Guido Gezelle, born in Bruges in 1830, left a varied œuvre as a man of letters, journalist, translator and populariser. But it is mainly as a poet that he occupies an illustrious position in the history of Dutch literature. He is undoubtedly the most innovative and original Flemish poet between 1680 and 1880. With his exceptional lyrical poetry he was some twenty years ahead of the renewal movement of the so-called Men of the Eighties at the end of the nineteenth century.His professional career as a priest was a fairly modest one; he became a teacher, a parish priest and the director of a convent. Nevertheless he exerted a considerable influence on younger generations of writers and intellectuals, first as the inspiration behind a national cultural movement in Flanders which linked Flemish identity to folk traditions, language and the Christian religion. Only after his death in 1899 was he fully appreciated as a poet, by both traditionalists and modernists. In Flanders particularly myths also grew up around him.