Gentil Theodoor Antheunis

Gentil Theodoor Antheunis
Gentil Antheunis
Born	(1840-09-09)9 September 1840 Oudenaarde, Belgium
Died	5 August 1907(1907-08-05) (aged 66) Elsene, Belgium
Nationality	Belgium
Occupation	poet

Gentil Theodoor Antheunis (9 September 1840 – 5 August 1907) was a Belgian poet. He was the son-in-law of Hendrik Conscience, whose only daughter Maria he married in 1870. He was born in Oudenaarde.

From 1859 until 1860, he was a teacher in the college of Oudenaarde and in 1861 he became a teacher in Dendermonde. After his early career as a teacher he studied law at the University of Ghent, where he graduated in 1866. He became a judge on 1 January 1868 in Oostrozebeke, later in Torhout, on 15 July 1877 he became a judge at Halle and finally in Brussels.

He wrote songs and poems in several newspapers and journals, of which several were put to music by , such as Lentelied, Ik ken een lied, Droeve tijden, and Bethlehem. They were published in one volume in 1873. In 1874, he was awarded for a minnelied (E: romantic song) by the Antwerp Chamber of rhetoric, De Olijftak (E: Olive branch). In addition he wrote Uit het hart', Liederen en gedichten (Dendermonde and Leiden, 1875); Liederkrans uit de Loverkens van Hoffmann von Fallersleben, with his own music (Ghent, 1877); Leven, lieven en zingen (Ghent, 1879), Naar wijd en zijd (1905, put on music by François-Auguste Gevaert). One of his best known songs is Mijn Vlaanderen heb ik hart'lijk lief, on lyrics by . He was buried in Oudenaarde, where the Gentiel Antheunisplein is named after him.

Antheunis died in 1907 at Elsene.

See also[]

• Flemish literature

Sources[]

• 't Zijn droeve tijden als de oorlog woedt (Dutch)
• Gentil Theodoor Antheunis (Dutch)