- He spent the last ten years of his life in Paris as the correspondent of the Journal de Bruxelles, and was an intimate of Edmond de Goncourt.
- David Bowie mentions Rodenbach in his song "Dancing Out In Space" from his 2013 album The Next Day. The exact line, "Silent as Georges Rodenbach", is possibly referring to Rodenbach's book of poetry "Le règne du silence" (The Reign of Silence) including the final poem "Du silence".
- He published eight collections of verse and four novels, as well as short stories, stage works and criticism.
- He was a Belgian Symbolist poet and novelist.
- Albrecht Rodenbach, his cousin, was a poet and novelist as well, and a leader in the revival of Flemish literature of the 19th century.
- His novel 'Bruges-la-Morte' was used by the composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold as the basis for his opera Die tote Stadt.
- In his best known work, Bruges-la-Morte (1892), he explains that his aim is to evoke the town as a living being, associated with the moods of the spirit, counseling, dissuading from and prompting action.
- Rodenbach worked as a lawyer and journalist.
- He produced some Parisian and purely imitative work; but a major part of his production is the outcome of a passionate idealism of the quiet Flemish towns in which he had passed his childhood and early youth.
- He was related to the famous German poet Christoph Martin Wieland.
- He went to school in Ghent at the prestigious Sint-Barbaracollege, where he became friends with the poet Emile Verhaeren.
- Georges Rodenbach was born in Tournai to a French mother and a German father from the Rhineland (Andernach).
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content