De ontwikkeling van de term 'romantisch' en zijn varianten in Nederland tot 1840

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Summary

However widely literary historians may disagree about the unity of European romanticism, there is one thing on which they are remarkably unanimous, and that is in their conviction that a thoroughgoing ‘anamnesis’ of the adjective romantic would help significantly in clarifying the blurred picture presented by this European movement.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the history of this term should have attracted the attention of various investigators, with the result that the adjective's chameleon-like antics in, for example, England, France and Germany, have been largely charted. But this does not hold for the whole of European literature. As early as 1949, Wellek, in his famous ‘Concept of “romanticism”’, deplored the lack of information about the minor literatures. Twenty years later his complaint is still entirely valid for Dutch literature:¹ although here, too, there is a wide divergence of opinion about Dutch romanticism, no-one has as yet attempted to list the various meanings of the term romantic within the Dutch language area.

The present study aims at doing something to remedy that situation. It provides a detailed report on the changes in the meaning of the term romantisch (romantic) in the Netherlands, from the earliest seventeenth-century sources up to the year 1840. In order to put this development in its proper perspective I have prefaced the report itself with a survey, largely based on earlier publications, of the way in which the adjective was used in England, France and Germany during the so-called pre-literary-historical and literary-historical phases. By pre-literary-historical is meant the period in which the adjective has meanings attached to it which betray, to a greater or lesser extent, a connexion with the root-word roman or in English romance; by the literary-historical phase is meant the period starting with the Schlegel brothers, in which the term are assigned historical and typological meanings.

The adjective romantisch and its variants did not suddenly spring up, fully-fledged, in nineteenth-century Holland. On the contrary, the phase of literary-historical meaning was preceded, as elsewhere, by a long and elaborate preliterary-historical phase, which in the Netherlands lasted from about 1659 to 1810. A close study of dictionaries, coupled with an examination of translations

1 The recent collection of articles edited by Hans Eichner, ‘Romantic’ and its cognates The European history of a word. University of Toronto Press 1972, in which the history of the term romantic in 7 European countries is discussed, says nothing about what happened in the Netherlands.

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and original contributions in Dutch, shows that variants of the adjective romantisch were already being used sporadically in the second half of the seventeenth century and were extremely frequent in the eighteenth century. In the initial phase the novelty of the adjective manifests itself in the variety of its forms, which include romans, romansch, romanachtig, romaniek, romanicq, romanesque, romanesq, romanesk and romantisch. The oldest forms - romans, romansch and romanachtig - like the later variants romaniek and romanicq, eventually dropped out of use. The forms romanesque, romanesq and romanesk are not found before the beginning of the eighteenth century, but from then to the beginning of the nineteenth century they monopolize the field. I came across the form romantisch twice at the end of the seventeenth century, as a translation of Romantick used by William Temple, but it then completely disappears from sight until the end of the eighteenth century when it once again begins to gain ground.

In the pre-literary-historical phase three complexes of meaning can be discerned in the adjective: a) literary (relating to the genre of the novel: as in the novel and hence fictitious, fictional, adventurous, incredible, unreal, fabulous and so on), b) psychological (relating to human behaviour: exaggerated, extreme, exalted, etc.) and c) connected with landscape (relating to nature: impressive, enchanting, fascinating, idyllic, etc.). These various aspects of meaning are not distinguished from each other by formal variants: the term romanesk, for example, is used in the eighteenth century to refer to the literary, psychological and landscape aspects alike. The way in which the adjective was used in the pre-literary-historical phase shows striking parallels to developments in its use abroad. In England, France and Germany, too, different variants were used to begin with, and there, too, the adjective turns out to have borne literary, psychological and ‘landscape’ meanings. Of course, in a way this parallelism is not particularly surprising. After all, the adjective is an international term, imported from neighbouring countries. In this connexion I have to conclude that, in the light of the results of my own investigation, Baldensperger's comparative table of 1937 does not present a fair picture of what happened to the adjective in the Netherlands.² His instances of Dutch use are not only extremely limited in number, but owing to the absence of early references quite unrepresentative. This ‘tableau synoptique’, however valuable it may be for English, French and German sources, is too incomplete for the Netherlands to serve any longer as an acceptable authority.

