La Dramaturgie mystique de Maurice Maeterlinck et de William Butler Yeats

Maeterlinck and Yeats, while cautious of the term “symbolist,” saw themselves as part of the same historical movement, which Yeats, echoing Mallarmé, described as the “trembling of the veil in the temple.” Both are pivotal in modern theatre, and the similarity in their theatrical innovations extends beyond Yeats’s so-called symbolist period. All their innovations—abolition of spatiotemporal frames, musical treatment of language, imaginary settings, static drama, dissolution of character, choral treatment of characters, short formats, etc.—serve the same ambition: to make theatre a temple for mystical xperiences. Their mystical quest intertwines with their dramaturgical exploration. While Maeterlinck’s connection to Christian mysticism is evident through his focus on the Flemish mystic Ruysbroeck, Yeats’s mysticism is more occult. However, their paths converge through influences from Neo-Platonism, Indian thought, and Boehme, driven by the quest for a personal encounter with the unknown, which neither names God. For drama, the comparison with mysticism is particularly fruitful because it is the branch of theology that focuses on experience rather than intellectual understanding of the divine. Unlike classical theatre, which maintains a distance between the audience and the representation, their mystical drama aims to immerse the audience in the experience, making them co-creators. Rather than realistically representing mystical or esoteric experiences, for which the spectators would only be external witnesses, Maeterlinck and Yeats invent new forms to make them live the experience directly. Dream and reverie are the two states that come closest to this godless mysticism. Immersion in the dream, a pure sensory and emotional vision, is prolonged by a more meditative reverie, which reintroduces reason into the dream. However, reason comes up against the unknowable nature of the object it attempts to apprehend. Their renewal of dramatic speech is tied to their reflections on this ineffable mystery. Their theatre, wary of language, in its mundane use, nonetheless marks a return to poetic drama entirely founded on language, which they try to reconnect to the mystery. Although it remains nameless, the object of the mystical reverie is omnipresent and assumes multiple transient symbolic masks, radically transforming dramatic structure. Drama being directed towards an elusive object, it nullifies action, which unfolds without intervention, will, or logic. Characters are no longer active subjects but merge with the mystery, becoming its image, either as true mystical characters or as simple vessels for the voice of the unknown that passes through them.