Hothouses (1889) is a book of symbolist

Symbolism (arts)

Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...

 poetry by Belgian

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 Nobel Laureate Maurice Maeterlinck

Maurice Maeterlinck

Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck, also called Comte Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. The main themes in his work are death and the meaning of life...

. Most of the poems in this collection are written in octosyllabic verse, but some are in free verse

Free verse

Free verse is a form of poetry that refrains from consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any other musical pattern.Poets have explained that free verse, despite its freedom, is not free. Free Verse displays some elements of form...

.

Poems

1. "Serre chaude"
2. "Oraison (I)"
3. "Serre d'ennui"
4. "Tentations"
5. "Cloches de verre"
6. "Offrande obscure"
7. "Feuillage du cœur"
8. "Âme chaude"
9. "Âme"
10. "Lassitude"
11. "Chasses lasses"
12. "Fauves las"
13. "Oraison (II)"
14. "Heures ternes"
15. "Ennui"
16. "Hôpital"
17. "Oraison nocturne"
18. "Désirs d'hiver"
19. "Ronde d'ennui"
20. "Amen"
21. "Cloche à plongeur"
22. "Aquarium"
23. "Verre ardent"
24. "Reflets"
25. "Visions"
26. "Oraison (III)"
27. "Regards"
28. "Attente"
29. "Après-midi"
30. "Âme de serre"
31. "Intentions"
32. "Attouchements"
33. "Âme de nuit"

English translations

Serres chaudes has been translated into English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 by Richard Howard

Richard Howard

Richard Howard is an American poet, literary critic, essayist, teacher, and translator. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio and is a graduate of Columbia University, where he studied under Mark Van Doren, and where he now teaches...

. This edition, published by Princeton University Press

Princeton University Press

-Further reading:* "". Artforum International, 2005.-External links:* * * * *...

 also contains a short prose work, The Massacre of the Innocents, inspired by a Brueghel

Pieter Brueghel the Elder

Pieter Bruegel the Elder was a Flemish renaissance painter and printmaker known for his landscapes and peasant scenes . He is sometimes referred to as the "Peasant Bruegel" to distinguish him from other members of the Brueghel dynasty, but he is also the one generally meant when the context does...

 painting of the same name, as well as illustrations by George Minne

George Minne

George Minne was born in Ghent as the son of an architect . Birth names : Georgius Joannes Leonardus...

 that appeared in the original volume.

Trivia

"Serre chaude," "Serre d'ennui," "Lassitude," "Fauves las," and "Oraison" were all set to music by French composer Ernest Chausson

Ernest Chausson

Amédée-Ernest Chausson was a French romantic composer who died just as his career was beginning to flourish.-Life:Ernest Chausson was born in Paris into a prosperous bourgeois family...

. "Feuillage du cœur" was set to music by Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...

 under the name Herzgewächse and by the Belgian composer Serge Verstockt (original title).

External links

• Chapter II of Edward Thomas' Maurice Materlinck, entitled "First Poems:Serres Chaudes"