Aglavaine and Sélysette: A Drama in Five Acts is a play by the Belgian symbolist writer Maurice Maeterlinck, translated into English by Alfred Sutro, with an introduction by J. W. Mackail. The volume was published in London by George Allen in 1904, though the play was first printed in June 1899, with subsequent reprints in March 1900 and December 1904. The book includes a publisher’s advertisement listing other works by Maeterlinck in Sutro’s translation, including Monna Vanna and Sister Beatrice; and Ardiane & Barbe Bleue, as well as works by Sutro himself, such as The Cave of Illusion, which carried an introduction by Maeterlinck. The title page identifies the work as a drama in five acts, and the text is preceded by Mackail’s substantial critical introduction, which situates the play within Maeterlinck’s broader dramatic output and the literary movements of the time.
Context
The introduction by J. W. Mackail provides the primary contextual framing for the play. Mackail opens by quoting Maeterlinck’s own essay, which states that “men have a strange fear of beauty” — a phrase that serves as a key to understanding the play’s intentions. According to Mackail, Aglavaine and Sélysette is the latest in a series of works by Maeterlinck attempting to “disengage inner beauty from life,” a project that distinguishes the playwright from the broader romantic tradition. Mackail argues that the romantic drama had historically shrunk from expressing spiritual beauty, and that Maeterlinck invented a dramatic method that is vivid, flexible, and far-reaching, serving as the vehicle for a new sense of duty. This newness, Mackail suggests, is what is meant by “romance” in the context of Maeterlinck’s work.
Mackail draws an analogy between Maeterlinck’s plays and the painting of the Belgian artist Fernand Khnopff, tracing both to a common impulse within the Belgian romantic movement. He notes that this movement, while related to French romanticism, was deeply influenced by England, particularly by the Elizabethan drama and the Oxford romantic movement of roughly forty years prior. The influence of Elizabethan drama is most directly visible in Maeterlinck’s early play La Princesse Maleine, which Mackail describes as showing signs of morbid overstrain attributable to this source. Maeterlinck also adapted John Ford’s ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore for the French stage, and his contemporary Georges Eeckhoud translated The Duchess of Malfy, further evidence of the English influence on the Belgian circle.
Mackail traces the evolution of Maeterlinck’s method through his early works. In L’Intruse and Les Aveugles, the fantastic element of the earlier plays was exchanged for a graver treatment and a more definite symbolism. In these pieces, action is reduced to abstract limits, and the characters are given no personal names, appearing instead as types such as “Le Roi,” “Le Prêtre,” “La Sœur de Charité,” and “La Plus Vieille Aveugle.” In Les Aveugles, there is no action at all; terror grows from silence and darkness, and the barking of a dog becomes unbearable, comparable to the knocking at the gate in Macbeth. The curtain falls on the stoppage of silence. Mackail observes that motion is relative and that reaction equals action, so that the highest tragic effect may result from passiveness, as in the Niobe of Æschylus and in Hamlet. Maeterlinck has been called the “Belgian Shakespeare,” a title reflecting the ambition and scope of his dramatic project.
Mackail also discusses Maeterlinck’s style, noting the artifice of reiteration — the repetition of phrases in an attempt to use language to produce the emotional effect of music. He quotes the principle that “all art constantly aspires towards the condition of music,” and compares Maeterlinck’s early faults to those described in Keats’s preface to Endymion: “great inexperience, immaturity, and every error denoting a feverish attempt rather than a deed accomplished.” Maeterlinck’s answer to these faults was Pelléas et Mélisande, written in early 1892, which Mackail calls all but faultless in construction and among the masterpieces of literature. The play tells a story of human beauty and sorrow involving Pelléas, Golaud, the young wife, and the aged king. The finding of Mélisande by the well in the wood is the only concession to the fantastic. The language is severely simple, with rare metaphors that are tentative, and the structure of the language is commensurate with a Greek chorus; assonances and key-words lie pages apart, and the echo reaches over more than half the play. The play was performed in London in the summer of 1894 by M. Lugné-Poe and his company, and it is the only play by Maeterlinck that complies rigorously with modern stage conditions.
