jg.45 (2013) 1-2

De Achttiende Eeuw 45 (2013) nr.1 

Eveline Koolhaas-Grosfeld, Verklaring der plaat

Lotte Jensen, Ten strijde tegen het ‘Kotzebueïsmus’. De Tooneelmatige Roskam, in één-en-twintig geestige en satyrique vertoogen (1799) 
Around 1800 Dutch politics and the theatre were closely intertwined, as for example the history of the satirical theatre magazine De Tooneelmatige Roskam demonstrates, which appeared from March to July 1799. It expressed anticonstitutional sentiments and its editor severely criticized the nationalization of the Amsterdam theatre that had taken place in 1798. He particularly inveighed against the four newly appointed commissioners, whose programming was said to be too strongly adapted to popular tastes. Instead of high-quality tragic drama they mainly staged lyrical drama and popular plays. The literary author P.G. Witsen Geysbeek is still considered to have been the editor of this provocative magazine but there is no conclusive evidence for his authorship.

Rick Honings, Een vrolijk tuchtigende schoolmeester. Studentensatire in de tweede helft van de achttiende eeuw.
In June 1773 a new magazine was published: De Spectator der studenten. It was brought out in Leiden and only existed for one year. The target group were students. In the magazine the behavior of students, especially law students, was described and often ridiculed. However, as with all other spectators, the aim of the magazine was twofold: to entertain and to moralize at the same time. This article focuses on De Spectator der studenten as an example of student satire in the second half of the eighteenth century

Lieke van Deinsen, Een bloemlezing vol bloedbaden. Politiek-literaire kruisbestuiving in de achttiende-eeuwse bellettrie.
Until fairly recently, scholars of both modern and early modern literature hardly paid attention to anthologies as a distinctive or relevant source of historical knowledge. Of late, however, academics have begun to recognize that it might be fruitful to interpret anthologies not as largely ancillary (if not purely commercial) contributions to the literary marketplace but as premeditated documents that might be imbued with specific intentions. To illustrate this alternative reading strategy, this article focuses on the Vervolg van de Nederduitse keurdigten (1717), the second volume of what would prove to become a highly popular series of satirical poetry anthologies, and argues that an editor like Pieter van der Goes created completely new contexts (and, consequently, new meanings) for the poems that he included by ordering his texts in very specific ways and conflating various political and cultural debates. In doing so, this article not only reinterprets an early modern anthology as a calculated construct that embodies a self-conscious attitude towards the texts that it comprises, but also demonstrates that, in the early modern Republic, the realms of literature and politics tended to be intermingled, if not inseparable: they met each other, metaphorically speaking, on belletristic battlefields.

Frida van Til, Loosjes’ achttiende-eeuwse Watergeuzen. Hoe een auteur geschiedenis en literatuur naar zijn hand zet.
This article focuses on the heroic play De Watergeuzen by the author, bookseller and editor Adriaan Loosjes. In 1790 he published this play for the first time, and in 1796 the directors of the Nationale Schouwburg asked him to publish De Watergeuzen again. In preparing the text for the second edition, Loosjes rewrote a number of passages, especially the one referring to William of Orange. Loosjes erased his name and all the references to him. Why? Since France had invaded the Republic in 1795, the political situation had changed so much that any reference to him or other members of the House of Orange was no longer acceptable. But in rewriting De Watergeuzen, Loosjes was probably not driven by idealism alone.

 

De Achttiende Eeuw 45 (2013) nr.2

Herman Roodenburg, Verklaring der plaat

Dirk van Waelderen, Feest in Brussel na de inname van de stad Buda in 1686. De analyse van een politiek prentenverhaal van Romeyn de Hooghe
In September 1686 Brussels was the scene of triumphal celebrations organised by Prince Eugene Alexander of Thurn and Taxis (1652-1714) and the Spanish Habsburg governor Francisco Antonio de Agurta, marquis of Castanaga (1640-1702). After being in possession of the Ottoman Turks for 150 years, Buda, the Hungarian capital, was conquered by the Habsburg Austrian emperor, Leopold I (1640-1705). This highly symbolic victory at Buda over the Turks was celebrated throughout the Habsburg empire and beyond. The Dutch printer and artist Romeyn de Hooghe (1645-1708) covered the celebrations in Brussels in a set of engravings. These printed engravings tell a unique story of how the Brussels public sphere experienced and celebrated the conquest of Buda by the Habsburgs by portraying the Ottomans as a distinct people. This article is based on a textual and iconographic analysis of these prints and engravings displaying the different stages of the celebrations.

Floris B. Verhaart, Scholars and the public sphere: the transmission of knowledge via polemics in the Republic of Letters at the turn of the eighteenth century
Who or what did early modern scholars in Europe have in mind when they referred to the ‘public’ and at what point in the eighteenth or even the seventeenth century can we speak of the ‘public sphere’ as discussed by Jürgen Habermas in his Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit (1962)? In this article I will shed more light on these questions by looking at the work of Jean Le Clerc (1657-1736) and Pieter Burman (1668-1741). These two scholars were the protagonists in a fierce polemic about the right approach to classical scholarship at the turn of the eighteenth century. I will show that Le Clerc and Burman held clear views about their interaction with differing groups of readers and that the dynamics of the polemic stimulated these two scholars to come up with strategies to communicate their ideas as effectively as possible to different kinds of readers, both fellow experts and a general reading public.

Marja van Tilburg, Een wereld van verschil. De receptie van het Verlichtingsdenken in de reisverslagen van de Forsters
Until now, the differences between Johann Reinhold Forster’s and his son Georg’s accounts of the Pacific have been explained by referring to their different characters. In this article these differences are related to major trends in Enlightenment thought. Therefore, the explorers’ interpretations of Polynesian Tahiti and Melanesian Tanna are analysed following the rules of poststructuralist textual analysis. The results show important differences in the Forsters’ perceptions of ‘society’ and ‘progress’. These are consistent with the eighteenth-century turn from a naturalist approach to cultural diversity to a historical one. Furthermore, the authors have different views of femininity, consistent with the development towards modern sexual identities. More importantly, each of these concepts carries specific connotations of ‘civilisation’. As a consequence, the explorer’s specific concept of ‘woman’ affects his evaluation of non-western peoples.

Jeannette E. Koch, Geluk, geld, geloof en … Pope in de Historie van Mejuffrouw Sara Burgerhart (1782)
In the ‘Preface’ of their first epistolary novel, Elisabeth Wolff and Agatha Deken make it clear that the plot will not follow those of the novels of Samuel Richardson. Instead of action and violence Wolff and Deken focus on good behaviour, warning Dutch girls not to lose their reputation because of imprudence. To demonstrate this, the small world of a girl like Sara is embedded in a broad cultural, political, economic and religious context. The novel has its trivial and humoristic moments, but the enlightened correspondents in particular emphasize mainly the difficulties of young people in coping with the Dutch crisis of the second half of the eighteenth century. Non-orthodox as they are, some correspondents advocate tolerance and mutual help for the young people who deserve it. Money, and how to get it, plays an important role in this popular novel which is also built around the tension between the different religious opinions in the Netherlands. Both orthodox Calvinists (‘unreliable’) and freethinkers (‘dangerous’) are judged negatively. Somewhat to our surprise, friends and foes, liberal believers and hard-core freethinkers, find each other in their enthusiasm for Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man.