De Achttiende Eeuw
26 (1994) 1
Suzan van Dijk,
The difficult beginnings of female journalism (a question of power)
In France and Holland during the eighteenth century the number of female journalists seems to have been very small. In part this impression would seem to be false: there are still many gaps to be filled in the historiography of the Dutch press. This article however does not intend to fill them up, but concerns the extent to which the assertion can be said to be true. Clearly, women have been excluded from journalism. The hostile attitude of male journalists as shown towards possible, or even fictional, female rivals can be seen as one of the main causes of the exclusion of women from this field. One of the consequences was the decision taken by some women, who had been hindered in their journalistic aims, to express themselves through the medium of the novel.
omoog
David Fausett,
Smeeks and the Nijptangh Journal: a reappraisal
Krinke Kesmes (1708) by Hendrik Smeeks is an obscure novel about a voyage to Australia (or ‘New Holland’) and the utopian society encountered there. It has interested literary historians mainly as a precursor to Robinson Crusoe, as it contains a digression in which a youth is marooned; a highly realistic one, which has aroused speculation about a possible real source for it. The article reviews this problem and makes a detailed comparison of Smeek’s text with a journal from Willem de Vlamingh’s expedition to Australia in 1696-1697. It concludes that this was the main source used – not on its own, but as part of a composite edition which included literary works. The total effect of that edition was to inspire a poetics of marooning, later carried forward by Defoe.
omoog
Jan Oosterholt,
Passion and workmanship art. Dutch conceptions of lyrics (1780-1790)
Before the eighteenth century lyric poetry gets little attention in poetics. In 1746 Charles Batteux states that the lyric poem is an imitation de la belle nature like any other kind of poetry. In response to this a concept of lyrics develops in Germany in which the notion of an imitation is rejected but the expression of sentiments is still subject to rules. This normative concept of lyrics has a great influence on several Dutch authors at the end of the eighteenth century. In his well known polemics with W.E. de Perponcher, H. van Alphen refuses to see an ode and an elegy as imitations of nature. He stresses the importance of authentic sentiments, whereas Perponcher gives more attention to the cultivation of these sentiments. In his treatise on the lyric poem (1786) Brender à Brandis too subscribes to the normative concept of lyrics of the German Popularaesthetici.
omoog
Dorothée Sturkenboom,
Thermometers for masculinity and femininity. The meaning of sexual difference in eighteenth-century spectators.
This article presents a casestudy of the Dutch journal De Vrouwelyke Spectator published anonymously in 1760-1761. One of the essays contained in this volume, namely ‘The invention of the Female Thermometer’ is singled out for extensive analysis. The author argues that the notion of gender as a symbolic category that structures the representation of reality is necessary to understand the messages of this text and that of the spectatorial magazine genre in general.
In the ‘Female Thermometer’ femininity is closely related to the negative interpretation of passions and decadence. Masculinity on the other hand corresponds to the virtue of self-control. This is especially illustrated by the behaviour of ‘Monsieur Crux-Homo’, the character that symbolizes the effeminate man. The representation and function of effeminate men in this and other Dutch spectatorial weeklies demonstrate that gender plays a decisive role in the construction of a virtuous middle-class identity for the Dutch nation. In conclusion gender turns out to be a crucial element in the spectatorial classification system that all Dutch dix-huitémistes should take into account, not only those interested in ‘women's topics’.
omoog
Stephan Klein en Joost Rosendaal,
Democracy in context. New perspectives on the Leiden Draft (1785)
Dutch and foreign historians tend to view Dutch patriotism of the 1780s as a sign of either the beginning of modernity in politics or the final years of the old system. In order to uphold this interpretative scheme the Leiden Draft, taken for the most radical programme of the Dutch patriots, has been used as evidence of both ancien-regime politics and modern democratic radicalism. This tendency to deny the peculiar character of the 1780s has somewhat obscured the meaning of the Leiden Draft within its immediate context i.e. the province of Holland in 1785. The authors argue that the Leiden Draft was not the most radical product of patriot thought, nor meant as a blue-print of the ideal republic. The Leiden Draft, published by the Holland Association of Armed Citizen Societies, indeed marked only the beginning of a discussion that was never closed. At the same time it must be considered a last attempt at creating a broader consensus between regent and citizens without giving up the central demand of democratic reform in city-administrations. This idea of consensus is illustrated by a comparison between the Leiden Draft and an unknown earlier version that in some ways is more radical and explicit.
omoog
Wijnand Mijnhardt,
Cultural societies and the Enlightenment: a reply
In a recent article of De Achttiende Eeuw [25 (1993) 3-23] Rienk Vermij has questioned the accuracy of two basic conclusions of my book on Dutch cultural societies in the eighteenth century. First of all he doubts the validity of the distinction between the sociability of scholars and that of the wider public since the Italian Renaissance. In Vermij’s view separate forms of sociability of scholars did not emerge until the advent of official state recognized academies since the middle of the 17th century. The reply argues that until the second half of the 19th century sociological distinction between scholars and not-scholars does not apply. It therefore makes much more sense to take goals and activities of societies as criteria for a categorization into learned societies and those intended for the general public. Even those official societies, which according to Vermij may be called scientific in their own right since the middle of the 17th century, more often than not included persons who did not pursue any scientific careers. In non-absolutist countries such as England and the Dutch Republic wealthy amateurs were welcome because they supplied the financial means by which these official societies could carry out their scientific programs. Official academies in countries such as France and to a lesser extent Germany , though well subsidized, often included a large portion of noble members who had been elected on non-scientific grounds.
According tot Vermij, the Enlightenment did not constitute a distinctive phase in the evolution of cultural societies. As a result Dutch sociability of the second half of the 18th century took shape according to models developed in the 17th century. In this case Vermij ignores the eighteenth-century discussion of Scottish origins on sociability and politeness that very deeply influenced the nature and development of societies and supplied it with its distinctive enlightened character. Moreover, by refusing to adopt a comparative perspective, Vermij fails to interpret the early emergence of non-corporative forms of sociability in the Dutch Republic in the 17th century. These early manifestations of modern forms of sociability may be explained by the extraordinary political and economic structure of the Dutch Republic. Nevertheless, it was only in the eighteenth century, when the Dutch began to adopt the principles of the new science of man, that enlightened forms of sociability came into being.
omoog
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