On Yeats' Footstool. The Poet Karel van de Woestijne (+an extract, and five poems in originele versie en Engelse vertaling)

The Flemish poet Karel van de Woestijne (1878-1929) still features prominently in histories of literature, but the author observes that the writer who, despite his aristocratic attitude and baroque rhetoric, once enjoyed the boundless admiration of his fellow writers and followers, is now almost totally forgotten. In Vandevoorde's view, the reason for this dwindling popularity is that attention has focussed almost exclusively on his early work. The current impression of Van de Woestijne is of a poet who is passé, one who is decadent, overblown and gloomy. But when we concentrate on his later work – that from after the First World War – and set it in the context of its own time, it turns out to be surprisingly modern, with unexpected resonances for today's reader. The author compares Van de Woestijne with contemporary foreign poets