Marie Closset

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. Gubin, Eliane (2006). Dictionnaire des femmes belges: XIXe et XXe siècles (in French). pp. 110–12. ISBN 2873864346.
  2. Block, Jane; Lee, Ellen Wardwell (2014). The Neo-Impressionist Portrait, 1886?1904. p. 205. ISBN 0300190840.
  3. Nectoux, Jean-Michel (2004). Gabriel Fauré: A Musical Life. p. 277. ISBN 0521616956.
  4. Trois melodies sur des poèmes de Jean Dominique. 1991.


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