works, the gradual departure of Meterlink from his philosophy began, according to which everyone is guided by invisible and fatal forces, which a person is not able to withstand. Maurice Meterlink spent the first period of his work in Belgium. Probably, the atmosphere of Gent, the writer's hometown, influenced the mood of his works.Gothic churches, a magnificent medieval castle, dilapidated houses, narrow alleys and dark channels - everything in the city had an imprint of antiquity.

In the year, Meterlink met Georgetta Leblan, a French actress and opera singer, who for twenty -three years became his companion. Together with her, he left Gent forever and moved to France from that moment on the second period of the writer’s work, characterized by a gradual departure from mysticism. From the new works of Meterlink no longer blows a feeling of complete hopelessness, and the main characters of his plays can hardly be called puppets, who are pulled by the ropes.

As in other works of Meterlink, in this play there is no happy end. Selizetta, the main character of the play, dies, but this is the work of the not unknown top of human destinies, but the heroine herself, sacrificing herself in the name of love. Again, the writer turned to a fairy -tale plot: this time, the tale of Charles Perrault “Blue Beard” inspired the creation of a Meterlink work.

In the year, the work of Meterlink “Life of Bee” “La Vie des Abeilles” came out. Subsequently, he more than once wrote books of a natural philosophical nature, in which subtle observations of the life of insects and plants are inseparable from reflection on the development of human society. In the same year, the play “Joiselle” “Joyzelle” was created, which refers to the highest, non -egoistic form of love, about self -sacrifice.

Even in the “little dramas” of Meterlink, the child acted as a symbol of unclear hope for rationality and kindness. In the "Blue Bird" it is for children that Fairy Beriluna trusts the search for truth. In a dream, Tiltil and Mitil, the children of the lumberjack, have to go on an amazing journey to find a blue bird that is necessary for a sick neighboring girl. With the help of a magic diamond that a fairy gave them so that they can see the essence of things, children revive objects and elements, their pets begin to speak.

Under the leadership of the soul of the light, along with the souls of the elements, objects and animals, children go on the road. Children have to overcome many obstacles, encounter treachery, risk their lives. Many truths are revealed to Tiltil and Mitil during the trip, one of them is perhaps the most important: happiness is in its very search. Artist Igor Oleinikov. Publishing House "Nikaya".

The book is preparing to issue the date of circulation: the book is preparing for the publication "Blue Bird" - the work is extremely multifaceted, addressed simultaneously to children and adults. The play affects many topics: about the importance of cognition of the world, about life in harmony with nature, about the choice between material benefits and spiritual, etc. And happiness is not at all necessary to look far - it can be near, just learn to see the essence of things in order to see it in simple home bliss, in the great joy of maternal love, in caring for another person.

Ten years after the “Blue Bird” M., according to the plot of the sixteen -year -old Tiltil, you have to choose a bride. In search of the bride, the young man goes to the monastery of his ancestors and the abode of children who have yet to be born. In the year, Maurice Meterlinka was awarded the Nobel Prize “For multifaceted literary activities, especially for dramatic works, noted by the wealth of imagination and poetic fantasy”.

Soon after, M. Meterlinka was offered to become a member of the French Academy, but the writer rejected this proposal, since for this he was supposed to abandon Belgian citizenship. In addition to the Nobel Prize, Meterlink received other awards - the Honorary Doctor's degree of the University of Glasgow, the Belgian Bolshoi Cross of the Order of Leopold and the Portuguese Order of the Sword of St.

Jacob and in the year King of Belgium Albert I granted the writer the title of Count. In the year, Meterlink married a young actress Rene Daion, whom he met back in the rehearsals of the Blue Bird. The couple did not part to the death of the writer. In the last years of his life, M. Meterlink created a number of less significant plays, and also continued the writing of philosophical essays and treatises.

In the year, Meterlink acquired a luxurious residence in Nice, called "Villa Orlarmond." The beginning of World War II caught a couple of Meterlinks in Portugal, where the dictator Antoniu Salazar favored the writer. But the onslaught of the Nazis, who fell on Belgium and France, began to pose a threat to Portugal. For safety reasons, Meterlink considered it necessary to leave Portugal and leave for the United States with his wife and her parents.

In America, they lived the whole war. In France, the couple meterlinks returned only in August. The couple again settled on their villa in Nice. There Maurice Meterlink and died on May 6 of the year from a heart attack. The last work that he wrote was memoirs, published in the year under the name “Blue Bubbles” “Bulles Bleues”. The artist Ekaterina Silina, in Russia the work of the Belgian writer has always aroused lively interest.

Balmont, A. Blok, V. Bryusov and M. Voloshin contributed a lot to the works of M.