Dutch Literature Research Articles

‘It’s literature I want, Ivo, literature!’ Literature as screenplay as literature. Or, how to win a literary prize writing a screenplay

Abstract Ivo Michiels, besides being one of the most acclaimed and radical experimental literary authors in Dutch literature, is arguably the first Flemish professional screenwriter. These two occupations, that he continuously tried to combine, resulted in screenplays that either have been published as novels (and awarded important literary prizes) or repurposed as fragments in the Journal Brut cycle. Michiels developed a specific style for the screenplay by turning away from economical concrete descriptions. Instead he pursued a more literary way of writing, using narrative strategies aiming at certain effects in the mind of the reader, over conventional description. This article situates Michiels’ script writing as ‘performative’ in its intention and offers a case study of his work, as an expanded notion of the screenplay that elevates the form beyond mere description of what will be visible/audible on-screen. In Michiels’ practice, a screenplay is not just a text that ‘desires to become another text’, in the words of Pier Paolo Pasolini. In contrast, this article frames Michiels’ screenplays as ‘postdramatic’ texts which become artefacts, in and of themselves, claiming a certain independence from the film, whilst at the same time maintaining dialogue with the film (Bakhtin), realized or not.

The Role of London and Other English Cities in the Development of Early Modern Dutch Language and Literature

In accounts of the emergence of a standard language, linguists often adopt what Richard J. Watts terms a ‘tunnel view’ of language, in which those features of a language’s history which do not contribute to the story of the standard language are marginalized or even ignored. In this article, I argue that those who write general histories of Dutch language and literature are sometimes guilty of adopting this ‘tunnel view’. I take the case of London in the early modern period and look at how three developments in Dutch language and literature at this time — the publication of religious literature, the writing of the first Dutch grammar, and the writing of sonnets in Dutch — each owes something to the presence of Dutch speakers in London in the second half of the sixteenth century. In each case, I then consider how these developments are recorded in general histories of Dutch language and literature. I also describe a number of cases elsewhere in England and conclude by offering a model — that of the tree — which may be useful for those who write such histories.

Die rol van Nederland in die transnasionale beweging van enkele Afrikaanse skrywers

This article explores the role that the Netherlands play in the transnational movement of Afrikaans authors. Because of the historical ties between the Netherlands and South Africa and the similarities between the languages Dutch and Afrikaans, Afrikaans authors and their texts often gain an audience in the Netherlands. This article posits the idea that the interaction between the Dutch and the Afrikaans literary systems form part of a ‘minor transnationalism’ (Lionnet & Shih 2005) of a specific kind: the ‘vertical movement’ of texts from a marginal literature (Afrikaans literature) to a literature placed in the European, metropolitan ‘centre’ that does not necessarily occupy an important place in that centre (Dutch literature). The article focuses on the literary careers of five Afrikaans authors who have a high profile both in the Netherlands and the larger, international world, namely André Brink, Breyten Breytenbach, Etienne van Heerden, Antjie Krog and Marlene van Niekerk. It attempts to discern whether exposure in the Netherlands led to exposure in the larger world. Several factors are taken into account: the position of Afrikaans literature in South Africa, the role of translation, the impact of genre, the influence of Western intellectual discourses and the importance of political acuity.

Dutch Studies: Dutch Literature

Dutch Studies: Dutch Literature

Revanche of conflict? Pleidooi voor een agonistische literatuurstudie

This article aims to contribute to the academic debate concerning the legitimation of the study of contemporary Dutch literature. In the twentieth century literary scholarship appealed to a model of negation for legitimation: (the study of) literature was conceived in terms of critique and emancipation. In recent years this model has been succeeded by a model of assimilation: (the study of) literature tends to conform to the hegemonic organization of society. Two recent studies bear witness of this model: De revanche van de roman (2009) by Thomas Vaessens en ‘De revanche van de populaire cultuur’ (2012) by Ben de Bruyn and Pieter Verstraeten. These scholars seek the so-called ‘revenge’ in social commitment and popular (literary) culture respectively. In a critical analysis of both texts this article aims to show that insufficient attention is paid to ideological and hegemonic processes. As an alternative, the article proposes a critical revision of the model of negation: an agonistic study of literature in which the irreducibly conflictual heterogeneity of conceptions of literature and literary scholarship serves as legitimation. To conclude, the authors discuss their own contribution to this model: the critique of ideology.

