Kunstenaar, aristocraat en zakenman: Couperus' 'self-fashioning'

Abstract

Louis Couperus was not only an artist, but also a member of a distinguished, almost aristocratic family. Moreover, owing to circumstances he was forced during all his life to live from the proceeds of his writing. This article focuses on the following question: how does Couperus’s self-fashioning relate to the complex of social positions he held as an aristocrat, an artist and a literary hack? How did Couperus present himself in public in this field of tension? Erwin Goffmann’s theory on self-fashioning is chosen as the theoretical framework of this discussion.