Maeterlinck settles in Paris; Georgette Leblanc; "Wisdom and Destiny"; Maeterlinck's new philosophy; life, not death; anti-Christian teaching; Maeterlinck's evolution coincides partially with that of Nietzsche and Dehmel; salvation by love; Maeterlinck and Verhaeren; the shores of serenity; "The Life of the Bee"; cerebralism; futurism
"Ardiane and Bluebeard" inspired by Georgette Leblanc; feminism; emancipation of the flesh; "Sister Beatrice"; quietism again; Maeterlinck's version of the legend compared with that of Gottfried Keller; family life and religious prejudice; "The Buried Temple"; heredity and morality; poverty and socialism; the aims of Nature; vegetarianism; "Monna Vanna" banned by the censor in England; Ibsen's idea of absolute truth in marriage; the idea of honour; Maeterlinck and Browning; "Joyzelle"; instinct and the designs of life; sensual and intellectual love; "The Miracle of St Antony"
"The Double Garden" affords glimpses into Maeterlinck's life; the essay, "On the Death of a Little Dog"; flowers old and new, symbols of the onward march of man; the reign of matter; the modern drama; "Life and Flowers"; the doctrine of aspiration; the religion of the future; Maeterlinck's teaching midway between that of Nietzsche and Tolstoy; Maeterlinck as a boxer; the victory of socialism inevitable; "The Blue Bird"--an epitome of Maeterlinck's ideas--performed in Moscow and London; the quest of happiness; futurism again; the drama awarded the Belgian "Triennial prize for dramatic literature"; translation and performance at St Wandrille of "Macbeth"; "Mary Magdalene" banned in England; quarrel with Paul Heyse; "Death" shocks the critics; its importance lies in its discussion of immortality; Maeterlinck awarded the Nobel prize for literature; he is honoured by the City of Brussels; he founds the "Maeterlinck prize"
Maeterlinck at the Villa Dupont; his personal appearance; the present position of Maeterlinck in critical estimation; the question of his originality; his public; Maeterlinck a futurist; compared by Louis Dumont-Wilden with Bernardin de Saint-Pierre; compared with Goethe; Maeterlinck a poet
Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck[1] was born at Ghent on the 29th of August, 1862. It is known that his family was settled at Renaix in East Flanders as early as the fourteenth century; and the Maeterlincks are mentioned as burghers of Ghent in the annals of Flanders. The name is said to be derived from the Flemish word "maet" (Dutch "maat"), "measure," and is interpreted as "the man who measures out: distributor." In harmony with this interpretation the story goes that one of the poet's ancestors was mayor of his village during a year of famine, and that he in that capacity distributed corn among the poor. Maeterlinck's father was a notary by profession; being in comfortable circumstances, however, he did not practise, but lived in a country villa at Oostacker, near Ghent, on the banks of the broad canal which joins Ghent to the Scheldt at the Dutch town of Terneuzen.[2] Here through the paternal garden the sea-going ships seemed to glide, "spreading their majestic shadows over the avenues filled with roses and bees."[3]