Mackail identifies a second great English influence on Maeterlinck: the Arthurian legend as interpreted by two great English artists. Names transferred into Maeterlinck’s work include Pelléas, Ygraine, Palomides, and Tintagiles, all saturated with associations from the Morte d’Arthur. The Pre-Raphaelite movement had turned to that same story, and Mackail notes that the combination of directness with brooding in Maeterlinck’s work may remind one of William Morris. In Morris’s The Hollow Land, repetition is used as Maeterlinck uses it. The author of Rapunzel and The Defence of Guenevere gave high praise to Pelléas et Mélisande. However, Mackail draws a distinction: in the English poet’s work, the outward world is dwelt upon with keen observation, while Maeterlinck is not specially observant — suggestion is nearly everything. Physical surroundings are reduced to abstract symbols, and Maeterlinck concentrates on the inner world. Mackail cites the line “I believe my hands are sick today” from Princess Mélisande as an example of this inward focus.
Mackail notes that Maeterlinck has definite notions of scenery, and that one admirer said “he was sick of that tower” when it reappeared in Aglavaine et Sélysette. The settings of Maeterlinck’s plays include old castles, canals, trees, a tower in a wood, clouds, silent pools, and the perpetual presence of water. In La Princesse Maleine, the scene was set in the Netherlands at the castle of Ysselmonde; other plays suggest Ghent and the canal of Terneuse. Maeterlinck is fond of light effects. Mackail concludes that for the present play, no special preface is required, and he acknowledges that some charm of language is lost in translation.
Structure of the Book
The book is structured as a dramatic text in five acts, preceded by a substantial critical introduction by J. W. Mackail and followed by the play itself. The publisher’s advertisement and title page provide bibliographic information, including the translation credit to Alfred Sutro and the publication history. The play is divided into five acts, with scenes within each act. The notes provided cover the latter portion of the play, beginning with a scene involving an unnamed speaker observing from a tower and continuing through the final scenes of the fifth act. The structure follows the conventions of symbolist drama, with an emphasis on dialogue, atmosphere, and interior states rather than on external action.
Detailed Section-by-Section Summary
The play opens in a scene observed from a tower, where an unnamed speaker surveys a castle, courtyards, woods, gardens, and flowers. The speaker notes that Meleander is waiting near a well, where the speaker had earlier awakened Aglavaine. The speaker instructs Yssaline to hide. Selysette and Yssaline then converse; Selysette is distressed, saying she cannot bear the flowers and the sea, and cannot do something “in the daylight.” Yssaline points out gulls, including a mother gull feeding her young. Selysette asks Yssaline about kissing “grandam” before leaving, fearing she was not gentle enough. Selysette reflects that if one is not gentler than usual when going away, others believe you no longer love them; she recalls her own mother not smiling at the last moment. She decides they must go kiss grandam tenderly.
In Scene V, Selysette wakes Meligrane, apologizing for not being gentle enough at parting. Meligrane reassures her. Selysette says she has never known her own love until now. Meligrane, unable to embrace due to her arms, asks Selysette to put her arms around her. Selysette speaks of having neither father nor mother, and of Meligrane’s importance in her life. Selysette asks if Meligrane has been happy; Meligrane says yes, since Selysette never left her. Selysette says that if Meligrane lost her, she would still have Aglavaine; Meligrane says she never lulled Aglavaine on her knee. Selysette urges Meligrane to love Aglavaine, who brought Selysette happiness. Selysette asks if she ever caused sorrow; Meligrane says only when she cried. Selysette says she will never cry again. Meligrane warns that happiness sways like a pendulum. Selysette asks Meligrane to tell others the story of a poor little girl. Selysette says she learned from Aglavaine that beauty remains and others are happy. Selysette stifles a sob, claiming it is tears of joy. She refuses to kiss Yssaline, giving all her kisses to Meligrane, says farewell, and leaves with Yssaline. Meligrane struggles to rise, calling after her.
