Works

Guido Gezelle published eight poetry collections during his lifetime. His first collections were strongly connected to his position as a teacher in Roeselare. They still contain many traditional elements and rhetorical influences related to educational practice. Many of his poems however contain groundbreaking elements such as the use of experimental forms and vernacular. Gezelle’s poetry evolves in his later collections. He uses impressionistic nature images in a masterful language ripened throughout years of language study and research. All over his works we can find a lot of occasional poetry. He wrote these poems at the request of friends and acquaintances and he considered them to be an essential part of his work. After his death, a lot of unpublished poems were found.