SOURCE: “Michel de Ghelderode's Escurial: The Alchemist's Nigredo,” in Stanford French Review, Vol. 2, No. 3, Winter 1978, pp. 405-17.

In the following essay, Knapp discusses the alchemical principle of nigredo as Ghelderode used it in Escurial.

Alchemy, frequently referred to as the “black art,” requires a condition of nigredo before illumination or rebirth can ensue. In Escurial (1927), only the first stage of the alchemical process is experienced: nigredo with its accompanying phase of mortificatio. No renewal follows. No purification comes into being. There is no cleansing operation. Darkness hovers over the stage proceedings. Escurial's finale is as sinister and fetid as the outset of this dramatic ceremony.

Alchemists have made analogies between the nigredo phase of their operation and the seed implanted in the darkness of the earth. Each paves the way for creativity: the seed roots in the soil and the idea in the brain. Each feeds on...