Guido Gezelle

Guido Pieter Theodorus Josephus Gezelle ( born May 1, 1830 in Bruges, † November 27, 1899 same place ) is considered the greatest Flemish poet of the 19th century.

Life

Gezelle was born the son of Monica Devrieze and Pieter Jan Gezelle. He came into the world with a larger than average head. This was the reason why Gezelle was even baptized immediately after birth and later. Due to lack of funds he could not go to Bruges to secondary school. His parents sent him to Roeselare. He was ordained in 1854 to the Roman Catholic priest and was a teacher, where he was unpopular with many of his colleagues because of his work for the Dutch language. He lived for many years in Kortrijk. Regardless of all the literary currents of his time, he was one of the greatest Flemish poet of the 19th century. His work Kerkhofblommen (cemetery flowers, 1858) was the starting point of the rebirth of the Flemish poetry. Gezelles seals combined in a unique way the traditional Dutch literary language with its own West-Flemish dialect.

Popular themes of his poems are observations of nature and religious feelings, often combining both. Formally, his poems are distinguished by increasing poetic license. Gezelle experimented with new verse and stanza forms, neologisms, repetition and onomatopoeia. Some of his poems show affinity with the literary impressionism.

Gezelles poetic confrontations with nationalism led to conflicts with representatives of Church and Education. Therefore, he limited 1870-1875 his work on essays and translations. Later works such as Tijdkrans (time Kranz, 1893) and Rijmsnoer ( rhyme tape, 1897) continued the language arts his first creative phase.

Work

• Vlaemsche Dichtoefeningen (1858 )
• Kerkhofblommen (1858 )
• Poems, gezangen s gebeden (1862 )
• Tijdkrans (1893 )
• Rijmsnoer om en om het jaar (1897 )
• Laatste verzen (1901 )