Elisabeth Wesseling

Contesting Consensus Culture: The Case of Dutch Gothic

Until recently the Gothic novel was considered to be a predominantly Anglo-Saxon phenomenon, but there are now several studies that have convincingly uncovered relevant European contributions to the development of this genre. We are adding to this project of Anglo-European comparisons by investigating the case of Dutch literature. Has there been a Gothic tradition to speak of in Dutch literature, and if so, how may it serve to mitigate the Anglo-centrism of Gothic studies? We observe that the Gothic only became a significant phenomenon in post-war Dutch literature, developing into a veritable trend from the 1980s onwards. The article offers an explanation for the initial absence of the Gothic novel and for its upsurge in late twentieth-century fiction. We argue that the trajectory of the Gothic in Dutch literature can be understood in the light of the peculiarities of the modernization of Dutch society, a process whose pace and phasing differs considerably from the modernization of Britain. These observations are substantiated with readings of primary works.

Het heilige huis: De gotieke vertelling in de Nederlandse literatuur

Terwijl de gothic novel floreerde in de Engelse, Amerikaanse, Duitse en Franse literatuur, lijkt de Nederlandse literatuur zich tot diep in de twintigste eeuw te hebben onthouden van dit omstreden genre. Weliswaar verschenen er de nodige vertalingen, maar producten van eigen bodem lijken nagenoeg non-existent. In deze inleidende studie wordt de stelling verdedigd dat deze situatie verandert tijdens de jaren vijftig van de vorige eeuw. Aanvankelijk eigenen vooral Willem Frederik Hermans en Gerard van het Reve zich literaire strategieen en motieven uit de gotieke traditie toe, later volgen onder andere Hella Haasse, Helga Ruebsamen, Renate Dorrestein, Vonne van der Meer, Frans Kellendonk, Thomas Rosenboom en Herman Franke. De Nederlandse literatuur maakt in dit opzicht deel uit van een omvangrijke internationale trend.

Memory is the primary Instrument, The Inexhaustible Nutrient Source: Remediations of Literary Romanticism in Sally Man's Family Photographs

It has been argued that Romantic images of childhood have disappeared from late twentieth-century culture, and that the innocent child of nature has made way for the “knowing child.” However, if we go beyond pictorial traditions and include literary Romanticism, a caesura in the cultural construction of childhood becomes questionable. A close reading of Sally Manns Immediate Family, an album of art photographs that have been proposed as crucial evidence of a break in the aesthetics and poetics of childhood, shows that the continuities between Manns family photographs and the Romantic paradigm vastly outnumber the discontinuities.

Blacker than Black: Contextualising the Issue of White Supremacy in Heinrich Hoffmann's ‘The Story of the Inky Boys’

Heinrich Hoffmanns ‘The Story of the Inky Boys’ has been criticised repeatedly on account of its supposed racism. This article argues that when this story is read within the cultural, political and scientific contexts of Hoffmanns own time, with close attention to the word-picture dynamic, a different perspective on this tale emerges. It is suggested that Der Struwwelpeter [Shock-Headed Peter] can be read as a parody of Romantic idealisations of the child, including the developmentalist schemes of Romantic Naturphilosophie. Read in relation to such schemes, which repeatedly supported racist notions, ‘The Story of the Inky Boys’ may be viewed, not as a racist story, but, rather, as a parody of the type of racism that lurked within Romantic idealism.