Editing Maurice Maeterlinck (section)

===Plagiarism===
In 1926, Maeterlinck published ''La Vie des Termites'' (translated into English as ''The Life of Termites'' or ''The Life of  White Ants''), an [[entomology|entomological]] book that [[plagiarism|plagiarised]] the book ''The Soul of the (White) Ant'', by the Afrikaner poet and scientist [[Eugène Marais]],<ref>"Die Huisgenoot", ''Nasionale Pers'', 6 January 1928, cover story</ref> David Bignell, in his inaugural address as Professor of Zoology at the [[Queen Mary, University of London|University of London]] (2003), called Maeterlinck's work "a classic example of academic plagiarism".<ref name="bignell">{{cite web |url=http://www.biology.qmul.ac.uk/research/staff/bignell/Inaugural.htm |title=Termites: 3000 Variations On A Single Theme |access-date=28 July 2009 |author=David E. Bignell |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070827211941/http://www.biology.qmul.ac.uk/research/staff/bignell/Inaugural.htm |archive-date=27 August 2007 }}</ref>
Marais accused Maeterlinck of having appropriated Marais' concept of the "organic unity" of the [[termitary|termite nest]] in his book.<ref name="swart">{{cite journal|title=The Construction of Eugène Marais as an Afrikaner Hero |author=Sandra Swart |journal=Journal of Southern African Studies |year=2004 |volume=December |issue=30.4 |url=http://www.oulitnet.co.za/seminarroom/marais_swart.asp |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100308014642/http://www.oulitnet.co.za/seminarroom/marais_swart.asp |archive-date=8 March 2010 }}</ref> Marais had published his ideas on termite nests in the South African Afrikaans-language press, in ''[[Die Burger]]'' (January 1923) and in ''[[Huisgenoot]]'', which featured a series of articles on termites under the title "Die Siel van die Mier" (The Soul of the (White) Ant) from 1925 to 1926. Maeterlinck's book, with almost identical content,<ref name="bignell" /> was published in 1926. It is conjectured that Maeterlinck had come across Marais' articles while writing his book, and that it would have been easy for him to translate Afrikaans into French, since Maeterlinck knew Dutch and had already made several translations from Dutch into French.<ref name=d'Ass>V. E. d'Assonville, ''Eugene Marais and the Waterberg'', Marnix, 2008, pp. 53–54.</ref> It was common at the time, moreover, for worthy articles published in Afrikaans to be reproduced in Flemish and Dutch magazines and journals.

Marais wrote in a letter to Dr. Winifred de Kock in London about Maeterlinck that

<blockquote>The famous author had paid me the left-handed compliment of cribbing the most important part of my work ... He clearly desired his readers to infer that he had arrived at certain of my theories (the result of ten years of hard labour in the veld) by his own unaided reason, although he admits that he never saw a termite in his life. You must understand that it was not merely plagiarism of the spirit of a thing, so to speak. He has copied page after page verbally.<ref>L. Rousseau, 1974, ''Die Groot Verlange'', Cape Town: Human & Rousseau, p. 398.</ref><ref name=d'Ass/></blockquote>

Supported by a coterie of [[Afrikaner]] Nationalist friends, Marais sought justice through the South African press and attempted an international lawsuit. This was to prove financially impossible and the case was not pursued. All the same, he gained a measure of renown as the aggrieved party and as an Afrikaner researcher who had opened himself up to plagiarism because he published in [[Afrikaans]] out of nationalistic loyalty. Marais brooded at the time of the scandal: "I wonder whether Maeterlinck blushes when he reads such things [critical acclaim], and whether he gives a thought to the injustice he does to the unknown [[Boer]] worker?"<ref name="swart" />

Maeterlinck's own words in ''The Life of Termites'' indicate that the possible discovery or accusation of plagiarism worried him:
<blockquote>It would have been easy, in regard to every statement, to allow the text to bristle with footnotes and references. In some chapters there is not a sentence but would have clamoured for these; and the letterpress would have been swallowed up by vast masses of comment, like one of those dreadful books we hated so much at school. There is a short bibliography at the end of the volume which will no doubt serve the same purpose.</blockquote>

Whatever Maeterlinck's misgivings at the time of writing, the bibliography he refers to does not include Eugène Marais.

Professor V. E. d'Assonville referred to Maeterlinck as "the Nobel Prize winner who had never seen a termite in his whole life and had never put a foot on the soil of Africa, least of all in the Waterberg".<ref name=d'Ass/>

[[Robert Ardrey]], an admirer of Eugène Marais, attributed Marais' later suicide to this act of plagiarism and theft of intellectual property by Maeterlinck,<ref>[[Robert Ardrey]], ''[[The Territorial Imperative]]: A Personal Inquiry into the Animal Origins of Property and Nations'' (1966).</ref> although Marais' biographer, Leon Rousseau, suggested that Marais had enjoyed and even thrived on the controversy and the attention it generated.<ref>Leon Rousseau, ''The Dark Stream'', (Jonathan Ball Publishers:Cape Town, 1982).</ref>

Another allegation of plagiarism concerned Maeterlinck's play ''Monna Vanna'', which was said to have been based on [[Robert Browning]]'s little-known play ''Luria''.<ref>William Lyon Phelps, PhD, "Maeterlinck and Browning", Vol.55 No.2831 (5 March 1903) ''The Independent'', New York.</ref>