Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde

Jacqueline Bel

De houdbaarheidsdatum van literatuur
of uitdagingen voor de literatuurgeschiedschrijver

Abstract -- ‘Writers are forever’ as a Dutch saying goes. But in reality it is the other way around: writers are usually quickly forgotten. For example: relatively few authors are mentioned in the recent literary history by Ton Anbeek (1990). To recapture the scope of literature, this article demonstrates how a synchronic cross-section of the literary production of a certain period can provide the necessary material for a diachronic picture of literary history. By profiling the Dutch literary production of the year 1900, six aspects are highlighted: the connection with the non-literary context, the Flemish-Dutch relations, the position of female writers, colonial literature, foreign literature and the connection between literature and art.

TNTL 120-3 (september 2004), 193-210