oa VRIENDELIJKE HUISGEZELLEN OF ‘INGEVLEESCHDE’ DUIVELS

Willem Bilderdijk and the animals

In 1817 the Dutch poet Willem Bilderdijk published De dieren (The animals), one of his shortest but less studied didactic poems. In this work he presented a curious view on animals and their origins. With this article, I would like to contribute to the field of animal studies, by analyzing Bilderdijk’s ideas on and his contacts with animals. The first part of this article presents a biographical overview of Bilderdijk’s association with animals on the basis of available (auto)biographical texts. In the second part his didactic poem is analysed. What parallels can be drawn between both perspectives?