Het gedicht als strategie : Een demonstratie

Abstract

A strategic reading of a poem has become common ground. Programmatic poems with statements on art and literature are not seldom interpreted as a strategic maneuver of an author trying to position himself and his work. But what if the poem is not overtly programmatic and does not contain any explicit positioning statement? It is argued that exactly this type of ‘regular’ poem can be viewed upon as an strategic author’s act just as well. This is demonstrated by means of three cases. The first case, a famous poem by Willem Kloos, shows that this ‘regular’ poem has strategic aspects due to its particular selection of textual characteristics (Meizoz’s ‘option esthetique’). Case two and three produce two instances of religious poetry (one Roman Catholic, the other Calvinist) in which the authors make textual choices in order to legitimate themselves as poets writing real poetry that is up to the standards of the dominant literary regime while at the same time complying to the norms of their own religious communities. After this, the article harks back to Kloos’ poem in order to add some elements regarding its strategic context: an individual issue of a literary journal as a discurcive place in which the poem is published as a tactical move in a specific literary game. Finally, it is stated that the three cases are intended to demonstrate the way a textual analysis can play a role in research questions regarding institutional contexts.