Michel de Ghelderode

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Ghelderode, Michel de (1898–1962), Belgian dramatist, writing in French, who created in his plays a world which recalls the Flemish fairgrounds painted by Breughel and Bosch and the theatre of Artaud. In grotesque decaying settings the characters act out a burlesque of the human condition, engulfed by the obscene deformities of the flesh which end in death. Several of his most important works, beginning with Barabbas (1928), one of a number with biblical subjects, were originally produced in Flemish by the Théâtre Populaire Flamand. Ghelderode was little known outside Belgium until after the Second World War, when he was ‘discovered’ by the avant-garde in Paris, which led to revivals of Hop! Signor (1935) in 1947, Escorial (1927) in 1948, and Mademoiselle Jaïre (1934) and Fastes d'enfer (1929) in 1949. The last caused such a scandal that it was eventually withdrawn. His numerous other plays include Christophe Colomb (1927) and La Mort du Docteur Faust (1928), part of a group inspired by burlesque and music-hall, and Les Femmes au tombeau (The Women at the Tomb, 1928), another biblical play. His work, which includes early plays for puppets and shows the influence of Maeterlinck, is still almost unknown in Britain.

Michel de Ghelderode , 1898–1962, Belgian dramatist. He wrote in French and is noted for his colorful and avant-garde plays. He lived in obscurity until 1949, when he gained prominence with the production of Fastes d'enfer (1929). His vast output reveals his use of many sources; Barabbas (1928), Mademoiselle Jaïre (1934), and Marie la misérable (1952) draw on biblical themes or medieval morality plays. The influences of Maeterlinck and Flemish painters, of puppet theater and commedia dell'arte, of Rabelais and Edgar Allan Poe, are evident in Pantagleize (1929), Magie rouge (1931), La Balade du grand macabre (1934), and Hop Signor! (1935). Complex dramatic techniques are used in Christophe Colomb (1927) and Don Juan (1928). Ghelderode favored themes of death and the devil, gluttony, avarice, and lust, but he also explored the heights of religious exaltation. Among his prose works La Flandre est un songe (1953) is well known.

Bibliography: See his Théâtre complet (5 vol., 1950–52). Les Entretiens d'Ostende (1956) has been partly translated, together with some of his best plays, in Seven Plays (1960).