‘McGuiness’s book would be worth reading for the last two chapters alone, but the whole is a major contribution to understanding of Maeterlinck’s drama both in itself and as mediation between Symbolism and later theatre’ -Forum for Modern Language Studies ‘Essential reading for anyone interested in Maeterlinck or turn-of-the-century theatre’ -Nineteenth-Century French Studies ‘One of the strong points of this rich and suggestive study is its treatment of Maeterlinck’s views and uses of language’ -Nineteenth-Century French Studies ‘Strongly argued and extremely persuasive book’ -John Stokes, Times Literary SupplementMaurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949) has been called the prodigal father of modern theatre. Admired by such diverse writers as Mallarme and Yeats, Artaud and Strindberg, Chekhov and Jarry, Maeterlinck gave theatre a new set of bearings: ‘static theatre’, ‘the theatre of the unexpressed’, and ‘the tragic of the everyday’. As Rilke put it, he shifted theatre’s centre of gravity, replacing action with inaction, events with the eventless, and dialogue with a semantics of silence as expressive as any of Symbolism’s most sophisticated poetic constructions.
This study, the first book on Maeterlinck in English for more than a decade, traces the development of a dramatic vision of extraordinary originality and depth. Its scope of reference is broad (revealing Maeterlinck’s relations with, and influences on, Artaud, Jarry, Mallarme, and Yeats), and its critical approach both historical and theoretical, testing theories of theatricality from Symbolism to Roland Barthes against Maeterlinck’s own theory and practice.