Gleanings from Maeterlinck

Gleanings from Maeterlinck

In the first act of The Blue Bird, the fairy Brylune sends Mytyl and Tyltyl in search of happiness. Shepherded and protected by Light, they explore the Past and the Future, the Palace of Night, the Kingdoms of the Dead and of the Unborn. At one moment they find themselves in a graveyard; and Mytyl grows fearful at her first contact with the great mystery of Death. Yet the graveyard with its wooden crosses and grass-covered mounds is moonlit and tranquil; and of a sudden, as the revealing diamond is turned in Tyltyls fingers, even the tombstones and all the grand investiture of death disappear, to be replaced by luxuriant, swaying clusters of Madonna lilies. Where are the dead? asks Mytyl, in amazement, searching in the grass for traces of even one tombstone. Her brother also looks: There are no dead, is his reply. Any one who was present on the first night of the play at the Haymarket Theatre, in 1909, will not easily forget the audiences little gasp of delighted surprise. Yet the two lines of dialogue were more than a stage effect, more than an aspect of mysticism; almost they may be regarded as the essence of Maeterlincks later work. Since the Life of the[viii] Bee, since the earlier essays and such pure drama as Monna Vanna, The Blind and Pellas and Mlisande, his mind seems to have been brooding more and more on the part which Death, the great twin mystery of the world, plays in the life of man and of the race. In The Death of Tintagiles there is a barred and studded door, through which, for all its studs and bars, there steals a miasma of dread. And, when the door opens, it is to release a spirit of annihilation which the concerted efforts of Tintagiles sisters can neither restrain nor force back. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 67625
Author: Maeterlinck, Maurice
Release Date: Mar 13, 2022
Format: eBook
Language: English
Publisher: Methuen & Co. Ltd.,1913
Publication Date: 1913
Publisher Country: United Kingdom

Contributors

Translator: Teixeira de Mattos, Alexander, 1865-1921