Michel de Ghelderode

Michel de Gholderode ( born April 3, 1898 in Ixelles / Elsene, † April 1, 1962 in Schaerbeek; actually Adémar Adolphe -Louis Martens ) was a French-speaking Belgian author - Flemish descent. His works are attributed to the absurd theater.

Biography

Born on April 3, 1898 in Ixelles (Belgium ), the son of Jeanne -Marie Rans and Henri- Alphonse Martens. Although its coming from the Brussels area family was Flemish, he enjoyed an exclusively French-language education, which promised social advancement. From his strict father, who was an archivist, he inherited a love of history. A 16 years old only just successfully endured typhus influenced his career choice and should also have consequences for the later work.

He started at the Brussels Conservatory, a viola studies, but he gave up quickly. From 1917 he worked as a journalist, in 1918 he used the pseudonym Michel de Gholderode he until 1930 officially introduced as the name. From 1919 to 1921 he did his military service in the Navy. In 1923 he was awarded the prize of the magazine la Renaissance d' Occident for his play Oude Piet (not translated into German ) Award and began a management activity in the municipality of Schaerbeek. In 1924 he married in a civil ceremony Jeanne -Françoise Gérard.

By 1930, wrote and directed Gholderode repeatedly puppet plays, from 1925 he also worked very successfully for the spectacle. Fertile creative periods alternated with creative crises and years of serious illnesses. 1926 was the et al interesting piece la Mort du docteur Faust, in which a lively game with identities is urged that anticipates later literary developments. In 1934, several major works were: Masques ostendais, Sortie de l' acteur, Sire Hallewyn, la Balade du Grand Macabre, Mademoiselle Jaire.

From 1939 he wrote almost exclusively for the radio and prose. Between 1941 and 1943 contributed Gholderode before glosses written by him on the radio by the German occupiers, which was accused after the liberation and contributed to his early retirement. In the fifties there was in France to a renaissance of his work. Nevertheless Gholderode died alone and embittered on 1 April 1962. Planned His nomination for the Nobel Prize in Literature, he did not live.

Work

Although his works in terms of quality and radicalism not backed by Arthur Adamov, Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, Eugène Ionesco, and Alfred Jarry's back seat, they are far less known. In the work Ghelderodes his love breaks through the historical Middle Ages and the Renaissance, often in the choice of subjects and in the part of the mystery plays and commedia dell'arte figures borrowed. Again and again, death motifs are picked up. In the frequent involvement with the game of personalities and identities a relationship is the work of contemporaries Luigi Pirandello.

Only a small part of the oeuvre has been translated into German, even antiquarian editions are difficult to obtain. Often the translations are also of poor quality. To some popularity on the German stage enjoys alone Ghelderodes most famous work, the. Ballad of a large Macabre (La Balade du grand macabre ), which is also a template for the successful modern opera Le Grand Macabre György Ligeti

Michel de Gholderode not only wrote plays, but also puppetry, poetry, prose and music. There is also a considerable number of radio plays (only partially implemented ) survived.

Translated into German works and editions

• Michel de Gholderode Theatre. Luchterhand, Neuwied in 1963, DNB 451,539,141th Spawn of Hell ( Fastes d' Enfer ). translated by Fritz Montfort. Pp. 85-123.
• The Ballad of the great macabre (La Balade du grand macabre ). translated by Leopold peoples. Pp. 5-84.
• Escorial. translated by Fritz Montfort. Pp. 125-138.
• The old men ( Vieillards ). translated by Wilfried Schröpfer. Pp. 219-227.
• Pantagleize. translated by Fritz Montfort. Pp. 139-227.