Maurice Maeterlinck by Bettina L. Knapp (review)

268 Comparative Drama we say, all cows are black—that is the very naïveté and emptiness of knowledge. Joseph J. Moleski Western Michigan University Bettina L. Knapp. Maurice Maeterlinck, Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1975. Pp. 200. $6.95. The case of Maurice Maeterlinck is a complex one. Born in 1862, he began his literary career by writing poetry during the halcyon days of Symbolism, became fascinated by the fourteenth-century Flemish mystic Van Ruysbroeck whose magnum opus he translated, and wrote his first play in 1889. From that date on until his death 60 years later, the Belgian artist produced an endless stream of plays (only few of which survive in the public consciousness), as well as essays and articles which encom­ pass those themes and preoccupations apparent in his earliest works. His so-called death dramas (e.g. The Intruder, The Blind) and his ontolog­ ical essays alternate with his entomological studies; his preoccupation with the beyond gives way to his interest in the empirical sciences, and his mood wavers between melancholia and a joyful outlook on life. His political and religious views follow an erratic pattern. He seems un­ touched by the waves of literary movements and by the cataclysmic historical events of his time. While several “isms” come and go, while men like Gide and Proust, Apollinaire and Breton, Sartre and Camus, leave their mark, Maeterlinck far from the mainstream continues to write down the results of his meditations. Only once, during World War I, did he actively participate in the events of his time, as he extolled the heroism of his countrymen during the German onslaught. Mysterious and aloof to the end, Maeterlinck cannot be explained easily, nor can a short work do justice to the multifaceted writer and philosopher. Nonetheless, Professor Knapp took up the challenge and wrote a useful study which can serve as a good introduction to the study of this elusive man and his work. The body of her book is divided into five chapters. “The Formation of the Artist” discusses Maeterlinck’s early years and suggests that the young boy’s unhappy stay at a Jesuit College is the prime reason for his abiding hatred of the Church. A great por­ tion of this chapter is devoted to an analysis of Maeterlinck’s first play, Princess Maleine, since it reveals to the public the artist’s major themes and characteristics which were to recur in his subsequent masterpieces. These are the timelessness which pervades all of his dramatic produc­ tions, the ambiguity of the characters, and the many symbols used to create a mood. The second chapter deals in the same fashion with his death dramas. The third chapter offers a brief discussion of his mario­ nette plays, and the fourth deals at greater length with the new direction taken by his plays after the author succumbed to the charms of Georgette Leblanc, who remained his companion from 1895 to 1918. As a prime example of the “strong-women dramas” which Maeterlinck wrote pri­ Reviews 269 marily as a vehicle for his actress-companion, Professor Knapp chooses Monna Vanna. The last chapter is the longest and the least satisfying one. The amount of material grouped under the catch-all title “The Philosopher, the Mystic, and the Psychometrician” is overwhelming, and by necessity treated with superficiality. The sound scholarship of Professor Knapp’s survey is everywhere evident, and within the limits of a relatively short study, she brings to the reader’s awareness the bulk of Maeterlinck’s work. But she also provides a key which is meant to open the door to the labyrinth, and a map which is meant to facilitate the traveler’s voyage. And herein lies the greatest shortcoming of an otherwise good book. It is common knowledge among Maeterlinck readers or viewers that he expresses through symbols the pure drama of the soul. It is generally accepted that the author of The Blue Bird wishes to create a dreamlike atmos­ phere in which the audience will lose itself, and which will call forth, by means of sometimes obscure symbols, echoes from the unconscious and correspondences between the existential and psychical facets of the individual. The insistence of...