Georges Rodenbach:
(Tournai, 16 July 1855 – Paris, 25 December 1898),
French-speaking Belgian writer and poet. Georges Rodenbach was one of the first prominent Belgian literary figures to embrace French symbolist poetry. Although he died at the age of forty-three, Georges Rodenbach occupies a prominent place in the history of international symbolism, with his poetry collections Le Règne du Silence (1891), Les Vies encloses (1896), Le Miroir du ciel natal (1898), and his famous novel Bruges-la-Morte from 1892. He was a cousin of Albrecht Rodenbach.
The widower reviewed his past in a sunless light which was intensified by the greyness of the November twilight, whilst the bells subtly impregnated the surrounding atmosphere with the melody of sounds that faded like the ashes of dead years.
