Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde

Mathijs Sanders

‘Beschaafd, dacht hij, is synoniem met pathogeen’
Bordewijks modernistische moraliteit

Abstract -- In his short story ‘Sodom’ (1937), F. Bordewijk presents a kaleidoscope of ideas concerning the crisis of western civilisation, without taking one fixed point of view or presenting one solution. This article arrives at an interpretation of Bordewijk’s short story by analysing the main metaphors and intertexts, a painting bij A.C. Willink and the cultural philosophical writings by Spengler and Huizinga. The intrinsically ambiguous world that is presented in ‘Sodom’ and on the painting ‘Late bezoekers aan Pompeï’ turns out to be a grotesque and polyphonic world that deals with the cultural crisis metaphorically, implicitely rejecting the political, social and religious ‘solutions’ that were being discussed and became popular in the 1930’s.

TNTL 121-1 (maart 2005), 57-73