La Fille de Mélisande by Kate Mosse Adds a Pelléas et Mélisande Sequel

Summary: La Fille de Mélisande by Kate Mosse adds a Pelléas et Mélisande sequel to the short-story collection Midsummer Nights edited in 2009 by Jeanette Winterson.

"God talks to human beings through many vectors: through each other, through organized religion, through the great books of those religions, through wise people, through art and music and literature and poetry, but nowhere with such detail and grace and color and joy as through creation. When we destroy a species, when we destroy a special place, we're diminishing our capacity to sense the divine, understand who God is and what our own potential is." Robert Francis Kennedy Jr., April 19, 2023, Boston Park Plaza Hotel, Back Bay, Boston, Massachusetts.

“And there’s many people out there who want us to move to the next planet already and I’m like, hang on, let’s not give up on this planet yet," William, Prince of Wales, July 31, 2023, Sorted Food food truck, London, England, United Kingdom.

Name-origin etymology accepts as ancestral to the first name Mélisande Frenchifying Millicent (Anglicized from German amalas, “brave”; swinba, “strong” via Amalaswinba). Amalaswinba (495-April 30, 535), alternatively Amalasuintha, acclaims an Ostrogothic Kingdom queen (526-535); Wednesday, June 1, 2016, 11:53, image of ritratto femminile di tipo ariadne-amalasunta (bust assumed to depict Queen Amalasuintha), Capitoline Museums (Italian: Musei Capitolini), Piazza del Campidoglio, Capitoline Hill, Rome, central Italy: Sailko, CC BY 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons

La Fille de Mélisande by Kate Mosse adds a Pelléas et Mélisande sequel to the short-story collection Midsummer Nights edited in 2009 by Jeanette Winterson for those who appreciate 19 reshaped-opera stories.

The British author broaches the opera based by composer Claude Debussy (Aug. 22, 1862-March 25, 1918) upon the Maurice Maeterlinck (Aug. 29, 1862-May 6, 1949) play. She chooses as her characters from that opera composed 1893-1895, 1901-1902 from that play configured in 1892 a child, her father, her grandmother and her half-brother. She designates as Miette (from French miette, “crumb”) that daughter of Mélisande (from Frenchified Millicent Anglicized from German amalas, “brave”; swinba, “strong” via Amalaswinba) and Golaud.

Mélisande never explained her experiences elsewhere, before she encountered Golaud (from Old Testament Gilead, “heap of witnesses [mountainous area east of River Jordan] via French Galaad/Galahad”).

That prince of Allemonde kingdom (from German allaz, “all, whole”; mann-, “men, people” via Latin Alemanni) kingdom felt first love even as he already fathered first-marriage issue.

That marriage, perhaps her first, perhaps not, gave the solitary girl her husband Golaud, brother-in-law Prince Pelléas, father-in-law King Arkel, mother-in-law Queen Geneviève and half-son Yniold. King Arkel (from Old Norse arn, “eagle”; ketill, “cauldron, helmet”) headed Allemonde kingdom with his wife, Geneviève (from German kunga, “clan, family, lineage”; wiba, “wife, woman”?). Queen Geneviève (from Gaullish genos, “family, kin” via medieval Genovefa?) inhabited the Allemonde castle with their younger son, Prince Pelléas (from Greek πηλός, “clay” via Πηλεύς).

The Pelléas et Mélisande sequel by Kate Mosse joined La Fille de Mélisande (from French la, “the”; fille, “daughter”; de, “of”; Mélisande, “Millicent”) with her father.

Remy de Gourmont (April 4, 1858-Sep. 27, 1915) added to his Le Livre des masques ([The Book of Masks] vol. II, 1898) his artistic analysis of Maurice Maeterlinck (Aug. 29, 1862-May 6, 1949) six years after the latter playwright's play, Pelléas et Mélisande (from Greek πηλός, “clay” via Πηλεύς; French et, "and"; French Mélisande, "Millicent" [Anglicized from German amalas, “brave”; swinba, “strong” via Amalaswinba]): Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Their kinship keeps Miette and half-brother Yniold (from German irmin, “great, whole”; hilt, “battle” via Irminhild via Italian and Spanish Imeldo) in the Allemonde royal castle.

