Déclin et célébration du vivant dans l’écriture d’Émile Verhaeren

Abstract

This article is an ecopoetic reading of a selection of works (poetry and theatre) of the Belgian symbolist Émile Verhaeren. Its aim is to highlight the critical discourse and the constructive discourse of the author about the environmental question and the relationship between culture and nature. We will start with his “social trilogy”, Les Campagnes hallucinées, Les Villes tentaculaires and Les Aubes, and analyze the representation of the pollution and the transformation of the countryside landscape which was triggered by unbridled industrialization in the late nineteenth century, while focusing on the materialist writing and the decadent imaginary. We will then examine his vitalist collections, Les Visages de la vie, Les Forces tumultueuses and La Multiple splendeur, and analyze how the poet imagines the return of harmony between humans and nature and also see how his thinking was close to his contemporaries’ utopian projections. We will lastly demonstrate that his poetic art celebrates the living world from an internal and sensitive vision.