Literary Birthday – 29 August – Maurice Maeterlinck
Maurice Maeterlinck was born on 29 August 1862 and died on 6 May 1949.
Maurice Maeterlinck Quotes
- Happiness is rarely absent; it is we that know not of its presence.
- Each progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand mediocre minds appointed to guard the past.
- The truth that seems discouraging does in reality only transform the courage of those strong enough to accept it; and, in any event, a truth that disheartens, because it is true, is still of far more value than the most stimulating of falsehoods.
- If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live.
- How strangely do we diminish a thing as soon as we try to express it in words.
- Many a happiness in life, as many a disaster, can be due to chance, but the peace within us can never be governed by chance.
- We are never the same with others as when we are alone. We are different, even when we are in the dark with them.
Maurice Maeterlinck was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who wrote in French. Maeterlinck was a symbolist and agnostic who, in dreamlike dramas and poetry, examined the inner life of humankind and the subconscious. Milieus and epochs in his dramas are often fluid and indeterminate, which strengthens the symbolism. He dedicated himself to creating moods rather than to describing reality. He is best known for his contributions to Symbolist theatre, including plays like La Princesse Maleine, L’Intruse, Les Aveugles, and his masterpiece, Pelléas et Mélisande, which was later adapted into an opera by Claude Debussy. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911 ‘in appreciation of his many-sided literary activities, and especially of his dramatic works, which are distinguished by a wealth of imagination and by a poetic fancy, which reveals, sometimes in the guise of a fairy tale, a deep inspiration, while in a mysterious way they appeal to the readers’ own feelings and stimulate their imaginations’. The main themes in his work are death and the meaning of life. He was made a count by Albert I, King of the Belgians in 1932.
Photograph: Tucker Collection, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maurice_de_Maeterlinck.jpg
by Amanda Patterson
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