Nederlandse Letterkunde - Volume 18, Issue 3, 2013

This article proposes a new approach to middlebrow novels, focused on ideological topics and social functioning. As a demonstration of this approach two very popular middlebrow novels are analyzed on the keyword ‘Dutch’ (Hollands) and a network of related terms: Hollands glorie (1940) by Jan de Hartog and Die van ons (1945) by Willy Corsari. It is argued that these novels express norms and values on social solida Read More

This article discusses the background, content, mission statements and key contributors of the illustrated magazines Morks’ Magazijn and “Zij”: Maandblad voor de vrouw, both of which sought to make art, science and literature available to a wide reading public. By employing recent conceptualisations of so-called middlebrow magazines and their specific modes of criticism, this article provides an in-depth view of how Read More

At the publication of his Homer parody, Londinias, in 1873, Vosmaer proposed – not without irony – that the future researcher ought to try an euhemeristic interpretation of his poem. In the present paper we accept his challenge. Using three different modern literary approaches we try answering a research question that may be derived from euhemerism: what is the relationship between reality and mythology in Londini Read More

Sybren Polet’s place within Dutch literature is hard to determine. This essay seeks to connect Polet’s fairy tales to postmodernism, which can be described as an antirealist movement that deconstructs conventional (linguistic) frames. Postmodern fairy tales are also frequently defined by unsettling traditional role patterns, which Polet’s stories also exhibit. In his fairy tales, however, the reader is often morally instructed, w Read More