The arrival of the first literary-historical extension to the meaning of the adjective did not lead to the sudden departure of non-literary-historical meanings. On the contrary, even in the first half of the nineteenth century we find the semantic valence of the adjective being heavily undermined by the fact that these meanings quietly go on being used, and even become more frequently applied than previously. What we do find in this period are changes in the choice of variants. The most striking is the triumph of the form romantisch at the expense of the variant romanesk. In the earlier decades of the nineteenth century it looked as if people wanted to keep the form romanesk for the psychological and landscape aspects of meaning, using romantisch mainly as an adjective for novels - which were now judged much less negatively than they

2 Fernand Baldensperger, ‘“Romantique”, ses analogues et ses équivalents; tableau synoptique de 1650 à 1810’ in Harvard studies and notes in philology and literature 19 (1937), pp. 13/105.

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had been - in the neutral sense of novel-like or fictional. In the '20s and '30s of the nineteenth century, however, the form romantisch began to extend its wings further: it started not only to incorporate new meanings such as poetic, amazing and imaginative, but also to take over the landscape dimension from romanesk. In addition, the adjective romantisch was now joined by the noun romantiek, formed to indicate the whole field of the novel. Romanesk gradually withdrew into the pejorative meanings of exaggerated and improbable. This expansionist drive on the part of romantisch in the non-literary-historical sense coincided almost exactly in time with the literary-historical extension of the meaning of the adjective, which greatly complicates the task of establishing the meaning of the adjective, even when we include the context in which the term occurs in our investigation. It is astonishing to note, however, that contemporary writers, with the outstanding exception of Geel and his criticism of the careless way in which the adjective was used, seem hardly to have been disturbed by this polysemy.

The literary-historical extension of the meaning of the adjective got convincingly under way with Van Kampen's partial translation of Schlegel's Viennese Vorlesungen under the title Geschiedenis der tooneelkunst en tooneelpoëzij (History of the drama and dramatic poetry), published in 1810. With his translation of this important romantic manifesto, Van Kampen, as it happens, scored a European ‘first’, which has not had the attention it deserves in Dutch literary historical circles or among students of comparative literature. His book introduced the Dutch public to a noteworthy extension of the meaning of the adjective; romantisch - Van Kampen still writes romanesk - refers to a literary tradition with its roots in the middle ages and whose foremost representatives are to be found among the English and Spanish dramatists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This literature, typologically radically different from classical literature, was to flourish again after the classical prejudices had been successfully shaken off.

Although Van Kampen's early introduction of this romantic manifesto led to a few positive reviews in contemporary magazines, it failed to leave any noticeable traces at the time. It was only the very occasional individual who, whether because of Van Kampen's translation or not, ventured using the term in Schlegel's antithetical and broad literary historical sense during the second decade of the nineteenth century. The only person to give his genuine adhesion, however, was Van Ghert. His Wijsgeerige beschouwing over de dichtkunde (Philosophical reflections on poetry), dating from 1813, contains, in addition to a personal interpretation of Schlegel's distinctions, an appeal to his countrymen to join in with the German romantic movement. A limited adaptation of German theories can be found in Van Kampen's Beoordeelende vergelijking der vijf beroemdste heldendichten van lateren tijd ... (Evaluative comparison of the five most famous heroic poems of modern times ....), published in 1816, and in an anonymous magazine article entitled Geschiedenis van het Spaansche tooneel (History of Spanish drama), dating from 1820. When the Dutch public was again offered the Schlegelian antithesis by way of the translation of Mme de Staël's De l'Allemagne (1818/1820), it is typical of the lack of interest in the antithesis that reviews in magazines failed to react at all to this distinction.

