For Maeterlinck, the blindness is symbolic of the human condition: The group of blind men and women have been led out from the institution in which they live on an outing by a priest, a man they seem to trust, but who has inexplicably left them helpless and fled. Maurice Maeterlinck (1862 -1949) was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist. He was a Fleming, but wrote in French. His plays form an important part of the Symbolist movement. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911 "in appreciation of his many-sided literary activities, and especially of his dramatic works, which are distinguished by a wealth of imagination and by a poetic fancy, which reveals, sometimes in the guise of a fairy tale, a deep inspiration, while in a mysterious way they appeal to the readers' own feelings and stimulate their imaginations".