Georges Rodenbach

Georges Rodenbach is a Belgian Poète Symbolist born on July 16th, 1855 in literature with Tournai and dead on December 25th, 1898 in literature with Paris.

Biography

Resulting from a middle-class family of German origin - his/her father, civil servant with the ministry for the Interior, is inspector of the weights and measures; his/her grandfather, worthy of only the Brugean cabin ( the Meeting of the Friends of North ), surgeon and appointed, is one of the founders of Belgium; its great-uncle created the brewery Rodenbach -, Georges Rodenbach passes his childhood to Ghent where its family settles in 1855. He makes brilliant studies with the college Holy-Bores, where he binds with Emile Verhaeren, and with the Faculty of Law of the Université of Ghent, then in Paris before settling with Brussels, where he becomes the collaborator of the lawyer Edmond Picard. In 1877, it publishes its first collection of worms, the Hearth and the Fields . In 1878, it accomplishes a first stay in the City of Light where it attends the circle of Hydropathes assiduously. It will tie its first Parisian ralations there: Catulle Mendès, François Coppée, Maurice Bars…

Forsaking the bar in 1881, it is devoted to the literature and collaborates in the liberal Flanders and the first number of the Young person Belgium . It publishes the elegant Sea . In 1886, white Youth is worth to him the celebrity not only in Belgium but also in France. Impetuous organizer of the review the Young person Belgium, it manages to organize in Belgium a round of the writer Villiers of Isle-Adam. By conferences, it also introduced there the pessimistic thought of Schopenhauer. This one will impregnate most of its future work.

Correspondent of the Newspaper of Brussels , it definitively settles in Paris in 1888, where its novel Bruges-the-Dead (1892), published in the form of serial in the columns of the Figaro of the 4 to the February 14th and in in June volume, at Flammarion, masterpiece of symbolism, gains a very great success. This work, whose central figure is the town of Bruges itself, will contribute largely to famous of the Flemish city. It is advisable to put in parallel the work of Rodenbach with that of the Belgian painter Symbolist Fernand Khnopff which, in the same time, takes part in the Living rooms Rose+Croix of Sâr Péladan. Khnopff conceived the drawing-frontispiece of Bruges-the-Dead besides. Georges Rodenbach binds with Stephan Mallarmé, Alphonse Daudet, Auguste Rodin, which it defends with passion in the Barber. Marcel Proust dedicates a great admiration to him. He marries Anna-Maria Urbain. He collaborates in the Figaro where he publishes Agonies of cities, series of portraits devoted in particular to Bruges, Saint-Malo and Ghent.

In 1894, he is the first Belgian author to see one of its works, the Veil , put at the repertory of the Comédie-Française. It imposes in the main role the young person Marguerite Moreno.

In 1896, it publishes the Lives enclose , collection of poems inspired by the occultism (Novalis) and the romanticism German. Although patient since long years, it publishes another masterpiece, also located at Bruges, the Bell ringer (1897) who reports with realism the debates which animate the city around the partisans of the Bruges-port-of-sea project or Zeebrugge and the defenders of a town of art intended for the elite of humanity.

The August 12th 1898, it publishes, in Le Figaro , an article on Arthur Rimbaud (see the text of the article: Arthur Rimbaud on Wikisource).

He dies in 43 years of a typhlite the Christmas Day 1898. He is buried in Paris with the Cimetière of the Father-Lachaise. The monument shows the outgoing poet of the tomb, a pink with the hand. A cross templière is engraved in the lower part of the tomb.

The Funds Georges Rodenbach is with the Royal Library of Brussels, Archives section and Museum of the Literature. Its furniture and its library are with the Museum of the Life tournaisienne in Tournai.

Born in Tournai, in Wallonia, declining of the Flemish topics in French language, like Verhaeren, Georges Rodenbach, first Belgian writer to succeed in Paris, only summarizes with him all contradictions of the current Belgium. His/her cousin, the poet Albrecht Rodenbach was besides one of the cantors of a Flanders in process of emancipation.

Works

the Hearth and the Fields (1877), poetries
Sadnesses (1879), poetries
Belgium 1830-1880 (1880), historical poem
elegant Sea (1881), poetries
the Winter society man (1884)
Worms of love (1884)
white Youth (1886), poetries
Of Silence (1888)
Art in exile (1889)
Bruges-the-Dead (1892), Romance
the Voyage in the eyes (1893)
the Veil , drama, played Comédie-Française on May 21st, 1894
Anguish of the sun (1894)
Museum of béguines (1894)
the Tomb of Baudelaire (1894)
the Vocation (1895)
In connection with " Salomon" lever;. The Work of Goncourt (1896)
the Tombs (1896)
the Virgins (1896)
the Lives enclose (1896), poem
the Bell ringer (1897), Romance
Agonies of cities (1897)
the Mirror of the native sky (1898)
the Mirage (1900)

External bonds

Site devoted to Georges Rodenbach
Site poetes.com
Rodenbach and Belgian symbolism

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