Deconstructie met een missie - Postmodernistische aspecten in de sprookjes van Sybren Polet

Sybren Polet’s place within Dutch literature is hard to determine. This essay seeks to connect Polet’s fairy tales to postmodernism, which can be described as an antirealist movement that deconstructs conventional (linguistic) frames. Postmodern fairy tales are also frequently defined by unsettling traditional role patterns, which Polet’s stories also exhibit. In his fairy tales, however, the reader is often morally instructed, which contrasts with the postmodern aversion to posit an explicit ideology in stories. This observation can be clarified by considering Polet’s affinities with Marxist poetics: the reader needs to come to terms with an alternative perception of the world. Polet’s fairy tales can justifiably be considered anti-fairy tales since they confront the reader to accept a morality that negates bourgeois conventions.

Pijnlijke submandibulaire zwelling blijkt zeldzame odontogene tumor

A 15-year-old girl was referred to an oral and maxillofacial surgeon due to a painful submandibular swelling that had been present for 4 to 5 months. After surgical excision and histopathological examination it appeared to be a relatively rare adenomatoid odontogenic tumour. Approximately 4.6% of all odontogenic tumours are adenomatoid odontogenic tumours. This type of tumour is mainly diagnosed between the ages of 10 and 30. Surgical excision is an effective treatment and the adenomatoid odontogenic tumour has a favourable prognosis. The most recent article in Dutch literature on the adenomatoid odontogenic tumour dates back to 1975.

Voluntary and therapeutic castration of sex offenders in The Netherlands (1938–1968)

Between 1938 and 1968 some 400 sex offenders in the Netherlands who by court orders had been put at ‘the discretion of the government’ and were incarcerated in asylums for the criminally insane, ‘voluntarily’ submitted themselves to ‘therapeutic’ castration, the surgical removal of their testes. Prior to 1938, inspired by a Danish castration act from 1929, and urged by asylums that were overcrowded by sex offenders, the ethics of the surgery had been discussed for nearly a decade amongst theologians, (forensic) psychiatrists, jurists and politicians, mostly in the context of eugenic sterilization. Discussions of conflicting Catholic, Protestant and non-denominational points of view vis-à-vis eugenics resulted in consensus about ‘therapeutic’ and ‘voluntary’ castration. Sexual deviancy, according to some, was like a tumor located in the testes, which could therefore be removed without moral objections and the person was thus cured of his disease. Although obviously related to forensic psychiatry and concerned with issues like protection of society and treatment of offenders, discussions were never held in a strictly forensic context. Unlike in other countries in which castration policies were enforced, in The Netherlands the surgery was never embodied in law but subject to an informal protocol that covered political accountability. To satisfy Catholic objections references to eugenic aims were omitted from the documents, as were references to castration as a penalty.Based on international and Dutch literature (from both before and after 1938) as well as case histories, this article will show that the compromise about the therapeutic value of castration had no basis in medical knowledge, while ‘voluntariness’ (as elsewhere) was an acknowledged fallacy once surgeries had started. It was also acknowledged that castration did not really cure deviancy, but curbed libido and helped the castrate to suppress his urges. Nonetheless, because of the eugenic origins of discussions, associated with persistent confusion about the difference between castration and sterilization, it never became fully clear whether the surgery was meant to curb libido or to prevent the offenders from begetting inferior progeny.

The Prevalence of Verse in Medieval Dutch and English Arthurian Fiction

Chretien de Troyes produced a highly original corpus of works that proved to be immensely influential.1 Apart from providing later authors with a stock of Arthurian characters, themes, motifs, and narrative structures, he showed them the attractiveness and flexibility of the octosyllabic couplet. This is demonstrated by the impressive number of later Arthurian verse romances. With regard to this medium, however, we should remark that his successors, both French and non-French, explored other forms as well. Whereas many of his continuators stuck to couplets, others preferred to write in prose. In addition, in Britain there were authors composing, for instance, alliterative texts, as well as poets who produced the tail-rhyme stanza, characterized by Rosalind Field as “this jog-trot metric with its tendency to collapse in banality.”2 In the past, scholars have studied all these different forms, their origins, and their reception, mainly focusing on one particular linguistic area. In this article, I would like to broaden the scope of our research somewhat by looking at the use of the different media in medieval Dutch and English Arthurian literature in comparison to French literature. What catches the eye when we look at these forms from this comparative perspective? I will show that authors of both Dutch and English Arthurian narrative fiction had a strong preference for writing verse, and I will offer a speculative explanation of this common feature by incorporating the audiences of their narratives in my argument.

