Mededelingen van het Cyriel Buysse Genootschap 11

27

July 6, 1895

...

Flemish literature continues to flourish side by side with the French, according to the maxim of the Belgian poet,

N'ayons qu'un coeur pour aimer la patrie,
Et deux lyres pour la chanter.

A number of monographs dealing with local history, by MM. F. de Potter, L. Mees, Julius Vuylsteke, Edm. Van der Straeten, and others, testify to the interest which is taken in the history of Flanders. The position of the Flemish provinces in the eighteenth century, both previous to and during the French conquest, has been described by MM. Aug. Thys, Th. Sevens and E. Poffé. The late George Bergmann's ‘Gedenkschriften’ (memoirs) furnishes a striking picture of Flemish-speaking Belgium under the French and Dutch rule up to the revolution of 1830.

Literary criticism boasts a distinguished follower in M. Max Rooses who in his latest volume, ‘Letterkundige Studiën’ (‘Literary Studies’), discusses the prose writer Sleeckx and the poets Prudens van Duyse, Julius de Geyter, Jan van Beers, and Hélène Swarth, and devotes an interesting essay to the great Finnish epic the ‘Kalevala.’ M. le Curé H. Claeys has called attention to the merits of the prose of Jan van Ruusbroec, the celebrated fourteenth century Brabantine mystic. M. Julius Pée, who has made a special study of the great

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Dutch writer Multatuli (Douwes Dekker), has published some interesting letters of his heros wife, Tine, whom her husband immortalized in his masterpiece ‘Max Havelaar’ (1860). The writer of this article, in ‘Onze historische liederen van vo[o]r de Hervorming,’ has investigated the historical Flemish songs dating from the period before the religious wars of the sixteenth century, and M. Fl. van Duyse has added eighteen ancient melodies in modern notation. In his interesting essay ‘De Aesthetiek van het lyrisch Drama,’ M. Arthur Cornette has discussed the theory of the new combination of drama and music which has been so successfully treated by Peter Benoit in Flanders and Fibich in Bohemia, upon the lines of Beethoven's ‘Egmont,’ Weber's ‘Preciosa,’ Mendelssohn's ‘Midsummer Night's Dream,’ and Meyerbeers' ‘Struensee.’

Besides numerous plays - among which ‘Palma's Dochter’ (‘The Daughter of Palma Vecchio’), by M. Frans Gittens, is one of the best - there has been a goodly erop of poetry. I need only mention the three most important collections of verse. Mlle. Hilda Ram has printed another book of metrical tales, entitled ‘Nog een Klaverken uit 's Levens Akker’ (‘Another Sprig of Clover from the Field of Life’). M. Emmanuel Hiel, one of the veterans of Flemish poetry, has published ‘Symphoniën en andere Gezangen’ (‘Symphonies and other Songs’); and M. Pol de Mont has brought out a volume of varied contents, ‘Iris,’ which is beautifully illustrated, and altogether got up in a manner new to the democratic presses of Flanders. M.J.L. Haller has published a meritorious translation of some select idyl[l]s from Theocritus.

MM. Aug. Snieders and L. van Rukkelingen, two of the most experienced writers of Flemish prose, have produced new works. M. Van den Bergh has written an historical novel on the ‘Boerenkrijg,’ the insurrection of the peasantry of Flanders against the conscription of the first French Republic. M. Gustaaf Segers continues his sketches of life in the Campine district. M. Cyriel Buysse, in his novel ‘Sursum Corda,’ which has been one of the chief successes of the year, describes the life of the upper classes in the country. He draws a vivid picture of their narrow-mindedness and prejudice, and of their complete subjection to the influence of the Catholic clergy.

Mlle. Virginie Loveling, the chief of modern Flemish prose writers, has produced two works of much originality and power in her novels ‘Eene Idylle’ and ‘De Bruid des Heeren’ (‘The Bride of the

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Lord’), which are at the same time exquisitely simple and profound in their psychology.

PAUL FREDERICQ
[Tld. by Streatfield]