Emile Verhaeren

alt=A bespectacled man, wearing a suit, stands outside a house. He holds a pipe in his mouth with his right hand, and sports a thick moustache.

Émile Adolphe Gustave Verhaeren (; 21 May 1855 – 27 November 1916) was a Belgian poet and art critic who wrote in the French language. He was one of the founders of the school of Symbolism and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature on six occasions.

Early life Émile Verhaeren was born into a middle-class French-speaking family in Sint-Amands, a rural commune in Belgium's Province of Antwerp, although he also spoke the local Dutch dialect. At the age of eleven, he was sent to a strict boarding school in Ghent run by Jesuits, the Jesuit College of Sainte Barbe, where he formed a friendship with Georges Rodenbach. He then studied law at the then French-speaking Catholic University of Leuven, where he produced his first literary efforts in a student paper, La Semaine (The Week), which he edited in conjunction with the opera singer Ernest van Dyck. La Semaine was suppressed by the authorities, as was its successor, Le Type, where his colleagues included Max Waller, Iwan Gilkin and Albert Giraud.

He wrote his first play, Les Aubes, in 1898. Here he waged a fight against social injustice and the decline of life in the countryside. In 1912, he produced a tragedy, Hélène de Sparte, which was performed in German and Russian, besides French. He travelled, giving lectures, throughout Europe.

Verhaeren was an anarchist. The outbreak of World War I had a devastating effect on the poet's deep pacifist feelings. He went to England, where he received honorary degrees from various universities. During his exile, he published Les Ailes rouges de la Guerre.

Honours 1920: Posthumous Grand Cordon of the Order of Leopold.

Selected works Les Flamandes, 1883 Les Moines, 1886 Les Soirs, 1888 Les Débâcles, 1888 Les Flambeaux noirs, 1891 Les Campagnes hallucinées, 1893 Les Villes tentaculaires, 1895 Les Heures claires, 1896 Les Visages de la vie, 1899 Les Forces tumultueuses, 1902 La Multiple Splendeur, 1906 Les Rythmes souverains, 1910 Les Ailes rouges de la guerre, 1916 Les Flammes hautes, 1917 [written in 1914] Belle Chair, 1931 [published posthumously]