L.J. Ham

Book Reviews: Jeroen Jansen en Nico Laan (eds.), Van hof tot overheid. Geschiedenis van literaire instituties in Nederland en Vlaanderen

Jeroen Jansen en Nico Laan (eds.), Van hof tot overheid. Geschiedenis van literaire instituties in Nederland en Vlaanderen (Hilversum: Verloren, 2015, 352 pp., isbn 978 90 8704 544 9).

Occasional Writer, Sensational Writer : Multatuli as a Sentimental Benevolence Writer in the 1860s

In 2007, Darren C. Zook published a surprising article about Multatulis Max Havelaar . This chapter focuses on one of the least known works by Multatuli, the pamphlet Show me the place where I sowed This novella, published to benefit the people stricken by a flood in the Dutch East Indies in 1861, is perhaps the most sentimental of the authors books. It can only be understood properly when placed in the context of the forgotten tradition of Dutch benevolence literature. The chapter gives a rough sketch of benevolence literature as it functioned in the 1860s, and of its political significance. It then analyzes Show me the place against the backdrop of this tradition. The front cover of Show me the place where I sowed explicitly mentions that this is a benevolence book: Published for the benefit of the people destitute after the flood in the Dutch East Indies. Keywords: Darren C. Zook; Dutch East Indies; Multatulis Max Havelaar

Publiek, ik veracht u…enigszins : Discursieve autonomie in Nederland rond 1800

Recent literary scholarship usually distinguishes between two types of autonomy. Institutional autonomy concerns the creation of a professional and independent literary field, whereas poetical autonomy points to ideas about the self-legitimizing power of literary artworks. In the Netherlands both forms of autonomy supposedly arose almost simultaneously at the end of the nineteenth century. This article introduces a third form of autonomy: discursive autonomy, an author’s way of speaking and writing that shows how he places himself in a(n) (semi-)independent position. This form of autonomy already manifests itself in the early nineteenth century among marginal authors, especially hack writers. In this article, two of those authors are discussed: Pieter van Woensel (1747-1808) and Jean Baptiste Didier Wibmer (1792-1836). In particular, two tensions are analysed that can be found within their oeuvres, and that are both connected to the issue of discursive autonomy: the author as both dependent and independent of the audience and as both sincere and insincere towards that audience.