Beloken blikvelden in de Lage Landen: Eenentwintigste-eeuwse receptie van Nederlandse vertalingen van Afrikaanse poëzie

The South African poets Ingrid Jonker, Antjie Krog and Ronelda S. Kamfer are part of the literary system of the Low Countries.Their introduction in the Netherlands and Flanders was accomplished by translations into Dutch. An analysis of the role and theimage-building of foreign literature in the Dutch-speaking world is important for (the study of) literary historiography. Thepresence and the reception of the three selected South African poets and their works are documented in this paper. Critics are not only interested in the literary production of national authors but also in the poetry of foreign writers (mainly available through translations). In this way, poets and their works start functioning in the literary poly-system of the Netherlands and Flanders. The manner in which images are created tells us something about the presence of Jonker, Krog and Kamfer in contemporary Dutch literature. Not only are the reactions of readers (or critics) fundamental to the study of literary reception, the way in which these writers and their poetry have gained particular positions in the literary system should also be part of the research. Revealing questions deal with the role played by intermediaries, the selection criteria for poems in anthologies, translation strategies, the promotion by commercial publishers. Foreign literature is interwoven with the poetical discourses of a national literary system. In this respect, the translated poetry by the three selected South African (Afrikaans writing) female authors is part of the borderless (Dutch) literature.

‘Het goede litteraire werk uit Nederland’ - De Bibliotheca Neerlandica en het vertaalbeleid van de Stichting voor Vertalingen 1954-1966

In 1954, initiated by the Dutch government and in cooperation with the main literary organizations in Netherlands, the ‘Foundation for the Promotion of the Translation of Dutch Literary Works’ (‘Stichting ter bevordering van de vertaling van Nederlands literair werk) was founded. This foundation was specially created to present Dutch literature abroad and have it translated. To do this, the foundation could use a targeted or a source-oriented strategy. This article describes the translation policy of the Stichting voor Vertalingen in the perspective of these strategies on the basis of a case study: the Bibliotheca Neerlandica, a series of classic works for England.

Johannes Franck (1854-1914): de eerste hoogleraar Nederlandse taal- en letterkunde in het Duitse taalgebied

Johannes Franck (1854–1914): the first Professor of Dutch Language and Literature in the German-speaking Countries. Johannes Franck (1854–1914) was the first Professor of Dutch language and literature in the German-speaking countries. Born Jewish but not a practising Jew, he found it impossible to get a chair in German language and literature because of the prevailing anti-Semitism in Prussia, Saxony and Bavaria at the time. In this article I will focus on his struggle to get a full professorship in Germany and the obvious but concealed anti-Semitism in Germany. I will then proceed to describe Franck’s study at Leiden University and his judgement on his colleagues in Germany and the Netherlands before dilating upon the ‘Berlin School’ he belonged to.

Canities subita : A reappraisal of evidence based on 196 case reports published in the medical literature

We have reviewed the medical literature on unusually rapid Canities of body hair to assess whether the reported clinical evidence can be explained with the current hypotheses of pathogenetic mechanisms. We screened the medical literature from 1800 onward, searching for as many case reports as possible. We assessed literature in Dutch, English, French, German, Italian and Spanish and included all cases, which contained an explicit mention or description of unusually rapid graying or whitening of hair. Case reports were classified into three categories: Cases are “authenticated” when the authors personally observed the rapid color change, “non-authenticated” when they saw the subject only after the alleged color change and “anecdotal” when authors were told about the case by a third party. In total, we found 196 cases of which 44 were authenticated. These studies reported the graying of human hair in the context of aging, somatic diseases, emotional trauma or stress and psychiatric disorders. Numerous cases involved not only scalp hair, but also beards, eyelashes and other body hair. Several authors stressed that there was no alopecia. Although plausible explanations exist to explain Canities subita occurring together with an effluvium, the observation of viable hair losing color along the axis within a timespan shorter than its growth rate remain as yet unexplained.

Once upon a Time in an Occupied CountryAll translations from Dutch and German are my own.

Abstract “Is it a coincidence, or is it a symptom of the age that, in a relatively short time, so many fairy tales and folktales have appeared?” a Dutch journalist asked in August 1942 (G.H. 1). Indeed, although fairy tales had been popular in Dutch children’s literature for many decades, the Second World War proved to be a particularly fertile period for this genre. Children’s literature, and literature in general, did not suffer as much from the war as one might expect. Although the production of books was gradually and increasingly hampered by paper shortages and limitations set by the Nazi regime, in the first years of the war the literary and cultural market in the Netherlands flourished. The fairy tale took a special position in the new literary climate produced by the Second World War. This article describes how the war and the German occupation influenced the production, translation and reception of fairy tales in Dutch. Drawing on the title of Jack Zipes’ Why Fairy Tales Stick (2006), I explore why the fairy tale “stuck” and even boomed in Dutch literature between 1940 and 1945, and how the tales were transmitted and transformed to fit the new political, pedagogical and literary context. Two figures are of particular interest for the reception of fairy tales in this period: the folklorist Jan de Vries and the children’s author A.D. Hildebrand who translated an entire fairy-tale series during the war. Within the broader discussion, these two figures will receive particular attention because of the elaborate and complex ways in which they dealt with fairy tales.

