What do you think?
Rate this book
Ghelderode: Seven Plays, Vol. 1
Seven plays (1926-1934) by Belgian dramatist Ghelderode, translated into English. Also includes excerpts from an interview with the author. First of two volumes.
Plays included in this volume:
- The Women at the Tomb
- Barabbas
- Three Actors and Their Drama
- Pantagleize
- The Blind Men
- Chronicles of Hell
- Lord Halewyn
Plays included in this volume:
- The Women at the Tomb
- Barabbas
- Three Actors and Their Drama
- Pantagleize
- The Blind Men
- Chronicles of Hell
- Lord Halewyn
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1960
2 people are currently reading
103 people want to read
About the author
Michel de Ghelderode
70 books19 followersMichel de Ghelderode, pseudonyme d'Adémar Adolphe Louis Martens, était un écrivain belge d'origine flamande et d'expression française. Il a également utilisé d'autres pseudonymes: Philostene Costenoble, Jac Nolan et Babylas.
Michel de Ghelderode dans la Wikipédia française
Site consacré à Ghelderode (En français/In French)
Michel de Ghelderode, pseudoniem van Adémar Adolphe Louis Martens, was een Vlaamse schrijver die in het Frans schreef. Hij schreef ook onder de pseudoniemen Philostene Costenoble, Jac Nolan en Babylas.
Michel de Ghelderode in de Nederlandstalige Wikipedia
Michel de Ghelderode, nom de plume of Louis Adolphe Adémar Martens, was a Belgian writer of Flemish descent who wrote in French. He also used other pseudonyms: Philostene Costenoble, Jac and Nolan Babylas.
Michel de Ghelderode in the English Wikipedia
Michel de Ghelderode dans la Wikipédia française
Site consacré à Ghelderode (En français/In French)
Michel de Ghelderode, pseudoniem van Adémar Adolphe Louis Martens, was een Vlaamse schrijver die in het Frans schreef. Hij schreef ook onder de pseudoniemen Philostene Costenoble, Jac Nolan en Babylas.
Michel de Ghelderode in de Nederlandstalige Wikipedia
Michel de Ghelderode, nom de plume of Louis Adolphe Adémar Martens, was a Belgian writer of Flemish descent who wrote in French. He also used other pseudonyms: Philostene Costenoble, Jac and Nolan Babylas.
Michel de Ghelderode in the English Wikipedia
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 7, 2017
One of my very favorite plays is the one act Escorial. It concerns the King of Spain, the very unpopular ruler of Flanders for I believe 100 years. But the central character is the kings fool. The fool sits on the throne and pretends to be king. Everyone appears to believe him.
The real king was Charles II who was supposedly mad. I suppose Ghelderode point was if everyone treats a fool as if he is king how is that different than treating a madman as if he is sane.
If I were to stage it I wanted to pair it with Purgatory by William Butler Yeats.
The real king was Charles II who was supposedly mad. I suppose Ghelderode point was if everyone treats a fool as if he is king how is that different than treating a madman as if he is sane.
If I were to stage it I wanted to pair it with Purgatory by William Butler Yeats.
April 11, 2022
Some of these plays by de Ghelderode are better than others, all of them are good, none reach the heights of his short fiction. The lengthy interview that serves as a forward is the best part.
September 29, 2018
Gheldrode writes a kind of poetic theatre. His images are vibrant and red. His scenes full of angry faith. But it is not a Christian faith. It is a faith that you see when you look at stainglass window on cathedral. Pagan. Earthy. And opaque. Patagleize is my favourite play in this collection. Barrabas as well. The Blind Men is fascinating. Chronicles of hell would be crazy to watch and feel. The others are slow. Halewyn makes little impact.
March 13, 2026
I was in college when I learned about Michel de Ghelderode. My mouth watered at the thought of him. His plays were overabundantly poetic, ecstatically maximalist, authentically gothic, and thick with the smeared colors of perverted medievalism. A contemporary of Brecht and Cocteau, his voice was as vivid and distinctive as either of theirs, and yet accounts of his provincial life have made him sound like a misanthropic, half-mad Flemish hermit. He preferred marionettes to actors, felt himself closer to Breughel and Bosch than to any living writer, and was sympathetic to the Nazis because he wondered if they might like his plays more than did the high-minded moderates of interwar France (!)
Chronicles of Hell was the first one I read, all those years ago, and I was transfixed by its frenzied, apocalyptic atmosphere. The characters are variously-ranked members of the Catholic clergy. One first meets Carnibos (a chaplain) and then his buddy Krakenbus (a vicar), and one would be forgiven for mistaking them for cannibals or the undead based on their names and behavior. The play opens with Carnibos scavenging the remains of a decimated banquet, stuffing his face and occasionally blurting out "I'm nibbling!" or "Yum yum yum!" In another more chaotic dimension, I suspect they have Carnibos and Krakenbus instead of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Yet they are not the play's main concern; this is the assassinated bishop Jan in Eremo, who rises from the dead to dispatch his dispatcher, the conniving Simon Laquedeem. To be honest, this play was obscure to me in college and it's still obscure to me now, but I'm transfixed by its pitch of hysterical intensity.
