Maeterlinck, Maurice, Count 1862-1949
Belgian dramatist and Nobel Prize winner

Born in Ghent, he studied law there, but became a disciple of the Symbolist movement, and in 1889 produced his first volume of poetry, Les Serres chaudes ('The Greenhouses'). In the same year came his prose play, La Princesse Maleine (Eng trans The Princess Maleine, 1890), and in 1892 Pell�as et M�lisande (Eng trans Pelleas and Melisande, 1894), on which Claude Debussy based his opera. Other plays include Joyzelle (1903, Eng trans 1906) and Marie-Magdeleine (1910, Eng trans Mary Magdalene, 1910). La Vie des abeilles (1901, Eng trans The Life of the Bee, 1901) is one of his many popular expositions of scientific subjects, and he also wrote several philosophical works. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1911.

Bibliography: B Knapp, Maurice Maeterlinck (1975)