Michel de Ghelderode was an avant-garde

Avant-garde

Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....

 Belgian

Demographics of Belgium

This article is about the demographic features of the population of Belgium, including ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population...

 dramatist, writing in French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

.

Career

A prolific writer, he wrote more than sixty plays, a hundred stories, a number of articles on art and folklore and more than 20,000 letters. He is the creator of a fantastic and disturbing, often macabre, grotesque and cruel world filled with mannequins, puppets, devils, masks, skeletons, religious paraphernalia, and mysterious old women. His works create an eerie and unsettling atmosphere although they rarely contain anything openly scary.

Among his influences were puppet

Puppet

A puppet is an inanimate object or representational figure animated or manipulated by an entertainer, who is called a puppeteer. It is used in puppetry, a play or a presentation that is a very ancient form of theatre....

 theater, commedia dell'arte

Commedia dell'arte

Commedia dell'arte is a form of theatre characterized by masked "types" which began in Italy in the 16th century, and was responsible for the advent of the actress and improvised performances based on sketches or scenarios. The closest translation of the name is "comedy of craft"; it is shortened...

 and the Belgian painter of the macabre, James Ensor

James Ensor

James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor was a Flemish-Belgian painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for almost his entire life...

. His works often deal with the extremes of human experience, from death and degradation to religious exaltation.

His 1934 play La Balade du grand macabre served as inspiration for György Ligeti

György Ligeti

György Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...

's opera Le Grand Macabre

Le Grand Macabre

Le Grand Macabre is György Ligeti's only opera. The opera has two acts and its libretto – loosely based on the 1934 play, La Balade du grand macabre, by Michel De Ghelderode – was written by Ligeti in collaboration with Michael Meschke...

.

According to Oscar G. Brockett, the works of Gheledrode resemble those of Alfred Jarry, the surrealists, and the expressionists, and his theories are similar to those of Antonin Artaud. In nearly all of his approximately thirty plays runs his perception of human beings as creatures whose flesh overpowers spirit. "Corruption, death and cruelty are always near the surface, although behind them lurks an implied criticism of degradation and materialism and a call to repentance (Brockett, 443)"

Personal life

De Ghelderode married Jeanne-Françoise Gérard in 1924. He died in 1962 and is buried in the Laeken Cemetery

Laeken Cemetery

The Laeken Cemetery , located in Laeken in the northern part of Brussels, is one of the major cemeteries in Belgium.-Description:...

, Brussels.

