Pastel Portrait of Georges Rodenbach , by Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer , 1896

1. Symbol and Loss in Georges Rodenbach’sBruges-la-Morte(1892)Birger Vanwesenbeeckvanweseb@fredonia.eduFulbright Senior Lecturer, Bogaziçi University, 2018-19Professor of English, State University of New York at Fredonia

2. Pastel Portrait of Georges Rodenbach, by Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer, 1896

5. Jan Van Eyck. Madonna with Canon Van der Paele, 1436. Groeninge Museum, Bruges. Her hair was of the same hue as that with which the Primitives endowed the Virgins they painted, and fell in the same calm and unruffled fashion. (18)

7. Serialized in French newspaper Le Figaro, February 4-14 1892.

8. ‘Les Mardis de Mallarmé” StéphaneMallarmé, painted by EdouardManet, 1876.

9. Symbolism akaDecadentism 1880s-1890s (Joris-Karl Huysmans, A Rebours, 1884) Particularly influential in Belgium and France aka Fin-de-Siècle A “return” to Romanticism

10. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) ≠ Allegory Goethe on the Symbol Seeks the general in the particular Remains “infinitely active and unreachable”

11. At the approach of the evenings, he derived a melancholy solace from the analogies which he devised between the mournfulness of his own destiny and that of the forsaken canals and decaying churches that instinctively attracted his footsteps. (18) A mysterious equation established itself between his own spirit and that of the place. In the eternal fitness of things a dead town furnished the corresponding analogy to that of a dead wife. His great mourning required an environment like this. (21) It was Bruges, Bruges from which the sea had withdrawn like a great happiness. (chapter VI)

12. Mourning and language For five years he had led this life of seclusion, ever since his arrival in Bruges shortly after the death of his wife. “Five years already!” He repeated the words aloud to himself. “Five years a widower!” That dull, irremediable word, - a word replete with mournful significance which gave fullness of expression to the agony of bereavement. (17) Voilà cinqansqu’ilvivaitainsi, depuisqu’ilétaitvenu se fixer à Bruges, au lendemain de la mort de sa femme. Cinqans déjà! Et il se répétaitàlui-même: “Veuf! Etreveuf! Je suis le veuf!” Motirrémédiableet bref! D’uneseulesyllabe, sans echo. Mot impair et qui désignebienl’êtredépareillé. (italics added)

13. The “second death” In the slow passage of the years the physiogonomy of his dead wife, which at first had been retained in all the freshness of its beauty, had little by little become so elusive, that now it was in danger of evaporating like an exposed pastel rendered almost unrecognizable by dust. Thus within the dust of our own souls the dead die a second time. (25)

14. What I wish to imply is this: that it is the town which directs all that occurs here; that its urban landscapes are not mere backdrops, settings selected almost haphazardly, but are fundamentally linked to the main action of the novel. It is because of this essential connection between these scenes of Bruges and the events described in the story that photographic reproductions of the former have been inserted in the text. In this study of passion I have tried first and foremost to evoke the city as one of the principal characters. (15) “Author’s Foreword” (“Avertissement”)

15. NatureMorte C “Culture Morte”

16. Bruges-the-Living