In Scene VI, Selysette hides from Aglavaine behind a pillar. Aglavaine questions her; Selysette says she has a promise to keep. They exchange a long kiss; Aglavaine says Selysette’s lips are sweet, and a light shines from her. Selysette says Aglavaine was looking for Meleander, and asks Aglavaine to kiss him for her when she is not there. Selysette leaves, singing a song that ceases suddenly.
In Scene VII, at the top of the tower, Selysette tells Yssaline she will not go down again. She waits for the sun to sink, as the bird is afraid of light. Yssaline asks about stars; Selysette says they must hasten. Selysette wraps her white scarf around Yssaline, saying she will not need it. Selysette says her happiness is too much, and she is smiling. She tells Yssaline not to tell anyone she seemed sad. She says some one had to come with her, so they will know what took place. She asks Yssaline to forgive her for future suffering. Selysette asks why it had to be the younger of the two. She tells Yssaline to sit in a corner, rolls a big stone to block the opening, and says she will go down the other side. She leans over the crumbling wall, says the stones are trembling, and falls; a side of the wall gives way, with a fall and a cry. Yssaline, alone, sobs and calls for her.
In Act Fifth, Scene I, Meleander tells Aglavaine that Selysette has fallen asleep; doctors give no hope. She fell on a hillock of sand. There is no wound, but blood flows from her lips; she smiled but said nothing. Yssaline was found at the top of the tower, saying the wall opened while Selysette leaned over to catch a bird. Meleander recalls that Selysette seemed less sad than usual, and now suspects monstrous things; he curses beauty, the mind craving beauty, destiny, words, and life. Aglavaine insists they must know if she did it deliberately.
In Scene II, Selysette lies on her bed. Aglavaine and Meleander enter. Selysette says she is happy they came. Aglavaine blames herself, saying she brought death and failed to act. Selysette says she does not understand. Aglavaine says she should have held Selysette close and dragged forth the death in her soul. Selysette asks Aglavaine to listen only to what she says now, before her mind wanders. Aglavaine says she knows it was not an accident. Selysette says falsehood is impossible to the dying, and tells her it was an accident. Aglavaine asks Selysette to admit she wished to die to make them happy, for the “perfect peace of all our life.” Selysette refuses, saying it is untrue. Aglavaine pleads, but Selysette repeats, “I was leaning over, and I fell.” Aglavaine says Selysette asked what Aglavaine would do in her place; Selysette repeats the same phrase. Aglavaine sobs that God Himself were wrong before Selysette’s denial.
Main Arguments
The central argument of the play, as framed by Mackail’s introduction and borne out in the dramatic action, concerns the relationship between beauty, love, and sacrifice. Maeterlinck’s essay, quoted by Mackail, asserts that “men have a strange fear of beauty,” and the play dramatizes the consequences of that fear and the attempt to overcome it. The play argues that inner beauty — spiritual beauty — can be disengaged from the accidents of life and that this beauty has a moral force. The character of Selysette embodies this argument: she is the younger, seemingly weaker figure who nonetheless performs the play’s central act of self-sacrifice, giving way so that Aglavaine and Meleander may find happiness together. Her death is presented ambiguously — as an accident or a deliberate act — and the play deliberately refuses to resolve this ambiguity. Aglavaine’s insistence on knowing the truth and Selysette’s repeated denial that it was anything but an accident suggest that the truth of the act matters less than its effect on the living. The play argues that beauty remains and that others are happy, as Selysette says she learned from Aglavaine, and that this consolation is available even in the face of death.