Pantagleize is an eclectic mishmash of comedy and tragedy about an airheaded twit who unwittingly finds himself the celebrated center of a socialist-utopian sect. Real parallels with Brecht's A Man's a Man in terms the average person's fungibility in times of crisis and conflict--an evergreen modernist theme. There is perceptible influence from the cinema of the 1920s, and the titular bumbler could remind one of Chaplin or Keaton, but for the fact he never shuts up. It's not entirely successful, but it sure is unusual. Because of some jejune racist humor, it will likely remain a closet drama from here on out.
"Lord Halewyn" and "The Blind Men" are among the most successful pieces here, and they are also Ghelderode in his more conventional, mannered mode. "The Blind Men" has the feeling of a medieval morality play (a genre Ghelderode occasionally employed and succeeded with), while "Lord Halewyn" is a cousin to Yeats's symbolist dramas of the mythic past:
Ghelderode knew his stuff. There is the DNA of the best Jacobean tragedy in there.
"Escurial" is the best Ghelderode play I've read, but it's not in this collection, having been previously anthologized in Bentley's Modern Theatre Vol. 5.
Bentley nominated Ghelderode for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1961. It was a pipe dream. Ghelderode's plays are fascinating objects: visionary and unpredictable, engaged with adjacent literatures past, present, and future, and of genuine poetic value. But at the same time, they are plays of insiderism best enjoyed by insiders. For the precocious litterateurs and drama students of the world, Ghelderode may forever be the best poorly-kept secret: gaudy, seductive, impractical, glamorous, noxious, and mesmerizing. A thousand tallies of "Have you heard of this guy?" for every one tally of "I've read this guy."
Chronicles of Hell was the first one I read, all those years ago, and I was transfixed by its frenzied, apocalyptic atmosphere. The characters are variously-ranked members of the Catholic clergy. One first meets Carnibos (a chaplain) and then his buddy Krakenbus (a vicar), and one would be forgiven for mistaking them for cannibals or the undead based on their names and behavior. The play opens with Carnibos scavenging the remains of a decimated banquet, stuffing his face and occasionally blurting out "I'm nibbling!" or "Yum yum yum!" In another more chaotic dimension, I suspect they have Carnibos and Krakenbus instead of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Yet they are not the play's main concern; this is the assassinated bishop Jan in Eremo, who rises from the dead to dispatch his dispatcher, the conniving Simon Laquedeem. To be honest, this play was obscure to me in college and it's still obscure to me now, but I'm transfixed by its pitch of hysterical intensity.
Pantagleize is an eclectic mishmash of comedy and tragedy about an airheaded twit who unwittingly finds himself the celebrated center of a socialist-utopian sect. Real parallels with Brecht's A Man's a Man in terms the average person's fungibility in times of crisis and conflict--an evergreen modernist theme. There is perceptible influence from the cinema of the 1920s, and the titular bumbler could remind one of Chaplin or Keaton, but for the fact he never shuts up. It's not entirely successful, but it sure is unusual. Because of some jejune racist humor, it will likely remain a closet drama from here on out.
"Lord Halewyn" and "The Blind Men" are among the most successful pieces here, and they are also Ghelderode in his more conventional, mannered mode. "The Blind Men" has the feeling of a medieval morality play (a genre Ghelderode occasionally employed and succeeded with), while "Lord Halewyn" is a cousin to Yeats's symbolist dramas of the mythic past:
"Here we are at the limits of my land. The snow lies deep, and up above there shines a huge and evil moon. Look up in wonder at that skyey beacon whose dead radiance sets a halo round your murderers' jowls. It will be midnight in the moon if I read its dial aright." (I.vi)
Ghelderode knew his stuff. There is the DNA of the best Jacobean tragedy in there.
"Escurial" is the best Ghelderode play I've read, but it's not in this collection, having been previously anthologized in Bentley's Modern Theatre Vol. 5.
Bentley nominated Ghelderode for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1961. It was a pipe dream. Ghelderode's plays are fascinating objects: visionary and unpredictable, engaged with adjacent literatures past, present, and future, and of genuine poetic value. But at the same time, they are plays of insiderism best enjoyed by insiders. For the precocious litterateurs and drama students of the world, Ghelderode may forever be the best poorly-kept secret: gaudy, seductive, impractical, glamorous, noxious, and mesmerizing. A thousand tallies of "Have you heard of this guy?" for every one tally of "I've read this guy."
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews