THE BLUE BIRD by Maurice Maeterlinck - REVIEW

THE BLUE BIRD by Maurice Maeterlinck - REVIEW

Maeterlinck's words on overcoming death

A)

"Remember, and you will meet the dead."

(Maeterlinck)

Words have the power to change lives.

This time, I would like to share a quote by Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949), a Belgian Symbolist poet, playwright, and essayist.

His major works include Pelleas et Melisande and The Blue Bird, for which he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1911.

B)

Maeterlinck wrote his famous play The Blue Bird.

It is a fairy tale with 5 acts and ten scenes, published in 1908.

The play's theme is "the meaning of death and life."

"The Blue Bird" is a story about a near-death experience.

The message is that thinking about the dead strengthens our connection with them.

C)

The "Land of Memories" that Tyltyl and Mytyl visited in search of the Bluebird was on the other side of a thick fog.

It is a land of the dead, where a milky, dull light covers the entire surface.

In this "Land of Memories," Tyltyl and Mytyl are reunited with their deceased grandfather and grandmother.

In "The Blue Bird," Maeterlinck, said to have been a great mystic himself, asserted that "the living can meet the dead by remembering them."

The period in which Maeterlinck was active was when psychics, known as "spiritualism," was in vogue worldwide.

The Blue Bird's synopsis with origins and endsMaeterlinck's Blue Bird: Tyltyl and Mytyl's Adventurous Journey

i)

Main characters of The Blue Bird

Tyltyl

A child born into a poor family. Older brother of Mytyl.

Mytyl

A child born into a poor family. Younger sister of Tyltyl.

Grandmother of a wizard.

Tyltyl and Mytyl's brothers, she asks them to find a bluebird.

Spirit of Light.

She encourages the siblings to look for the Bluebird.

ii) Brief synopsis of The Blue Bird

Tyltyl and Mytyl were born into poor families and were always envious of their wealthy neighbors.

One day their grandmother, a wizard, asks them to find a bluebird.

They search for it but cannot find the Bluebird.

iii) Synopsis of The Blue Bird No. 1

The Wizard Granny's Request

Tyltyl and Mytyl were born into poor families and were always envious of their wealthy neighbors.

One day, a wizard grandmother came to them and said,

"My daughter is sick and wants the bluebird of happiness."

So she asked them if they knew.

When they said they did not know, she gave them a mysterious hat and asked them to look for the Bluebird.

The hat has a diamond, and your wish will come true if you turn it.

iv) Synopsis of The Blue Bird No. 2

A Journey to Mysterious Countries

Tyltyl and Mytyl begin their journey to find the Bluebird.

Their first stop is "the Land of Memories."

There they find their two deceased grandfathers and grandmothers, who are very happy to see them.

They gave them the "bluebird" in the Land of Memories.

However, when they left the Land of Memories, the Bluebird had turned black and died in its cage.

This bird was not an actual bluebird.

Next, they went to a castle where a spirit of the night existed.

Once inside, they found many creepy rooms, all locked.

They used the diamond in the hat to get inside.

There were many flowers and bluebirds.

They caught many bluebirds, but as soon as they went outside, they all died.

v) Synopsis of The Blue Bird No. 3

To the Land of the Future

Next, they went to the "Land of the Future," where the luxurious palace and the babies to be born would live.

However, no matter where they went, the same blue birds were there, but when they tried to take a cage full of them home, they all died.

The two were disappointed and did not know what to do.

The spirit of light saw them and said,

"You have searched hard. But, finally, you will find it someday, so cheer up."

Tyltyl and Mytyl were worried that they would never be able to bring the blue bird back.

vi) Synopsis of The Blue Bird No. 4

Two Pigeons

The two exhausted people heard a familiar voice.

"Please wake up. It's a beautiful day today," their mother's voice said.

When they looked up, they saw a "blue-winged bird" in the cage at their house.

We looked for it for a long time, but it turned out that the pigeon we had was a bluebird.

We will give the bird to the old lady.

They smiled at each other and said,

"Your daughter's illness will improve."

