Totaalpakketten

Abstract

The novelistic cycle is an important literary form in its epic ambition to capture the totality of a historical period, a family, or an individual experiential world. In Dutch literary history, it constitutes a strong tradition, with examples such as S. Vestdijk’s Anton Wachter and Van der Heijden’s Tandeloze Tijd. This article develops a framework for the study of the novelistic cycle and illustrates its richness in Dutch literary history, focusing on the discourse surrounding it and on its core features: part-whole relationships, the return of characters, temporal organization and cyclical structures.