French Literature Reviews - 2026

The Poetic Writings of Franz Hellens
Other Literary Studies

THE POETIC WRITINGS OF FRANZ HELLENS
Studies compiled by Sourour BEN ALI

This book brings together papers presented at an international symposium held in 2002 in tribute to Franz Hellens, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of his death.
For Hellens, the fantastic is a form of transfiguration of reality through a dreamy gaze or a mind in reverie. Dreams prove to be a fertile ground that fosters the emergence of poetic writing. Poetry "resembles the visions of a dream that must be seized in the flash of awakening, lest it vanish." It is to be sought not in versified form, but above all in mystery, secrecy, and dreams. Its appearance is dazzling and furtive; its form is embryonic. Franz Hellens found in his dreams not only a source of poetry but also the rich material for numerous works.

Literature Collection
SEPTEMBER 2003
280 pages
ISBN 2-84516-229-4
23

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Sourour BEN ALI Foreword
Raphaël de SMEDT “Vision of Bergen”. Franz Hellens's Poetic Impression
Marie-Cécile LEVET Elsinore Landscapes
Heinz KLÜPPELHOLZ Franz Hellens's Bass-Bassina-Boulou, a “True Negro Novel”?
Lila IBRAHIM-LAMROUS Franz Hellens's Le Voyage rétrospectif: A “Naive” View of North Africa?
Camelia-Meda MIJEA La femme partagée. Friendship and the Temptation of Perfection
Laurence BROGNIEZ Franz Hellens's En ville morte, or Mourning the “Old Masters”
Éric LYSØE A Prototype of Magical Realism? En Ville morte, Franz Hellens's First Novel
Estrella de la TORRE GIMÉNEZ The Dazzling Lyricism of Les Clartés latentes
Gerlinde KLATTE Fire, Mist, Sun: The Imaginary of Light in the Work of Franz Hellens
Ana ZASTROIU “Real Fantastic” and “Magical Realism” in Franz Hellens
Paul GORCEIX Franz Hellens's Mélusine. Dream, the Fantastic, and Surreality
Anne-Christine ROYÈRE “Let's Write as It Comes”: Franz Hellens and Henri Michaux
Arnaud HUFTIER “I Give You My Artificial Park”: Franz Hellens and the Dual Field of Herbes
méchantes
Jean-Pierre PICOT Franz Hellens, Practitioner and Theorist of the Fantastic? From Réalités fantastiques to Fantastique réel
Sourour BEN ALI “Not All Poets Reach This Summit”: The Poetry of “Old Age”
Alain MONTANDON Intuitive and Poetic Criticism in Franz Hellens
Mustapha TRABELSI Spiritual Emotivity, or Hellens Reading Camus
Mounir LAOUYEN Form and Meaning in Franz Hellens's Le Naïf
Guy AUDIBERT The Poetics of Franz Hellens in the Journal de Frédéric

The concept of the fantastic as a transfiguration of reality serves as a central theme in the work of Franz Hellens. Within the tradition of Belgian literature, Hellens is often associated with the development of magical realism, a mode that seeks to uncover the mysterious and the dreamlike within everyday existence. By prioritizing the embryonic and the furtive over rigid versification, his approach aligns with broader modernist efforts to capture the fleeting nature of vision. Readers interested in the intersection of dream states, poetic theory, and the evolution of the fantastic in early twentieth-century literature may find this volume relevant.

This volume brings together papers from a 2002 symposium on Franz Hellens, exploring how he utilized dream-derived material across various genres. By examining texts such as En ville morte and Le Voyage rétrospectif, the contributors investigate how Hellens navigated the boundaries between reality and the imaginary. These studies place his work within a wider intellectual context, touching upon his relationships with contemporaries like Henri Michaux and his engagement with the aesthetics of light and spiritual emotivity. The collection reflects on the tension between the theoretical articulation of the fantastic and its practical application.