HERREWEGHEN, Hubert van 1920-

PERSONAL: Born February 16, 1920, in Pamel-Roosdaal, Belgium; married; children: five. Religion: Roman Catholic.

ADDRESSES: Home—Grilstraat 4, B-1080 Brussels, Belgium.

CAREER: Journalist, civil servant, and poet. Editor of literary reviews, including Podium, 1943–44, De Spiegel, 1945–46, and Dietsche Warande & Belfort, beginning 1947.

MEMBER: Koninklijke Academie voor Nederlandse Taal-en Letterkunde (Royal Academy of Dutch Language and Literature; honorary member), Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde (Society for Dutch Literature).

AWARDS, HONORS: Prize of the Province of Brabant, 1945; Belgian Triennial State Prize for Poetry, 1962; De Standaard Prize, 1985; SABAM Prize, 1987; Bernheim Prize, 1997; Dirk Martens Prize, town of Aalst, 2004.

WRITINGS:

POETRY

Het jaar der gedachtenis, 1943.

De minnaar en de vrouw, 1945.

Liedjes van liefde en van de dood, 1949.

Gedichten, 1953.

Gedichten II: Brieven uit Portugal, 1958.

Gedichten III, 1961.

Vleugels (een bloemlezing), 1963.

Gedichten IV, 1968.

Verzamelde gedichten (includes Gedichten V: Brak), 1977, 2nd edition, 1986.

Aardewerk: Gedichten VI, 1984.

Fazant, 1985.

Valentijn: Een toef liefdesgedichten, 1986.

Kort dag: Gedichten VII, 1988.

Twee patrijzen, 1988.

Korf en trog: een jaargang, 1992.

Zwart lam, 1993.

Karakol: gedichten, 1995.

De gemsbok, 1995.

Bloemlezing uit de poëzie van Hubert Van Herreweghen (selected and with an introduction by D. De Geest), 1999.

Een Brussels tuintje, 1999.

Kornoeljebloed: gedichten, 2001.

Een kortwoonst in de heuvels: gedichten, 2002.

De schaking van een prinses: de 100 mooiste liefdesgedichten, 2003.

Een lamentatie van de melaatse koning, 2005.

EDITOR OF ANTHOLOGIES

(Editor, with Willy Spillebeen) Dingen die niet overgaan: Een bloemlezing poëzie uit Vlaanderen en Nederland, 1945–1985, Davidsfonds/Clauwaert (Louvain, Belgium), 1984.

(Editor, with Willy Spillebeen) Het nachtegalenbosje: poëzie uit Vlaanderen en Nederland, 1880–1916, Davidsfonds/Clauwaert (Louvain, Belgium), 1990.

(Editor, with Willy Spillebeen) Soms tussen tulpen: Poëzie uit Vlaanderen en Nederland, 1916–1945, Davidsfonds/Clauwaert (Louvain, Belgium), 1997.

Author coedited, 1965–2000, Gedichten, an annual selection of the best Flemish and Dutch poems published in the past year's literary reviews. Also author of the essay Geuze en Humanisme, 1955.

SIDELIGHTS: Flemish poet Hubert van Herreweghen worked as a journalist and civil servant before becoming editor of several literary reviews. His most famous works of poetry are Gedichten II: Brieven uit Portugal, and Gedichten III, which contain classically inspired romantic poems with an autobiographical tone. The basis of Herreweghen's poems is formed by everyday observations, the relationships between men and women, and memories of his idyllic youth in a farm village. In many poems the adult awareness of original sin is contrasted with the blissful condition of youth in an elegiac setting. In his poems, there are many moments of transitory bliss when the narrator manages to return to a childlike state for a moment.

This melancholic longing for a lost paradise is based on Herreweghen's Catholic faith. It is this faith that keeps him from seeing life as absurd and without hope, even when he was coming of age during World War II. At the same time, his poetry exhibits two conflicting worldviews: the Catholic and the existentialist perspective. An important theme to Herreweghen is that of irreconcilable dualities: life and death, flesh and spirit, time and eternity. In his poems these dualities are never resolved.

Herreweghen's poems are classically constructed, with a musical tone and great attention to rhythm. Because of his traditionally rhymed verse he has not achieved the acclaim he might have in his native Netherlands. In Belgium, however, Herreweghen has received greater attention and was awarded the prestigious State Prize.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Spillebeen, Willy, Hubert van Herreweghen, Orion (Brugges, Belgium), 1973.

PERIODICALS

Dietsche Warande en Belfort: Tijdschrift voor Letterkunde, Kunst en Geestesleven, February, 1978, Willy Spillebeen, "De dichter Hubert van Herreweghen," pp. 130-136; February, 1986, Hugo Brems, "Lijnen en schaduwplekken," pp. 123-127.

[Entry reviewed by daughter, Karel van Herreweghen.]