Nederlandse Letterkunde - Volume 19, Issue 3, 2014

Models in Dutch Literature 1900-1920. An Introduction

In Dutch literary history, the timespan between 1900 and 1920 has often been conceived of as a period of relative calm and stability in contrast to the preceding fin-de-siècle years and the years following World War I. Recent publications, however, broadening their scope from the canonical literary texts and the major authors to a more comprehensive view on literary culture, have revealed that the first decades of the 20^th century saw important changes in the structure of the literary field, alongside (and in close connection to) the emergence of new cultural practices. This special issue of Nederlandse Letterkunde wants to chart some of these changes, ranging from the rise of new genres and new ideas about literature and authorship, to a reorganization of the institutional infrastructure of literature. In the introduction we argue that, to analyze such phenomena, it is fruitful to focus on the development, reinterpretation and circulation of literary and cultural models, since all cultural behavior is model-based, as are cultural artifacts, which might in turn function as models themselves for new practices or products. To illustrate the possibilities of the concept ‘model’ we present a brief case study on the literary interview, a media genre emerging internationally at that time, followed by some general reflections on the ‘model’ approach in literary and cultural studies.

Claiming or Proving. Models in Dutch Literary Criticism around 1917

The first two decades of the twentieth century saw a rapid expansion of literary criticism in the Dutch literary field. Models played an important role in contemporary debates about the nature and function of criticism. In search for new modes of critical writing after the Movement of 1880, critics (consciously or not) made use of discursive conventions, textual genres and exemplary predecessors in order to determine their own critical practice. This article develops a model for studying the specific features and functions of models in literary criticism by analyzing a questionnaire in the Dutch weekly magazine De Groene Amsterdammer in 1917.

The Traveler, the Painter and the Writer. Travel Books by Jacobus van Looy

Travelling never occurs unmediated. Travelers are guided by pre-existing representations of the Other (discovering or covering foreign realities), by patterns of cultural self-perception and of individual self-observation. The same holds for travel writing, that even shows a double mediation: (1) the mediation of the travelling itself by the selection of what and how the journey is described, and (2) the textual/linguistic mediation of the travelling experience.

This article explores the travel books the author and painter Jac. van Looy wrote about his journeys to the south (Italy, Spain, Morocco), covering the period between 1885 (the year he obtained the Prix de Rome) and 1913. On the one hand Van Looys travelling and his painting and writing were definitely pre-modelled, on the other hand, it is argued, the interaction between his travelling and his artistic activities during his search for a new poetology lead to a departure from these established models.

The Prose Poem in Flanders and the Netherlands as a Model. On Genres and Generations

This article explores the ways in which the genre of the prose poem functioned as a model in Flemish and Dutch literature from the 1890’s to the 1920’s. Focusing on two cases – a prewar and a postwar one –, it is argued that the genre was reinterpreted by new literary generations and, infused with new elements, became a productive model for new texts. A first case study deals with Pol de Mont and Ellen Corr. The former modified the model as he borrowed it from the authors of the Eighties movement, and it subsequently became a productive model for an epigone like Corr. In a second case study, dealing with Herman Heijermans and Constant van Wessem, we show how the genre was modified again in the period following World War I, and was made to incorporate modern elements such as cinematic processes and a businesslike, objective form. Finally, these cases reveal that models go beyond the genre, since their evolution is often based on eye-catching features that are not necessarily essential to the definition of the genre per se.

Models and the Author’s Self-fashioning. Some Reflections and the Case of Mina Kruseman

This article explores the ways in which the concept of the ‘model’ can be used for research into the self-fashioning of literary authors. After reviewing the role of the concept in theoretical contributions dealing with the process of self-fashioning (Goffmann, Meizoz, Heinich), it raises some crucial methodological issues, such as (1) how can one discover the specific model an author has based his/her self-image upon? or (2) how can one account for the fact that an author belongs to different social fields, apart from the field of literature, and that these different fields can generate different types of models? Finally, the possibilities of the concept of the model are demonstrated by use of the case of Mina Kruseman.

Patterns of Giving and Receiving: the Case of the Cultural Magazine De Beweging (1905-1919)

The Dutch poet Albert Verwey was editor of the cultural magazine De Beweging between 1905-1919. This article uses gift theory to investigate the alliances he forged with his publishers, with his readers, and with the writers he worked with, and takes stock of the ways he tried to keep the insolvent magazine financially afloat. Verwey struggled to find a balance between his own agenda and the interests of his associates, and had to tread carefully as he appealed to their clemency and goodwill. Following Aafke Komter, who differentiates between four types of gift relationship, this article demonstrates that Verwey positioned himself predominantly within the modes of what Komter calls community sharing and authority ranking.

Literary life lessons. The first ‘Scharten novel’ as a model of new middlebrow literature

Presenting the case of one of the first bestselling novels by C. and M. Scharten-Antink, this article analyzes how at the beginning of the twentieth century the middlebrow novel was introduced in the Netherlands, which gave rise to a rapidly growing tradition of literary midcult. This new kind of novel, it is argued, is not merely a new genre, yet is a product of new cultural practices in which authors and publishers cooperated. In order to produce the middlebrow novel for a vast and new reading public, they combined existing, longstanding models with new ones. The concept of ‘model’ is used here to analyze the new middlebrow practice from three interrelated perspectives. First, I conceive of ‘model’ as the repertoire, the sets of rules available at a given time, on which authors and publishers could base their choices and actions. Second, I argue that, in literary criticism, the new middlebrow novel soon rose to the status of a model itself. Third, I demonstrate that the major goal of the middlebrow novel was, by way of ‘fictional modelization’, to provide the reader with life-lessons, models to live with.