L'élément aquatique dans les contes crépusculaires de Michel de Ghelderode
The Element of Water in the Dark Tales of Michel de Ghelderode

Summary/Abstract: Michel de Ghelderode, fascinated by the misty and rainy landscape of Belgium, makes of water an important element of the world presented in the collection of fantastic short stories Sortilèges (1941). The role that this element plays in the spatial structure is not only decorative and mimetic, but mainly symbolic and meaningful: sinister and dark water space conducive to the manifestations of a fantastic phenomenon, produces hallucinations and provides atmosphere of fear and terror. As in G. Bachelard, water has an ambivalent nature: it is a force both demiurge and destructive, lifegiving and deadly. Combined secret relationship with supernatural, water becomes an important and distinctive compositional element of dark stories of this writer.

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