Key Concepts
Several key concepts emerge from the play and its introduction. The first is the strange fear of beauty, which Maeterlinck identifies as a human tendency to shrink from the full implications of beauty and spiritual depth. The second is the reduction of action to abstract limits, a dramatic method in which external events are minimized and interior states are foregrounded. The third is the use of silence and darkness as sources of terror and meaning, as in Les Aveugles, where the barking of a dog becomes unbearable. The fourth is the reiteration of phrases to produce the emotional effect of music, a stylistic device that Maeterlinck employs throughout his work. The fifth is the idea that the highest tragic effect may result from passiveness, as in Niobe and Hamlet. The sixth is the concept of inner beauty as distinct from outward appearance, and the moral duty to recognize and serve it. The seventh is the ambiguity of sacrifice: Selysette’s death is never definitively explained, and the play insists on this ambiguity as essential to its meaning. The eighth is the pendulum of happiness, as Meligrane warns, suggesting that joy is unstable and subject to reversal.
Themes
The play’s themes include love and sacrifice, the nature of beauty, the relationship between the self and others, and the meaning of death. The central situation — a love triangle involving Meleander, Aglavaine, and Selysette — is resolved not by conflict but by self-effacement. Selysette’s decision to remove herself from the situation, whether consciously or not, allows the other two to find happiness. The theme of beauty is central: Aglavaine is associated with beauty and light, and Selysette says she learned from Aglavaine that beauty remains and others are happy. Yet Meleander, in his grief, curses beauty and the mind that craves it, suggesting that the pursuit of beauty can lead to destruction. The theme of duty is also present: Mackail notes that Maeterlinck’s dramatic method is the vehicle of a new sense of duty, and Selysette’s act can be read as a fulfillment of duty toward those she loves. The theme of childhood and innocence is embodied in Selysette, who speaks of having neither father nor mother and who asks Meligrane to tell others the story of a poor little girl. The theme of memory and legacy appears in Selysette’s request that her story be told and in her concern that others will know what took place. The theme of the natural world — flowers, sea, gulls, stars, the tower, the well — provides a symbolic backdrop to the human drama. The theme of language and its limits is also present: Selysette’s repeated phrase “I was leaning over, and I fell” resists interpretation, and the play suggests that some truths cannot be spoken directly.
The Author’s Conclusions
The play concludes with Selysette’s death and the unresolved question of whether it was deliberate. Aglavaine’s final sobbing assertion — that God Himself would be wrong before Selysette’s denial — suggests that the dying girl’s word must be accepted, even if it contradicts what the living believe to be true. The play’s conclusion is thus one of acceptance and ambiguity: the truth of Selysette’s act is less important than the love and beauty she leaves behind. Meleander’s curses against beauty, destiny, words, and life give way to the quiet acceptance of Selysette’s final statement. The play suggests that beauty remains, as Selysette learned from Aglavaine, and that this beauty is a consolation even in the face of death and loss. The author’s conclusion, as expressed through the action, is that inner beauty and self-sacrifice have a moral force that transcends the accidents of life and death, and that the strange fear of beauty must be overcome if one is to live fully and love truly.
Significance
The significance of Aglavaine and Sélysette lies in its place within Maeterlinck’s dramatic oeuvre and within the broader symbolist movement. Mackail’s introduction situates the play as the latest in a series of works attempting to disengage inner beauty from life, a project that distinguishes Maeterlinck from the romantic tradition and aligns him with the Belgian romantic movement and its English influences. The play’s method — the reduction of action, the use of silence and darkness, the reiteration of phrases for musical effect — represents a significant development in dramatic technique, one that Mackail compares to the aspiration of all art toward the condition of music. The play also reflects the influence of the Arthurian legend and the Pre-Raphaelite movement, as well as the Elizabethan drama, on Maeterlinck’s imagination. Its treatment of love, sacrifice, and beauty anticipates themes that would recur throughout Maeterlinck’s later work. The play’s refusal to resolve the ambiguity of Selysette’s death is characteristic of symbolist drama, which privileges suggestion over statement and interior truth over external fact. The play is significant as well for its exploration of the moral dimensions of beauty and duty, and for its insistence that the highest tragic effect may result from passiveness and self-effacement rather than from heroic action. In these respects, Aglavaine and Sélysette stands as a representative work of symbolist drama and a key text in Maeterlinck’s exploration of the inner life.
