Internationale Neerlandistiek - Volume 55, Issue 2, 2017

Abstract Dye Cronijcke van Zeelandt (The Chronicles of Zeelandt) is a philosophical study of the nature of Zeeland, and reveals its essence to be that of a never-ending metamorphosis of land into sea, sea into land, with immediate effects on the fortunes and wealth of the inhabitants. The book is the outcome of an ambitious, large-scale investigation, aiming to subvert the cycles of (divine) destruction that (allegedly) result Read More

Abstract The Ambonese Curiosity Cabinet (D’Amboinsche Rariteitkamer), published in Amsterdam in 1705, is one of the first scholarly works on crustaceans, molluscs, shells and conches as well as minerals and stones in a European vernacular. The author of the book, the VOC merchant and historian of nature Georg Everhard Rumphius, arrived in the Moluccas in 1654 and lived on the island of Ambon until his death in 1702. T Read More

Abstract This article studies the complex relation between literature and knowledge by focusing on the use of lists in poetry. The list is a simple yet functional tool for the organization of information. It moreover guides the memory and helps to structure our lives and the world around us. The list form is, in brief, dominantly present in daily life. Lists are therefore also often integrated in literature. In a literary context the list can bo Read More

Abstract This paper explores the way fictional texts activate, integrate and organize knowledge by focussing on the epistemological frame that fictional scenarios provide. I will provide a case-study of three Dutch-language novels from the early 20th century which depict merchants and business-men. The merchant is a well-established literary character situated at the cross-section of economic, literary-historiographic, a Read More

Abstract This article investigates how different narrating strategies influence the way in which we acquire historical knowledge through narrative. It analyses description and reference as narrating strategies that signalize that what is told is consonant with reality (emersive narrating strategies). These narrating strategies are commonly used in non-fictional texts. Immersive strategies are a different set of narrating strategies like Read More