Michel de Ghelderode , pseudonym of Adhémar Adolphe Louis Martens , is a Dramatic author, Chroniqueur and Belgian épistolier of Flemish origin and French expression. He was born with Ixelles on April 3rd, 1898 in literature and died in Schaerbeek on April 1st, 1962 in literature. He is buried with the Cimetière of Laeken.

Prolific author, it wrote more than sixty plays, a hundred Conte S, many articles on art and the Folklore. Also author of an impressive correspondence of more than: 20000 letters, he is the creator of a universe fantastic and worrying, often macabre, grotesque and cruel.

Biography

He was born in a Flemish family from Brussels, but all its studies will be made in French, on account of the promotion sociale.

Of his father, employee with the Files of the Kingdom, it will keep the taste for the Histoire, particularly for the times of the Moyen-âge, the Renaissance and the Inquisition.

I feel really the contemporary of these people of the Moyen-âge or the Pre-Rebirth. I know them how they live and know each one of their occupations. I am familiar of their brain and their heart like theirs home and of their boutique.

Of his mother, it will retain the legends and stories of the people of modest means told with the corner of fire.

Raised in a catholic college of Brussels, the Institute Saint-Louis, it lives in a religious environment which terrifies it and when it loses the faith as a God, with adolescence, it continues to accept the powers of the evil.

He writes: Me at one time too much was threatened, my parents and the priests, and my life was built on the fear (…) The priest protested in the oratory where us were gathered the evening, similar with culprits. And we lowered the face. An icy wind passed very close to us the nape of the neck and we feared that the door opened and that somebody of invisible came to apprehend one of nous.

Or: The existence of the Diable is certain, it is enough to look around oneself. God appears rarement.

But of its religious education, it will retain the aspects ritual and magic, theatrical, could one say, which will continue to nourish its work and to fascinate it: The “marvellous one” of the Bible: Fulgurating swords of divine glory in the Old Testament - and the reduced tragic of Jesus in the New one! “Magic” of the mass: the Incense, music, the prayer, the envelopment of the songs and the organ; festivals: Christmas, Easter…, processions. The Mystery of the Transsubstantiation, splendors of martyrologe…

His/her father takes it along to the opera, with the theater of Marionnette S, the royal Théâtre of Toone (of which it will take part later in defense and for which it will write several parts), it also spends time to traverse the Foire of the South. The records of the opera, the popular character of the puppets and the fair will be, with the history, of the sources of inspiration.

It carries out its military service of 1919 to 1921 and marries civilly in 1924 Jeanne-Francoise Gerard met in a bookstore where it worked as clerk.

Its first parts, written in French, will be played first of all in Flemish translation by the Vlaamsche Volkstooneel , an at the same time popular company and of avant-garde, before they are after the war a success such in Paris which one speaks about Ghelderodite acute . They will be then supplanted by other parts which will be then success in this city, those of Beckett and Ionesco.

But he will be played a little everywhere in the world, in Brussels, Rome, Milan, Amsterdam, $the Hague, Dublin, Cracow, in Germany, Austria, England, Spain, Norway, Denmark, Poland, but also on other continents, with New York, Chicago, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Bogota, Montreal, Tel-Aviv, and also in Japan.

List works

Les dates mentioned is those of the drafting of the œuvres. ; List theatrical works
  • Death looks at the window , 1918, new
  • Piet Bouteille (or Oude Piet ), 1920
  • the Old men (or Maundy Thursday ), 1923
  • the Rider odd , 1920 or 1924
  • the Miracle in the suburb , 1924, new
  • the Mystery of the Passion of Our-Lord Jesus Christ , 1924, (puppets)
  • Têtes of wood , 1924
  • Duvelor or the Joke of the devil old , 1925, (puppets)
  • the Joke death which failed to trespass , 1925
  • the Death of Doctor Faust , 1925
  • Don Juan or chimerical Lovers , 1928
  • Images of the life of saint François d' Assise , 1926
  • the massacre of the innocent, 1926, (puppets)
  • Christophe Colomb , 1927
  • Escurial , 1927 - Collection Babel N°3
  • Venus , 1927
  • Transfiguration in the Circus (or Circus , or Zirkous or Transfiguration in a circus ), 1927
  • Barabbas , 1928 - Collection Babel N°3
  • Drowning of the dreams , 1928
  • One evening of pity , 1928
  • Three actors, a drama… , 1928
  • Pantagleize , 1929 Atlantic
  • , 1930
  • That which sold cord of hung , 1930
  • Godelieve , 1930 (new)
  • Household of Caroline , 1930
  • the Sleep of the reason , 1930
  • the Club of the liars (or the Club of the lies ), 1931
  • the tinplate Crown, 1931
  • Red Magie , 1931
  • the star Robber, 1931
  • the Sorrow of Hamlet , 1932
  • Public life of Pantagleize , 1932 (?)
  • Rainbow , 1933
  • the Blind men , 1933
  • the Women with the tomb , 1933, (puppets)
  • the Head office of Ostend , 1933
  • Adrian and Jusemina , 1934
  • Trotts It Macabre Grand , 1934
  • Masques ostendais , 1934
  • Petit drama , 1934
  • Lord Halewyn , 1934
  • the Sun lie down… , 1934
  • Miss Jaïre , 1935
  • Left the actor , 1935
  • Of a devil which preached wonders , 1936, (puppets)
  • the Joke of the dark , 1936
  • Hop Signor! , 1936
  • Records of Hell , 1937
  • the Magpie on the gibet , 1937
  • the School of the buffoons , 1942
  • Papegay triumphing , 1943
  • Because they do not know what they do , 1950
  • Marie the Poor wretch , 1952, spectacle played on the square of the church Saint-Lambert, with Woluwé-Saint-Lambert, of which the music was composed by Ernest-Bernardin Van Eeckhout.

; Tales

  • the catholic Halt (collection), 1922
  • the Man under the uniform (collection), 1923
  • Magic spells (collection), 1941

; Various

  • the Man with the gold moustache

Quotations

Ghelderode, it is the diamond which closes the collar of poets that Belgium carries around the neck. This black diamond throws cruel and noble fires. They wound only the small hearts. They dazzle the others.

Before Ghelderode, the scene had become political platform, pulpit sorbonnante for dialecticians, window with the hands of decorators, laboratory for false psychiatrists, but the poets had deserted it.

External bonds

  • Site devoted to Ghelderode
  • Michel de Ghelderode, biographical documentary film, realization of Luc de Heusch and Jean Grooves, 1956, (19 min).
  • Roland Beyen, “Ghelderode and the troop of Vlaamsche Volkstooneel” in Re-examined comparative literature , n° 299 2001/3, Klincksieck, pp. 411-427

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