Abstract
As in most European language areas, a “linguistic cultivation programme” existed in the Netherlands in the 18th century, designed especially for the next generation of great poets, that is, for upper-class boys in order to teach them the grammar, poetic style and rhetoric of Dutch. The seminal texts engaged in this programme, all conceived around 1700, are discussed with special regard to David van Hoogstraten and Jacobus Nylöe. It is shown that cultivation of the language (Sprachpflege) and language teaching (Sprachlehre) are two sides of the same coin. Also, it is argued that such language cultivation and teaching was carried out in order to promote the position of literary Dutch on the international stage of the Republic of Letters. A comparison is drawn with the French (e.g. the Académie française) and the Germans (e.g. the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft), with whom the Dutch authors shared their elitist and educational goals.
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