Plays

• La Mort regarde à la fenêtre [Death Looks in the Window] (1918)
• Le repas des fauves [The Beasts' Meal] (1918)
• Piet Bouteille (or Oude Piet) (1920)
• Le Cavalier bizarre [The Strange Rider] (1920 or 1924)
• Têtes de bois [Blockheads] (1924)
• Le Miracle dans le faubourg [Miracle in the Suburb] (1924, unedited)
• Le Mystère de la Passion de Notre-Seigneur Jésus Christ (1924, for marionettes)
• Duvelor ou la Farce du diable vieux [Duvelor, or the Farce of the Old Devil] (1925, for marionettes)
• La Farce de la Mort qui faillit trépasser [The Farce of Death Who Almost Died] (1925)
• Les Vieillards [The Old Men] (1925)
• La Mort du Docteur Faust (1926)
• Le massacre des innocents (1926, for marionettes)
• Images de la vie de saint François d'Assise (1926)
• Venus (1927)
• Escurial (1927)
• Christophe Colomb (1927)
• La Transfiguration dans le Cirque (1927)
• Noyade des songes, [Dreams Drowning] (1928)
• Un soir de pitié [A Night of Pity] (1928)
• Trois acteurs, un drame... (1928)
• Don Juan (1928)
• Barabbas (1928)
• Fastes d'enfer [Chronicles of Hell] (1929)
• Pantagleize (1929)
• Atlantique (1930)
• Celui qui vendait de la corde de pendu [The One Who Sold the Hanging Rope] Farce 3 acts. (1930)
• Godelieve (1930, unedited)
• Le Ménage de Caroline (1930)
• Le Sommeil de la raison [The Sleep of Reason] (1930)
• Le Club des menteurs (ou Le Club des mensonges) [Liar's Club] (1931)
• La Couronne de fer-blanc [The Tin-Plated Crown] Farce, 2 Acts and 3 Tableaux. (1931)
• Magie rouge [Red Magic] (1931)
• Le Voleur d'étoiles [The Star Thief] (1931)
• Le Chagrin d'Hamlet [The Sorrow of Hamlet] (1932)
• Vie publique de Pantagleize 1932(?)
• La grande tentation de Saint Antoine [The Great Temptation of Saint Anthony]. Burlesque cantata. (1932)
• La ronde de nuit [The Night Watch]. Pseudodrama for marionettes. (1932)
• La nuit de mai [The Night in May]. Drama for marionettes. (1932)
• Pike anatomique [Anatomical Play]. (1932)
• Le marchand de reliques [The Relic Dealer]. Pseudodrama. (1932)
• Casimir de l'Academie... [Casimir of the Academy] Pseudodrama. (1932)
• Paradis presque perdu (Paradise Almost Lost) Mystery. (1932)
• Genéalogie [Genealogy] Pseudodrama. (1932)
• Arc-en-ciel [Rainbow] (1933)
• Les Aveugles [The Blind men] (1933)
• Les Femmes au tombeau [The Women at the Tomb] (1933, for marionettes)
• Le Siège d'Ostende (1933)
• Swane A Forest Legend, Opera (1933) according to a story by Stijn Streuvels, music by Maurice Schoemaker.
• Plaisir d'amour (1933)
• Adrian et Jusemina (1934)
• Le Perroquet de Charles Quint [The Parrot of Charles V] (1934)
• Masques ostendais (1934)
• Petit drame (1934)
• La Balade du grand macabre (1934)
• Sire Halewyn (1934)
• Mademoiselle Jaïre (1934)
• Le Soleil se couche... [The Sun Goes Down] (1934)
• D'un diable qui précha merveilles [Of a Devil Who Preached Wonders] Mystery for marionettes, 3 acts. (1934)
• Hop Signor! (1935)
• Sortie de l'acteur, [Exit the Actor] (1935)
• Le vieux Soudard [The Old Trooper] Cantata. (1935)
• Le singulier trépas de Messire Ulenspigel [The Singular Death of Messire Ulenspigel] Play, 8 scenes. (1935)
• La Farce des Ténébreux [The Farce of Shadows] (1936)
• La Pie sur le gibet [The Magpie on the Gallows] (1937)
• Pantagleize est un ange [Pantagleize is an Angel] (1938, draft)
• La petite fine aux mains de bois [The Little Girl with Wooden Hands]. (written with Jean Barleig). Fairy Tale, 3 Acts. (1939)
• Scenes from the life of a Bohemian: Franz Schubert (1941)
• L'école des bouffons [School for Buffons] (1942)
• La Légende de la Sacristine [The Legend of the Sacristan] (1942, draft)
• Le Papegay triomphant (1943, unedited)
• For They Know Not What They Do (1950, unedited)
• La folie d'Hugo van der Goes [The Madness of Hugo van der Goes] Play, 3 scenes. (1951)
• Marie la misérable (1952)
• The Touching and Very Moral Heavenly Tribulation ... (full title: The Touching and Very Moral Heavenly Tribulation of Petrus in Eremo, pastor of a lean parish to the fat land of Flanders), (1960, unfinished)
• Angelic Chorus (1962, unedited)

Prose

• Voyage Autour de ma Flandre (or Kwiebe-Kwiebus) (1921)
• L'Histoire Comique de Keizer Karel (1922)
• La Halte catholique (1922)
• L'Homme sous l'uniforme [The Man under the Uniform] (1923)
• L'homme a la moustache d'or [The Man with the Mustache of Gold] (1931)
• Sortilèges [Spells] (1941)
• Mes Statues (1943)
• Choses et gens de chez nous [Things and People from Home] (1943, 2 volumes)
• La Flandre est un songe (1953)
• The Ostend Interviews (1956)

[ edit ]

Letters

Quotes

"Ghelderode is the black diamond that closes the necklace the poets of Belgium carry around the neck. This black diamond casts a cruel and noble fire. It wounds only the small souled. It dazzles others. "

- Jean Cocteau

"Before Ghelderode, the scene had become a political forum, Professor Sorbonne dialecticians, a showcase for the hands of designers, false laboratory psychiatrists, but the poets had deserted."

- Roger Iglésis

Sources

• Parsell, David B. (1993) Michel de Ghelderode. New York: Twayne Publishers. 0-8057-43030
• Ghelderode, Michel de (edited by R. Beyen) (1991-?) . Bruxelles: Archives du Futur (Tomes 1-7)
• Willinger, David (2002) Theatrical Gestures of Belgian Modernism. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc. 0-8204-5503-2

External links

• "The Black Diamond"