Château de Médan - Médan (Les Yvelines), France - Blue Plaques on Waymarking.com

[FR] Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck, dit Maurice Maeterlinck, né le 29 août 1862 à Gand (Belgique) et mort le 6 mai 1949 à Nice (France), est un écrivain francophone belge, prix Nobel de littérature en 1911.

Figure de proue du symbolisme belge, il reste aujourd'hui célèbre pour son mélodrame Pelléas et Mélisande (1892), sommet du théâtre symboliste mis en musique par Debussy en 1902, pour sa pièce pour enfants L’Oiseau bleu (1908), et pour son essai inspiré par la biologie La Vie des abeilles (1901), œuvre au centre du cycle d'essais La Vie de la nature, composé également de L'Intelligence des fleurs (1910), La Vie des termites (1926), La Vie de l’espace (1928) et La Vie des fourmis (1930).

Il est aussi l'auteur de treize essais mystiques inspirés par Ruysbroeck l'Admirable et réunis dans Le Trésor des humbles (1896), de poèmes recueillis dans Serres chaudes (1889), ou encore de Trois petits drames pour marionnettes (1894, trilogie formée par Alladine et Palomides, Intérieur, et La Mort de Tintagiles).

Son œuvre fait preuve d'un éclectisme littéraire et artistique (importance de la musique dans son œuvre théâtrale) propre à l'idéal symboliste.

Né à Gand, Maurice Maeterlinck est l'aîné d'une famille de trois enfants, flamande, bourgeoise, catholique, conservatrice et francophone.

Après des études au collège Sainte-Barbe (Sint-Barbara) de Gand, il suit des études en droit avant de pratiquer le métier d'avocat durant une courte période. Maeterlinck publie, dès 1885, des poèmes d’inspiration parnassienne dans La Jeune Belgique. Il part pour Paris où il rencontre plusieurs écrivains qui vont l'influencer, dont Stéphane Mallarmé et Villiers de l’Isle-Adam. Ce dernier lui fait découvrir les richesses de l'idéalisme allemand (Hegel, Schopenhauer). À la même époque, Maeterlinck découvre Ruysbroeck l'Admirable, un mystique flamand du xive siècle dont il traduit les écrits (Ornement des noces spirituelles). C'est ainsi qu'il se tourne vers les richesses intuitives du monde germanique en s'éloignant du rationalisme français. Les œuvres que publie Maeterlinck entre 1889 et 1896 sont imprégnées de cette influence germanique.

C'est en août 1890 qu'il devient célèbre grâce à un article d'Octave Mirbeau sur La Princesse Maleine dans Le Figaro.

Il obtient le prix Nobel de littérature en 1911, puis le Grand Cordon de l'ordre de Léopold le 12 janvier 1920, avant d'être anobli et fait comte par le roi Albert Ier en 1932.

Le poète s’éteint à Nice le 5 mai 1949 dans son palais Orlamonde, après avoir été comblé d’honneurs : Il avait été anobli par le roi Albert 1er et avait été reçu membre associé de l’Académie Française.

Ce n’est qu’en 1962 que la comtesse MAETERLINCK fera donation du château à Henri SMADJA.

[EN] Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck (29 August 1862 – 6 May 1949), also known as Count (or Comte) Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who was Flemish but wrote in French. 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 a leading member of La Jeune Belgique group and his plays form an important part of the Symbolist movement.

Maeterlinck was born in Ghent, Belgium, to a wealthy, French-speaking family.

In September 1874 he was sent to the Jesuit College of Sainte-Barbe, where works of the French Romantics were scorned and only plays on religious subjects were permitted. His experiences at this school influenced his distaste for the Catholic Church and organized religion.

He had written poems and short novels during his studies, but his father wanted him to go into law. After finishing his law studies at the University of Ghent in 1885, he spent a few months in Paris, France. He met some members of the new Symbolism movement, Villiers de l'Isle Adam in particular, who would have a great influence on Maeterlinck's subsequent work.

Maeterlinck instantly became a public figure when his first play, Princess Maleine, received enthusiastic praise from Octave Mirbeau, the literary critic of Le Figaro, in August 1890. In the following years, he wrote a series of symbolist plays characterized by fatalism and mysticism, most importantly Intruder (1890), The Blind (1890) and Pelléas and Mélisande (1892).

According to an article published in the New York Times in 1940, he arrived in the United States from Lisbon on the Greek Liner Nea Hellas. He had fled to Lisbon in order to escape the Nazi invasion of both Belgium and France. While in Portugal, he stayed in Monte Estoril, at the Grande Hotel, between 27 July and 17 August 1939. The Times quoted him as saying, "I knew that if I was captured by the Germans I would be shot at once, since I have always been counted as an enemy of Germany because of my play, The Mayor of Stilmonde, which dealt with the conditions in Belgium during the German Occupation of 1918." As with his earlier visit to America, he still found Americans too casual, friendly and Francophilic for his taste.

He returned to Nice after the war on 10 August 1947. He was President of PEN International, the worldwide association of writers, from 1947 until 1949. In 1948, the French Academy awarded him the Medal for the French Language. He died in Nice on 6 May 1949 after suffering a heart attack.

The countess Maeterlinck donated the château to Henri Smadja in 1962.

Blue Plaque managing agency: Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication Individual Recognized: Maurice Maeterlinck Physical Address: 43, rue Pierre Curie Médan, 78670 Web Address: [Web Link]

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