Émile Verhaeren

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Portrait of Émile Verhaeren, painted before 1916 by Théo van Rysselberghe

Emile Adolphe Gustave Verhaeren (born May 21, 1855 in Sint-Amands near Antwerp , † November 27, 1916 in Rouen ) was a Belgian poet who wrote in French . In his poems, based on symbolism and written in free meter, he developed a metropolitan lyric of great musicality that was shaped by social awareness.

life and work

Verhaeren grew up as the son of wealthy parents in the village of Sint-Amands on the Scheldt . French was spoken in the family, but in the village and at school he spoke Brabant , a Flemish dialect . As a teenager he attended the French-speaking Jesuit boarding school Sainte-Barbe in Ghent . Georges Rodenbach was his classmate and became his friend. He then studied law at the traditional Catholic University of Leuven , where he met writers from the area of ​​the magazine La Jeune Belgique and published his first articles in student magazines in 1879.

At the weekly salon of the socialist writer Edmond Picard in Brussels , he met writers and artists of the avant-garde. During this time he decided to give up his legal career and become a writer. He published poems and critical articles in Belgian and foreign magazines (including L'Art Moderne and La Jeune Belgique ). As an art critic, he promoted young artists like James Ensor . In 1883 he published Les flamandes, the first collection of realistic-naturalistic poems about his homeland, which were enthusiastically received by the avant-garde, but caused a scandal in the rural milieu of his homeland. Verhaeren's parents even tried, with the help of the village pastor, to buy up and destroy the entire edition. He subsequently published other volumes of poetry. The volumes Les moines , Les soirs , Les débâcles and Les flambeaux noirs are characterized by gloomy symbolist poems .

Marthe Verhaeren, drawing by Auguste Donnay

In 1891 he married Marthe Massin , a painter known for her watercolors , whom he had met two years earlier, and settled in Brussels. His love for Marthe is reflected in three collections of love poems ( Les heures claires , Les heures d'après-midi , Les heures du soir ).

A reading by Émile Verhaeren (Théo van Rysselberghe, 1901)

In the 1890s , Verhaeren increasingly turned to social questions and socialist theories and processed the atmosphere of the big city and its contrast to country life in his poems. He processed his visions of a new era in the collections Les campagnes hallucinées , Les villes tentaculaires , Les villages illusoires and in his play Les Aubes . These poems made him famous, and his work has been translated and reviewed worldwide. He himself traveled through large parts of Europe for readings and lectures. Many artists, poets and writers such as Georges Seurat , Paul Signac , Auguste Rodin , Edgar Degas , August Vermeylen , Henry van de Velde , Maurice Maeterlinck , Stéphane Mallarmé , André Gide , Rainer Maria Rilke , Gostan Zarian and Stefan Zweig admired him and corresponded with him him, sought his proximity and translated his works. He also influenced the artists of futurism .

When the First World War broke out in 1914 and neutral Belgium was occupied by German troops, Verhaeren was also at the top of his fame in Germany. During the war he wrote pacifist poems and fought against the madness of war with the poetry collections La Belgique sanglante , Parmi les cendres and Les ailes rouges de la Guerre . His belief in a better future was overshadowed by increasing resignation during the war. Nevertheless, he published in anti-German propaganda magazines and wanted to strengthen the friendship between France, Belgium and Great Britain with speeches and lectures. After one of these lectures in the French city of Rouen, he died in an accident when he slipped while boarding a departing train and was run over.

The French government wanted Verhaeren to build an honorary grave in the Paris Panthéon , but the family refused to accept this plan and had him buried in the Adinkerke military cemetery. Due to the danger posed by advancing troops, his remains were transferred to Wulveringen during the war and finally buried in his home village of Sint-Amands in 1927. There has also been a museum there since 1955.

Works

Illustration by Emil Rudolf Weiß for the German translation of Die Ebene
  • Les Flamandes , 1884
  • Les moines , 1886
  • Les soirs , 1887
  • Les débâcles , 1888
  • Les flambeaux noirs , 1891
  • Les campagnes hallucinées , 1893
  • Les villes tentaculaires , 1895
  • Les villages illusoires , 1895 (further edition: Leipzig 1913, bound in Moroquin in the Grand Ducal School of Applied Arts in Weimar , designed by Henry van de Velde )
  • Les heures claires , 1896
  • Les Aubes (drama), 1898
  • Les visages de la vie , 1899
  • Les forces tumultueuses , 1902
  • Toute la Flandre in 5 parts, 1904–1911
  • Réponse à une enquête , 1905
  • Les heures d'après-midi , 1905
  • La multiple splendeur , 1906
  • Les rythmes souverains , 1910
  • Les heures du soir , 1911
  • Les ailes rouges de la guerre , 1916

Quotes

Et ce Londres de fonte et de bronze, mon âme,
Où des plaques de fer claquent sous des hangars,
Où des voiles s'en vont, sans Notre-Dame
Pour étoile, s'en vont, là-bas, vers les hazards.
Londres (London), from Les Soirs

Newer German editions

  • Stefan George : Complete Edition. Volume 15. Contemporary Poets . 1929, reprinted 1969 (transfers)
  • Stefan Zweig : Rhythms. Adaptations of selected poetry by Emile Verhaeren, Charles Baudelaire and Paul Verlaine . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1983 ISBN 3-10-097062-4
  • The life that is quiet, the life that is wild. Poems . Reclam, Leipzig 1982 (transmissions and revisions by various translators and poets)

literature

  • Jutta Höfel: The Belgian poet Emile Verhaeren . Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-631-47758-9 .
  • Stefan Zweig: Memories of Emile Verhaeren . In: Ders .: Encounters with people, books, cities . S. Fischer, Berlin and Frankfurt am Main 1955 (first published as a private print 1917).

Footnotes

  1. ↑ a b Katholieke Universiteit Leuven - Documentatie- en Onderzoekscentrum voor Religie, Cultuur en Samenleving (KADOC): Emile Verhaeren en Thomas More . In: Nieuwsbrief , vol. 13 (2016), No. 10 (Dutch).

Web links

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personal data
SURNAME Verhaeren, Émile
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Verhaeren, Emile Adolphe Gustave (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian poet
DATE OF BIRTH May 21, 1855
PLACE OF BIRTH Sint-Amands near Antwerp
DATE OF DEATH November 27, 1916
Place of death Rouen