"The Life of the Bee" was published in 1901. The book is essentially an adornment of the known truth about bees. It is a piece of sustained eloquence, which has for its subject-matter what the writer has seen and read of the swarm, the foundation of the bee city, the young queens, the nuptial flight, the massacre of the males, the progress of the race of bees. It depends not upon discovery, but upon a presentation of facts and opinions.
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About the Author
Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949) was a Belgian author, the outstanding exponent of symbolist drama and the author of The Blue Bird and Pelléas and Mélisande.
Maeterlinck was born August 29, 1862, in Ghent and educated in law at the university there. He abandoned the legal profession when he moved to Paris in 1886 and came under the influence of the symbolist poets. Reacting against the prevailing naturalism of French literature, Maeterlinck wrote some symbolist poetry, notably Les serres chaudes (Hothouses, 1889). He is known principally for his plays, for which he received the 1911 Nobel Prize. He lectured in the U.S. in 1921 and spent World War II there. Maeterlinck returned to Europe following the war and died May 6, 1949, in Nice, France.
Maeterlinck's plays are characterized by clear and simple writing, by a dreamlike atmosphere, and by the suggestion rather than the direct expression of ideas and emotions. His early plays are marked by an attitude of profound melancholy and pessimism in the face of evil and death; in his later plays this attitude gives way to a belief in the redeeming power of love and in the reality of human happiness.
His plays include The Princess Maleine (1889); the melancholy fantasy masterpiece Pelléas et Mélisande (1892), made into an opera (1902) by the French composer Claude Debussy; and The Blue Bird (1909), which has become a classic for children. Less popular are Monna Vanna (1902) and The Burgomaster of Stilmonde (1918). Maeterlinck was also the author of many works in prose that deal with philosophic questions and with nature; they include The Treasure of the Humble (1896), The Life of the Bee (1901), and The Intelligence of Flowers (1907).
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Tell Us More Mr. Science,
By TUCO H. "H. TUCO" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Life of the Bee (Paperback)
Not enough people read Maeterlinck today and this is a shame: the man was, unlike some Nobel prize winners in literature, truly a fantastic writer with a uniquely tuned, sharp, comprehensively philosophical but never didactic mind. Coming from a well-to-do Belgian family in the age before Television, Radio, and all the other usually destructive distractions of today, the young Maeterlinck had beekeeping for his principal hobby (just ask even your high-I.Q. high-schooler today ANYTHING about the life of bees and ants and other social insects and you'll be amazed at how little they know, in spite of the 'Discovery' Channel and all the documentary films made about the subject and shown on TV), and inspired by the essays of Fabre, began a period of amateur observation and experiment with his apiary, finally publishing the results in 1901, at the age of 39, as "Life of the Bee." Written in a highly poetic style that blended fact, imagination, and mystical speculation, it became the single most popular book ever written about insect life. Not that there aren't errors in Maeterlinck's observations that subsequent research corrected, but as far as the QUALITY OF WRITING is concerned, no one else can even come close to these amazing descriptions: in fact, some of the best written passages in all of literature are in this book.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Be there Life,
By
This review is from: The Life of the Bee (Paperback)
This is the second book by Maurice Maeterlinck that I have read. He certainly has a philosophical mind and, at times, he is quite impressive. On the other hand, he seems to wander so far off topic as to be distracting. As his choice of general topic for this thesis, Maeterlinck has chosen a topic he knows well; the life of the bee.
The author is a bee-keeper and one who researches his topic. He speaks of observing the bees through glass hives and he has learned a lot through his observations as well as those he cites. There were times that I was so overwelmed by his uncanny insights to life and human nature that I underlined a number of passages. His ability to compare our perspective of the bees to their perspective of us gives a naturalist's insight to life. This works well while we are discovering the wonders of the bee's society. As the book continues into the more esoteric aspects of bees, this philosophical wandering got to be a bit much for me as I stumbled to the end of the book. Others will likely disagree but that's my impression.
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