Iwan Gilkin (7 January 1858 – 28 September 1924) was a Belgian poet. Born in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

, Gilkin was associated with the

Symbolist Symbolism was a late 19th-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and real ...

school in Belgium. His works include ''Les ténèbres'' (1892, featuring a frontispiece by

Odilon Redon Odilon Redon (born Bertrand Redon; ; 20 April 18406 July 1916) was a French symbolist painter, printmaker, draughtsman and pastellist. Early in his career, both before and after fighting in the Franco-Prussian War, he worked almost exclusivel ...

) and ''Le Sphinx'' (1907). Linked with the development of the literary revue the ''Parnasse de la Jeune Belgique'', he was an early appreciator of the

Comte de Lautréamont Comte de Lautréamont () was the ''Pen name, nom de plume'' of Isidore Lucien Ducasse (4 April 1846 – 24 November 1870), a French language, French poet born in Uruguay. His only works, ''Les Chants de Maldoror'' and ''Poésies'', had a majo ...

's infamous work, ''Les Chants de Maldoror'', and sent several copies of the book to his friends, including fellow poet

Léon Bloy Léon Bloy (; 11 July 1846 – 3 November 1917) was a French Catholic novelist, essayist, pamphleteer (or lampoonist), and satirist, known additionally for his eventual (and passionate) defense of Catholicism and for his influence within French C ...

. His mature works, which often concerned difficult religious and philosophical themes, reflect a highly pessimistic, spiritual and anti-positivistic outlook, influenced by

Charles Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticism inherited ...

and

Arthur Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer ( , ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work '' The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the pr ...

.''Columbia Dictionary of Modern European Literature''. pgs. 307-308. Columbia University Press, 1980. A French-language study of Gilkin by Henri Liebrecht was published in 1941.

Bibliography

* ''La Damnation de l'artiste'' (1890) * ''Ténèbres'' (1892) * ''Stances dorées'' (1893) * ''La Nuit'' (1893

* ''Prométhée'' (1897) * ''Le Cerisier fleuri'' (1899) * ''Jonas'' (1900) * ''Savonarole'' (1906) * ''Étudiants russes'' (1906) * ''Le Sphinx'' (1907) * ''Le Roi Cophétua'' (1919) * ''Les Pieds d'argile'' (1921) * ''Egmont'' (1926)

References

External links

Online Book With Translations of Iwan Gilkin Poems by James Kirkup
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gilkin, Iwan Belgian poets in French 1858 births 1924 deaths Decadent literature Members of the Académie royale de langue et de littérature françaises de Belgique