Princess Maleine

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Princess Maleine
Maeterlinck - Theatre - La Princesse Maleine 006.jpg
La Princesse Maleine - illustrations by Léon Spilliaert (1903)
Written by Maurice Maeterlinck
Original languageFrench
Genre Fairy tale drama

Princess Maleine (French : La Princesse Maleine) is a play by Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck. It was the author's first play. It is an adaptation of the Brothers Grimm's Maid Maleen.

French language Romance language

French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French (Francien) has largely supplanted. French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the (Germanic) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to France's past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, most notably Haitian Creole. A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French.

Belgium Federal constitutional monarchy in Western Europe

Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a sovereign state in Western Europe. It is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to the southwest, and the North Sea to the northwest. It covers an area of 30,688 km2 (11,849 sq mi) and has a population of more than 11.4 million. The capital and largest city is Brussels; other major cities are Antwerp, Ghent, Charleroi and Liège.

A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. One such person is William Shakespeare, who lived during both the Tudor and Stuart eras of British history.

Contents

Publication

The play was first published in serial form in La Société Nouvelle, a Brussels periodical. Since Maeterlinck desired the play be published in book form, his mother tightened her budget and gave him 250 francs. The play was printed in December, 1889. [1]

Serial (literature) publishing format by which a single literary work is presented in contiguous installments

In literature, a serial is a printing format by which a single larger work, often a work of narrative fiction, is published in smaller, sequential installments. The installments are also known as numbers, parts or fascicles, and may be released either as separate publications or within sequential issues of a periodical publication, such as a magazine or newspaper.

Brussels Capital region of Belgium

Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, is a region of Belgium comprising 19 municipalities, including the City of Brussels, which is the capital of Belgium. The Brussels-Capital Region is located in the central portion of the country and is a part of both the French Community of Belgium and the Flemish Community, but is separate from the Flemish Region and the Walloon Region. Brussels is the most densely populated and the richest region in Belgium in terms of GDP per capita. It covers 161 km2 (62 sq mi), a relatively small area compared to the two other regions, and has a population of 1.2 million. The metropolitan area of Brussels counts over 2.1 million people, which makes it the largest in Belgium. It is also part of a large conurbation extending towards Ghent, Antwerp, Leuven and Walloon Brabant, home to over 5 million people.

Franc Name of several currency units

The franc is the name of several currency units. The French franc was the currency of France until the euro was adopted in 1999. The Swiss franc is a major world currency today due to the prominence of Swiss financial institutions. The name is said to derive from the Latin inscription francorum rex used on early French coins and until the 18th century, or from the French franc, meaning "frank".

Maeterlinck mailed a copy of his play to Stéphane Mallarmé, from whom it was eventually passed to Octave Mirbeau, who wrote a very warm review of the work in August 1890 for Le Figaro . In the review he said the play was "superior in beauty to what is most beautiful in Shakespeare." [2]

Stéphane Mallarmé French Symbolist poet

Stéphane Mallarmé, whose real name was Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of the early 20th century, such as Cubism, Futurism, Dadaism, and Surrealism.

Octave Mirbeau French journalist, art critic, travel writer, pamphleteer, novelist, and playwright

Octave Mirbeau was a French journalist, art critic, travel writer, pamphleteer, novelist, and playwright, who achieved celebrity in Europe and great success among the public, while still appealing to the literary and artistic avant-garde. His work has been translated into thirty languages.

<i>Le Figaro</i> French daily newspaper

Le Figaro is a French daily morning newspaper founded in 1826 and published in Paris. Le Figaro is the oldest national daily in France and is one of the three French newspapers of record, along with Le Monde and Libération.

After this rapturous reception, two invitations were offered to produce the play in France in October 1890: first from Paul Fort, director of the experimental Symbolist 'Théâtre Mixte' – soon to become the 'Théâtre d'Art' – and second from André Antoine, director of the 'Théâtre Libre', associated with Naturalism on the Parisian stage. Maeterlinck gave permission, rather oddly, to Antoine rather than Fort, writing to him that 'Princess Maleine is yours, and, to my mind, always has been. You will put on the play this year or in ten years or never, as you wish. It will wait, and will belong only to you.' [3]

Symbolism (arts) art movement

Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts.

Naturalism (theatre) movement in European drama and theatre

Naturalism is a movement in European drama and theatre that developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It refers to theatre that attempts to create an illusion of reality through a range of dramatic and theatrical strategies. Interest in naturalism especially flourished with the French playwrights of the time, but the most successful example is Strindberg's play Miss Julie, which was written with the intention to abide by both his own particular version of naturalism, and also the version described by the French novelist and literary theoretician, Émile Zola.

Shortly afterward, Maeterlinck withdrew the offer. But this was a bungle that prevented any live stage production of his first play until well after his death. Paul Fort and his associate Lugné-Poë quickly penned a public letter insisting that Antoine or no-one would be the first director of Princess Maleine. As a result, Maeterlinck's first play wasn't performed by professional actors in France until 1962, although there were several puppet productions shortly after publication. [4]

List of characters

Jutland mainland of Denmark, a peninsula north of Germany

Jutland, also known as the Cimbric or Cimbrian Peninsula, is a peninsula of Northern Europe that forms the continental portion of Denmark and part of northern Germany. The names are derived from the Jutes and the Cimbri, respectively.

Synopsis

Maleine is expected to marry Prince Hjalmar, whose father is old and senile. Her father King Marcellus and King Hjalmar have a misunderstanding. She refuses to abandon her love for Hjalmar, and is locked in a tower while war erupts and her entire family is killed. She escapes with her nurse and, concealing her identity, becomes a servant in the house of Hjalmar. She learns that the prince is now affianced to Uglyane, whose mother the mysterious Queen Anne has seduced old King Hjalmar. Queen Anne, upon discovering Maleine's identity, coaxes King Hjalmar into helping her kill the princess. Outraged, Prince Hjalmar kills Anne and then himself.

Themes

A salient theme in Princess Maleine is decline. Maeterlinck believed that man was completely powerless against a higher force, which exercised its will upon the world. Thus, the characters are dominated by their surroundings and are unable to control the events in their own lives. [5] Uglyane is completely dominated by her mother, and barely has a voice in the play at all. Prince Hjalmir is a coward. King Hjalmir is an old, sickly, senile figure. He resembles other kings in literature who are feeble, like Shakespeare's King Lear. He personifies decline and the waning years of a weak authority. [6]

Chaos is also an underlying theme. As Maleine wanders through the woods, the forest symbolizes chaos as it is dark and full of unseen predators. Whenever there is a juxtaposition of dark and light in the story, chaos ensues. The play ends in chaos, for there is no moral or championing of social values. [7]

Since Princess Maleine is set in a vague time and place, it resembles a fairy tale.

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References

  1. ↑ Maurice Maeterlinck, Bettina Knapp, (Twayne Publishers: Boston), 28-9.
  2. ↑ Knapp, 39.
  3. ↑ Patrick McGuinness, Maurice Maeterlinck and the Making of Modern Theatre (Oxford University Press, 2000), 88.
  4. ↑ David Willinger, 'A Life in Counterpoint to a Work', in Willinger and Daniel Gerould, (eds.), A Maeterlinck Reader (New York: Peter Lang, 2011), 27. McGuinness, 88.
  5. ↑ Knapp, 32.
  6. ↑ Knapp, 32-5.
  7. ↑ Knapp, 36-8.
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