Miette likens herself physically to Mélisande and temperamentally to Golaud even as she perhaps only likes Yniold for lifting atop his shoulders a laughing seven-, eight-year-old. “Brushed, plaited, smoothed, demanding” (Mosse:250) braids, not “her [mother’s] gentleness” (Mosse:248), matched Miette to Mélisande, who moved, within many moments, from merry motherhood to murdered mortality. "Quick to temper, easily frustrated, vengeful" (Mosse:250) narrow-mindedness nudges Miette, without maternal niceness and niceties, toward those nasty, naughty, noisome, noxious niches into which Golaud nestles.

The Pelléas and Mélisande sequel, La Fille de Mélisande by Kate Mosse, offers us an only 18-year-old oblivious of her mother and obliviated by her father.

Golaud's first wife, younger brother and only son respectively perish before Mélisande peregrinates from western parts, Mélisande produces Miette and Miette perhaps passes her 11th birthday.

Miette perhaps questioned her nurse about Mélisande quitting western quarters to queue "long hair" Rapunzel-like "tumbled down from the window like a skein of silk" (Mosse:248). Satin slippers and velvet robes perhaps recognize Miette's royal reference paternally if not maternally even as velvet robes recognize, regale, respect and reward Golaud's Allemonde royalty. What her grandmother Geneviève said, what her nurse stated and what her half-brother Yniold struggling with her father Golaud suggest serve as family-history sources for Miette.

Perhaps time travel between two worlds through overlapping same-day birth- and death-days tempted Kate Mosse telling the Pelléas and Mélisande sequel as La Fille de Mélisande.

L'Atelier Nadar archives an image of Achille-Claude Debussy (Aug. 22, 1862-March 25, 1918) from sometime between the latter's composition (1893-1895) and his cooperation in that operatic performance (1902) of the Maurice Maeterlinck (Aug. 29, 1862-May 6, 1949) play, Pelléas et Mélisande (from Greek πηλός, “clay” via Πηλεύς; French et, "and"; French Mélisande, "Millicent" [Anglicized from German amalas, “brave”; swinba, “strong” via Amalaswinba]): Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Name-origin etymology accepts as ancestral to the first name Mélisande Frenchifying Millicent (Anglicized from German amalas, “brave”; swinba, “strong” via Amalaswinba). Amalaswinba (495-April 30, 535), alternatively Amalasuintha, acclaims an Ostrogothic Kingdom queen (526-535); Wednesday, June 1, 2016, 11:53, image of ritratto femminile di tipo ariadne-amalasunta (bust assumed to depict Queen Amalasuintha), Capitoline Museums (Italian: Musei Capitolini), Piazza del Campidoglio, Capitoline Hill, Rome, central Italy: Sailko, CC BY 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ritratto_femminile_di_tipo_ariadne-amalasunta,_480-525_dc_ca,_da_s.m._ai_monti_(musei_capitolini).jpg

Remy de Gourmont (April 4, 1858-Sep. 27, 1915) added to his Le Livre des masques ([The Book of Masks] vol. II, 1898) his artistic analysis of Maurice Maeterlinck (Aug. 29, 1862-May 6, 1949) six years after the latter playwright's play, Pelléas et Mélisande (from Greek πηλός, “clay” via Πηλεύς; French et, "and"; French Mélisande, "Millicent" [Anglicized from German amalas, “brave”; swinba, “strong” via Amalaswinba]): Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maurice_Maeterlinck_by_Vallotton.jpg

L'Atelier Nadar archives an image of Achille-Claude Debussy (Aug. 22, 1862-March 25, 1918) from sometime between the latter's composition (1893-1895) and his cooperation in that operatic performance (1902) of the Maurice Maeterlinck (Aug. 29, 1862-May 6, 1949) play, Pelléas et Mélisande (from Greek πηλός, “clay” via Πηλεύς; French et, "and"; French Mélisande, "Millicent" [Anglicized from German amalas, “brave”; swinba, “strong” via Amalaswinba]): Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Claude_Debussy_by_Atelier_Nadar.jpg

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