Georges Rodenbach

Georges Raymond Constantin Rodenbach (* July 16, 1855 in Tournai in Belgium, † December 25, 1898 in Paris) was a Belgian Symbolist poet and novelist who wrote in French.

He was the son of a French mother and a German. Already during his school days in Ghent began his friendship with the poet Emile Verhaeren. Later he worked as a lawyer and as a journalist. The last ten years of his life he spent in Paris as a correspondent of the Journal de Bruxelles. With Edmond de Goncourt, he was a close friend.

He has published eight collections of poetry, four novels and numerous short stories, works for the stage and reviews. His most famous work The dead Bruges (1892 ) raised this city for the modern tourism back to life and was used by Erich Wolfgang Korngold as the basis for his opera Die tote Stadt.