Marie Closset (August 16, 1873 – July 20, 1952) was a Belgian poet. She wrote under the name Jean Dominique.[1]
She was born in Brussels and was educated under the system of education developed by Isabelle Gatti de Gamond. She chose to write under a male "nomme de plume" so that her work would be judged on its own merits; the name came from a character in a novel by Eugène Fromentin. Her poems were first published in small literary magazines and later in the Mercure de France. She published several collections of poems:
- La Gaule blanche (1903)
- L'Anémone des mers (1906)
- L'Aile mouillée (1909)
- Le Puits d'azur (1912)
- Sable sans Fleurs (1926)[1]
She was a member of a non-conformist group known as the "Peacocks". In 1913, Closset helped form the Institut de culture française. After living in Ixelles for a time, she moved to Uccle in the early 1920s. She was a mentor for the American poet May Sarton, who took Closset as inspiration for her novel The Single Hound.[1]
Closset died in Uccle at the age of 78.[1]
She appears in the neo-impressionist painting Young Women By the Sea (or The Promenade) by Théo van Rysselberghe.[2]
Her poem Le Don silencieux was set to music by Gabriel Fauré.[3] The composer Gabriel Grovlez also set poems by Closset to music.[4]
References
- 1 2 3 4 Gubin, Eliane (2006). Dictionnaire des femmes belges: XIXe et XXe siècles (in French). pp. 110–12. ISBN 2873864346.
- ↑ Block, Jane; Lee, Ellen Wardwell (2014). The Neo-Impressionist Portrait, 1886?1904. p. 205. ISBN 978-0300190847.
- ↑ Nectoux, Jean-Michel (2004). Gabriel Fauré: A Musical Life. p. 277. ISBN 0521616956.
- ↑ Grovlez, Gabriel (1991). Trois melodies sur des poèmes de Jean Dominique.