Het gelijk van de schrijver - Willem Frederik Hermans’ fictieve discussie met Jean-Paul Sartre

In discussions on the social impact of literature, literary commitment is often opposed to literary autonomy. Within the field of Dutch literature, Willem Frederik Hermans is generally understood as one of the most important representatives and supporters of literary autonomy. Jean-Paul Sartre, on the other hand, is generally considered as one of the world’s most famous representatives and supporters of committed literature. In this article, Hermans’ and Sartre’s positions, however, are not conceived of as opposite stances, but as two different ways of understanding literature’s social relevance. It will be stated that both Hermans and Sartre seek to understand the writer’s social role, but that their views are based on fundamentally different world views and, subsequently, on different ideas of historical truth. Viewed from this perspective, Hermans’ work appears to be not opposed to literary commitment but rather shows what kind of literary commitment would be possible in a world where moral realism and ideological truths are highly problematic. One of Hermans’ least discussed novels, Ik heb altijd gelijk (1951), will be considered as an exemplary manifestation of this view.

The resurrection of South African literature in Dutch? Some remarks on canonisation of minority literatures

To gain entry into literary history and into the canon of literature may be quite difficult for a writer in general; for an author from a cultural periphery it is nearly impossible. For him there is only one road to canonisation: by way of a separate literary history of his peripheral area. Dutch (post)colonial literature is a case in point. Writers from the former Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), the Dutch Antilles and Surinam have been saved from oblivion because histories of their regional literatures have been published. In contrast, South African literature in Dutch (not to be confused with Afrikaans literature) in the course of the twentieth century dropped out of the picture. Although, strictly speaking, there is a need for more preliminary studies, a concise history of this specific body of literature is highly desirable as well.

How the gothic reared its head in Dutch literature

It was not until the twentieth century, and especially the 1980s, that Dutch Gothic fiction began to flourish. This article gives an overview of the history of the Gothic in Dutch literature, and discusses the explanations given for the absence of a Dutch Gothic tradition. It then examines six Gothic novels from the 1980s in more depth to determine what kind of “cultural work” the Gothic does in late-twentieth century Dutch novels. In those novels, the Gothic is a way of expressing the ambivalences accompanying new societal relations following the 1960s, when constructs of the self in terms of gender and sexuality were reformulated.

Dertig jaar Bourdieu in de neerlandistiek (1980-2010) - Een kwantitatieve verkenning

There is no doubt that the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) has had an influence on the academic study of Dutch literature over the last three decades. An interesting question, however, is: to what extent? Some scholars state that Bourdieu is the most important recent foreign influence on Dutch literary studies, while others consider him and his works (very much) overestimated. In this article, an attempt is made to quantify Bourdieu’s influence by presenting a statistical overview of his work in translation in general and, more particularly, by counting and analyzing the mentions of Bourdieu’s works in journals and other texts since his first appearance in Dutch in 1980. Indeed, Bourdieu turns out to have had, also numerically, a considerable number of citations. Nevertheless it remains difficult to draw final conclusions on this quantitative analysis alone. In further research the comparison with the number of citations of other prominent foreign thinkers in Dutch literary stud„ies should be taken into consideration, and a more substantial qualitative analy„sis should be performed, as well as the role played by ‘intellectual rumour’, as Bourdieu himself called it.

Prediction models for risk of developing type 2 diabetes: systematic literature search and independent external validation study

Objective To identify existing prediction models for the risk of development of type 2 diabetes and to externally validate them in a large independent cohort.Data sources Systematic search of English,...

Importeurs en exporteurs van literatuur: de Nederlandse letteren in Frankrijk

French is an important target language in the translation of Dutch literary texts. This article offers a short qualitative and quantitative historical survey of Dutch language literary publications in French translation from 1900 to 2010. Throughout the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first century, the quantity of translations has been increasing. Promotional activities by institutions such as the Nederlands Letterenfonds, formerly the NLPVF, contribute to making a peripheral literature known outside the boundaries of its linguistic area. The article then goes on to investigate the essential, yet not very well-known, parts that various kinds of mediators play in the translation process, especially in transferring a given text from one national literary field to another. The theory of components as elaborated by Andringa, Levie & Sanders is used to categorise the particularly intricate web of relations between the literary fields of source language and target language in which these mediators, both individuals and institutions, intervene. As actors behind the scenes, their role is difficult to grasp in reception studies, but they are decisive in their contextualisation, or ‘literarization’ (Casanova 1999), of Dutch literature aimed at a French audience.