Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde

Toos Streng

Goethe in Nederland tussen 1814 en 1870. Van ongodist tot heraut der moderne beschaving

Abstract -- Between 1814 and 1836 classicism and nationalism dominate the poetical way of thinking in the Netherlands, and Goethe was thus considered to be an insignificant foreign author who belonged to a past era. In the second half of the thirties this changed dramatically. Younger generations gave their strong views on art and the world and overnight, also due to the publication of Eckermann's Gespräche mit Goethe in 1836, Goethe became a centre of attention. Goethe then was seen as the 'Proteus of the nineteenth century': the incorporation of everything that was good and bad which the nineteenth century carried in it. Magazines like De gids saw him as 'Jupiter des Verstands' the personification of a new better future; authors like De Clercq and Da Costa considered Goethe to be the incorporation of anti-Christian tendencies. A remarkable development occurred around 1855, when Goethe suddenly became everybody's hero, a status which could only be achieved by clearing him from anti-Christian views. Within several years and due to the joint effort of older and younger liberals like Opzoomer and Pierson and older and younger orthodox men like Da Costa and Van Oosterzee Goethe was christened. This turn can be understood against the background of the radical historization after 1848 which introduced a new sense of era intended to develop the concept of 'modernity'. The status of Goethe as the modern poet who was superior to all parties remained intact certainly up to 1870 save one striking exception: the Catholics did not want anything to do with the just as corrupted as corrupting Goethe. By rejecting Goethe they rejected the new sense of era.

TNTL 122-2 (juni 2006), 117-141