The wizard grandmother may have taught them that happiness may be closer to us than we think.

vii)Thoughts on reading The Bluebird

Tyltyl and Mytyl always longed to live in an affluent neighborhood.

The wizard gave them a difficult task: "Searching The Bluebird."

She sent them on a quest to find the Bluebird, but no matter how far they traveled, they could never get it.

When they returned to their old home, they realized their "blue-winged dove" in the house.

They searched far and wide for the unattainable "bluebird."

But the Bluebird of happiness was in their own home.

This story taught us that happiness is closer to us than we think and is all in our minds.

THE BLUE BIRD by Maurice Maeterlinck - REVIEW

1)

The Bluebird by Maurice Maeterlinck, a review by Louis Hillenbrand.

The Bluebird is the 15th play written by Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck, who was born in 1862 and died in 1949.

Maeterlinck is celebrated worldwide as the theatrical voice of the late 19th and early 20th centuries symbolist movement.

Maeterlinck focused his playwriting on expressing personal and spiritual truths with the help of symbols as opposed to plain language.

2)

Critical characteristics of his play include imaginative fantasy settings and typical dialogues tending towards more vague and poetic lines to convey symbolic truths.

It greatly influences the emergence of modernist drama.

He is mainly known for his play, published in 1892, "Pelleas and Melisande."

It is set in an imaginary medieval world featuring both key features typically associated with his writing.

3)

In his own words telling believed that theatre was the temple of dreams.

Like his fellow symbolist writers, he considered art's supreme mission to be the revelation of infinity and greatness and the secret beauty of man.

4)

He deeply valued imagination and suggested that art was an indirect channel nourishing the soul with glimpses of the absolute concerning the theatre.

In particular, he expressed his distrust of man's attempt to give life to those impressions of ultimate beauty for him.

A finite person enacting such sacred symbols was close to blasphemy, a genuine profanation of his Temple of Dreams.

5)

He admired ancient Greek theatre's indulgence and reverence towards those symbols by wearing masks to hide the finite in enacting the infinite.

It is why he wrote many plays for puppets and why most of his masterpieces, such as the Bluebird, have an otherworldly tone and themes.

6)

It premiered at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1908 and was hugely successful.

It tells the story of two brothers and sisters, Tyltyl and Mytyl, the children of a lumberjack and his wife, who are visited by a fairy disguised as an old lady.

7)

She asks them to retrieve a magical bluebird for her sick daughter, who desires happiness, before sending them on their mission.

The fairy gives them a unique hat with a diamond on it that, upon being turned, allows the children to see reality from an entirely new perspective.

It is why the souls of their dog, their cat, sugar, bread, order, and fire come alive and accompany them on their dream journey in which the sacred and motherly character light guides them to find the mythical bird.

8)

They begin their search in the land of memory, where they meet their deceased grandparents, brothers, and sisters, enjoying their new life free of anxiety.

They eventually catch a glimpse of what appears to be a bluebird which they bring along on their journey, but it turns black in the end afterward.

They venture into the palace of night where knights surrounded by her two children sleep.

They have locked all the evils, plague sicknesses, terrors, catastrophes, and mysteries that have tormented men since the beginning.

9)

After exploring each door, the final gate shows a splendid garden with countless bluebirds that they try to capture and bring along on their journey.

Only for them to die as they enter another realm called the forest in that new magical place, a group of trees and animals mount an attack on the children as a rebellion against man.

Thankfully their dog and light come to the rescue so they can move on to the palace of happiness there.

10)

They first encountered the luxuries that escaped upon the entrance of light and made way for true happiness with motherly love having a special bond with light.

The children are gifted with touching words of wisdom, but they must continue their voyage to find the Bluebird.

11)

After they've entered an eerie graveyard, the light of day soon reveals the land of the future.

They befriend unborn children waiting for the character's time to come and take them away to where they are to be born.

With time running out, the children must bid farewell to their friends and light and return home.

They wake up having a completely new and joyous perspective on the everyday elements that accompany them on their journey.

