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The Intelligence of Flowers The Intelligence of Flowers 2 MAURICE MAETERLINCK Translated and with an Introduction by Philip Mosley State University of New York Press cover photograph: Orchid No. 1, 2005,andrew sovjani used by permission Published by state university of new york press Albany © 2008 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, contact State University of New York Press www.sunypress.edu Production and book design, Laurie Searl Marketing, Susan M. Petrie Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Maeterlinck, Maurice, 1862–1949. [Intelligence des fl eurs. English] The intelligence of fl owers / Maurice Maeterlinck ; translated and introduction by Philip Mosley. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN978-0-7914-7273-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN978-0-7914-7274-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Botany. I. Mosley, Philip. II. Title. PQ2625.A4I513 2008 844’.8–dc22 2007001782 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 2 Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction ix The Intelligence of Flowers 1 Scents 63 On the Publication History of Maeterlinck’s Botanical Essays 71 Select Bibliography 73 2 Acknowledgments Initial work on the translation was facilitated by a residency at the European College of Literary Translators in Seneffe, Belgium. Thanks are due to Françoise Wuilmart, director of the college, and to Jean-Luc Outers, Senior Literary Counselor in the Belgian Ministry of the French Com- munity, Brussels. Support for travel to this residency came from the offi ce of Academic Affairs at the Worthington Scranton campus of Penn State University, and from the Offi ce of International Programs at Penn State. Thanks also to Frans De Haes at the Archives and Museum of Lit- erature, Brussels, for his assistance. I am grateful to Elinor Shaffer and Ashton Nichols for their helpful comments on an early draft of the introduction. Finally, thanks to Shu-ching, my wife, who helped in many ways. vii 2 Introduction Relatively neglected since the mid-twentieth century, the Belgian author Maurice Maeterlinck (1862–1949), win- ner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1911, was once one of the most widely read authors in the world. He was appreciated particularly in Britain, the United States, and Germany. Though a writer in French of Flemish origin, he remained rather less infl uenced by French literature and culture than by those of Germany and Britain, which con- formed more closely to his Flemish sensibility and Ger- manic cast of mind. After the end of World War I he stayed briefl y in the limelight, notably touring the United States and spending time in Hollywood. Yet his best work was al- ready well behind him. Another brief spell of public atten- tion accompanied his return to the United States, where he lived from 1940 to 1947, but after his death in 1949 he became for the most part a forgotten fi gure. We remember Maeterlinck today as a symbolist pioneer of modern drama and as a poet. His extraordi- nary literary success came fi rstly from the innovative and strangely atmospheric plays he wrote in the last decade of the nineteenth century, among them Princess Maleine ix
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