Van Lerberghe, Charles

Van Lerberghe, Charles

 

Born Oct. 21, 1861, at Ledeberg, near Ghent; died Oct. 26, 1907, in Brussels. Belgian poet.

Van Lerberghe wrote in French, and his first printed work appeared in 1886. In 1889 he published his one-act drama They Sensed It, a forerunner of M. Maeterlinck’s symbolical dramas. Subsequently Van Lerberghe used a mystical theme only in his farce play Mademoiselle Le Faucheux. In 1898 his collection of lyrical poems entitled Glimpses appeared; it was characterized by the abstractness of its poetic style. In his narrative poem The Song of Eve (1904) and in his antireligious and antibourgeois play Pan (1906), the joy of life and nature are glorified as the embodiment of godliness. His poetry represents a transitional stage between the Parnassians and the symbolists.

WORKS

Contes hors du temps. Brussels, 1931.
In Russian translation:
“Stikhi.” In the collection Molodaia Bel’giia. Edited by M. Veselovskaia. Moscow [1907].
Oni pochuiali. Madmuazel’ Kosi-Seno. Pan. Moscow, 1908.
Pan. Moscow, 1911; 2nd ed., Moscow, 1916.

REFERENCES

Christophe, L. Charles Van Lerberghe . … Brussels, 1943.
Davignon, H. Charles Van Lerberghe et ses amis. Brussels, 1952.
Guillaume, J. La poésie de Van Leberghe: Essai d’exégèse intégrale. Namur, 1962.

I. N. POZHAROVA 4-857-3