12)

The play ends with the old lady of the beginning telling Tyltyl that her sick daughter would be thrilled if she could have his bird that suddenly turns blue.

He then gives the old lady his bird for her daughter, who returns happy and well in sheer excitement.

However, the Bluebird escapes through the window, but the children swear that they will find it again and ask the audience to look for it carefully as well.

13)

The Bluebird is the culminating point of the symbolic genius.

It celebrates imagination and revelry and fully embraces the human condition.

I found the encounters in the palace of night and the court of happiness to be particularly evocative and thought-provoking.

14)

The symbolist saw imagination as the supreme delight, the only way to escape the fatality of existence.

In many of their works, we see a shared desire to lose oneself in that otherworldly realm in the face of the harshness of reality.

He is smiling and acknowledges this concept in his place, most of them exploring the idea of death and the meaning of life.

15)

However, he does present a solution to this existential dread in the Bluebird in its plea to enjoy the small everyday things in life to find contentment.

Again, we can see the influence of the thought of the young man who spoke a Flemish Christian mystic whose works Maeterlinck translated into French.

16)

Maeterlinck was raised in a french-speaking conservative Catholic household inflamed.

His enticement for the mystical writings of yan van Vosburgh can also be seen in his collection of essays.

17)

The treasure of the humble, published in 1896, at its core, Christian mysticism is theological within Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox in particular.

Like many other spiritual traditions, it promotes the marriage of one soul with a divine. From John of the Cross to Thomas, these Christian mystics preached the shedding of one's ego through humility and seeking the divine in everything, both the great and small things.

18)

The way Tyltyl admits he'll learn to see the souls of everyday items like bread, sugar, water, and their pets, thanks to a guiding character called light, hints at such a desire to embrace the little things.

19)

Especially when the children are so happy to see the characters above in their standard form upon waking up from their dream journey, the celebration of simple family life also enhances this theme of gratitude and straightforward enjoyment to find happiness in finding one's Bluebird.

The play was immensely successful only two years after its premiere in Moscow.

A silent movie adaptation was made as early as 1910, followed by another more successful American version in 1918.

20)

One year later, in 1919, it was made into an opera by composer Al Beowulf alongside Claude Debussy and Gabriel Faure.

Jean Sibelius and Arnold Schoenberg are one of the many composers who drew inspiration from Maeterlinck's work for their music.

Later on, it was adapted into a Technicolor movie in 1940 by the American studio 20th-century pictures.

21)

One year after the classic "The Wizard of OZ," with which it shares specific characteristics such as journeying from a bleak world into colorful realms populated with extravagant characters since the second half of the 20th century.

However, it seems to have become less popular among children who read in French. Sure one of the last Western cinematic adaptations comes from 1970

22)

It was made in the Soviet Union, where the promotion of enjoying the little things was probably seen as a theme compatible with communist ideology.

The most recent theatrical adaptation I have personally heard of comes from Japan.

A handful of enemies have referred to the play, including even Pokemon with Swablu and Alturas, known in Japanese as Tyltyl and Mytyl.

The reason for that, in my opinion, is because there exists a belief in Japanese folklore about the so-called Tsukumogami or objects that have acquired a soul, which is basically what happens in the play.

23)

This idea of treating objects as soulful beings though seemingly oriental thus finds its echoes in the West and the person of Swiss analytical psychologist Carl Gustav Jung.

After his death, he was described by his maid as having a special relationship with his everyday objects, treating them like friends and being a great admirer of Union.

I can tell how this idea could contribute to the overall psychological integration and individuation of one's being to find greater happiness.

24)

Years ahead of his time, Maeterlinck had already discovered the Bluebird in conclusion.

It is an overshadowed masterpiece with genuine and eternal wisdom to disclose to children and readers of all ages. It presents fantasy realms seldom equal during the time it was written.

25)

Especially in the theater, every read sheds new light on the human condition, gives unique insight, and nourishes the soul.

It is a work of art that has happily surprised me and found its place among my favorite books.

And I can only hope this review may entice other readers to appreciate its beauty in their search for their Bluebird.