2I2 DANISH LITERATURE 



edly one of the most gifted of contemporary women writers. Her verses, written in 

 classical form, are full of the most poignant sensibility. Mile. Closset is a teacher and 

 lives in Brussels. Amongst other contemporary French authors in Belgium, the 

 following may be mentioned: Louis Delattre (Petits conies en sabots, La parfum des buis) ; 

 Blanche Rousseau (Le Rabaga); Louis Dumont-Wilden (La Belgique illustree, and, in 

 collaboration with L. Sougenet, La Victoire des vaincus); Franz Hellens (Les claries 

 lalenles); Jean de Bosschiere (Dolorine et les ombres). The best new Belgian plays 

 include Kaatje by Paul Spaak, Les Etapes and Les Liens by Gustave van Zype, and 

 Le manage de Mile. Beulemans, by Fonson and Wicheler, a picture of the life of the 

 lower middle class in Brussels. 



In Flemish literature there has been marked activity. Stijn Streuvels, a nephew of 

 Guido Gezelle, and by profession a baker at Avelghem, a village in Flanders, has made a 

 considerable reputation both in Belgium and in Holland. His descriptions of rural life 

 are both poetic and realistic, and he has been compared to Tolstoi, whose psychological 

 subtleties and epic amplitude Streuvels however does not possess. His style is of 

 rare perfection, and this remark applies to the whole of the modern Flemish school of 

 writers. Streuvel's last work is Het glorieryke Licht (" The glorious light"). 



Cyriel Buysse may be called the Flemish Maupassant. He is a realist. His works, 

 which deal with the life of the people both in towns and in the country and, to a lesser 

 degree, with that of the middle classes, form a complete picture of Flemish life. Buysse 

 is passionate, robust, full of revolt and of pity, very human. His De vroolyke thocht 

 (" The joyous expedition "), Slemmingen (" Impressions "), and, in collaboration with 

 Virginie Leveling, a popular woman author, Levensleer (" Education through life "), 

 appeared between 1910 and 1912. : . - 



Maurice Sabbe (De Nood der Bariseele's; " The plight of the Bariseeles "), whose 

 writings deal exclusively with Bruges, and E. Vermeulen (Herwording; " Renaissance ") 

 who deals with the life of the peasants in West Flanders, may also be mentioned as well 

 known contemporary Flemish writers. 



Rene De Clercq and Karel van de Woestijne are the most typical Flemish poets of 

 the present generation. Rene De Clercq proceeds directly from the inspiration of Guido 

 Gezelle (1830-1899). His poems are essentially popular, vigorous, full of life and good 

 spirits, although through these one feels his tenderness, his pity for the misery of the 

 Flemish peasants. A volume of Gc&ichten (" Poems ") is his latest work. Karel van de 

 Woestijne has a more complex personality. His poems are very varied in feeling, 

 sometimes simple and direct, at other times complicated, full of metaphors. His sphere 

 is that of the soul, and for him things are real in so far only as they partake of the 

 spiritual life. It is necessary to add that there are contrasts in van de Woestijne's 

 nature which he does not always dominate and which give a certain want of harmony 

 to his works. His last volume, containing prose essays on Flemish painters and writers, 

 is Kunst en Leven in Vlaanderen (" Art and life in Flanders "). His last volume of poems 

 is De gulden Schadenn (" The golden shadow "). (LALLA VANDERVELDE.) 



DANISH LITERATURE 1 



No great new literary work or new literary name of surpassing merit can be said to 

 have come forward during the period since 1908. Danish literature has, however, lost 

 one of its most distinguished representatives, Herman Joachim Bang (1857-1912), 

 who died suddenly in a train on January 29, 1912, while he was on a lecturing tour in 

 the United States. The body was brought home for burial in Copenhagen. Among 

 the later works of Bang were De uden Facdr eland (Those without Country), 1905, and 

 Masker og Mennesker (Masks and Men), 1910, a volume of theatrical and dramatical 

 essays. The death of Vilhelm Bergsoe (1835-1911) also occurred during this period. 



The trend of Danish literature has been a continued revolt against realism, and a 

 return to nature with works more redolent of the soil and of the national characteristics. 

 Side by side with the revival of romantic literature in a modern form has been a growing 



1 See E. B. viii, 39 et seq. 