In the third decade of the nineteenth century, however, the wider literary historical meaning began to gain ground in the Netherlands. Van Limburg

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Brouwer used the adjective in this sense on a number of occasions in his Verhandeling over de vraag: bezitten de Nederlanders een nationaal tooneel met betrekking tot het treurspel...? (Discussion of the question: is there such a thing as Dutch tragic drama...?), published in 1823, although the discussion finishes up as an indictment of romantic drama. Van Kampen is more positive and informative in another work dating from the same year, Verhandeling over de vraag: welk is het onderscheidend verschil tusschen de klassische poëzij der ouden, en de dus genaamde romantische poëzij der nieuweren...? (Discussion of the question: what is the distinction between the classical poetry of antiquity and the so-called romantic poetry of the moderns...?) In this essay van Kampen presented his fellow-countrymen with a watered-down version of the Schlegels' distinctions, but he diverges markedly from his authority on one basic point; whereas Schlegel had greatly admired romantic freedom of form as a natural outcome of romantic thinking and not at all as something to be condemned for straying from the classical ideal, Van Kampen stuck firm to his classical premises and ended up by proposing as his artistic ideal a synthesis of romantic material in classical forms. His suggested compromise was supported by many during the 1820s, and may be regarded as the specifically Dutch standpoint in the discussion about romanticism up to the 1830s. A similar idea found expression, a year later, in De Clercq's Verhandeling ter beantwoording der vraag: welken invloed heeft vreemde letterkunde, inzonderheid de Italiaansche, Spaansche, Fransche en Duitsche, gehad op de Nederlandsche taal- en letterkunde, sints het begin der vijftiende eeuw tot op onze dagen? (Discussion in answer to the question: what influence have foreign literatures, in particular the Italian, Spanish, French and German, had on Dutch language and literature from the beginning of the fifteenth century up to our own time?) and was defended in a paper by Van der Hoop, published in 1828, Het classische treurspel der Franschen, en het romantische treurspel der Duitschers, met elkander vergeleken en den voorrang welke het eene op het andere heeft, aangetoond. (French classical tragedy and German romantic tragedy compared, and the superiority of the one to the other demonstrated).

The acceptance of the antithesis between classical and romantic, which now begins to be reflected in magazine articles, did not, however, imply an equal readiness to place Dutch literature in the field of force between these two poles. The application of the adjective romantisch to medieval literature was at all events highly unlikely: during the 1820s there was still such scorn for the earliest period of Dutch literature that the literary histories only provide the briefest of surveys, in which the adjective will be vainly sought for. Matters are slightly different when we come to seventeenth-century drama. Now and then we find dramatists such as Bredero, Vos, Rodenburgh and others being very tentatively linked with the English and Spanish romantic drama, without, however, their being explicitly called romantisch. This is not to deny that the first steps towards the still prevalent, and confusing, custom of labelling certain representatives of the seventeenth-century theatre as romantisch, were made during the 1820s. The wider literary-historical meaning of the adjective became narrowed down, in the Netherlands as elsewhere, once an awareness had grown up of the new movements at work here and abroad, and the term had to be used to characterize them. The adjective was now joined by a whole series of nouns: romanticismus, romanticisme, romantisme and romantiek to indicate the movement itself; romantieken, romantiekers, romantisten and romantici to qualify its representatives.

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Although most of the remarks in the magazines concern the French romantic school, there is a growing realisation during the '30s that romanticism was not confined to any one country, but had infected the whole of European literature. This did not, however, lead to an investigation of the features the various romantic movements had in common. Usually it was considered sufficient to summarize the characteristics peculiar to the forms manifesting themselves in one's own country.

Initially the use of the adjective romantisch in the narrow literary historical sense remained restricted to German literature. Goethe and Schiller were often classed under romanticism. Their early plays caused more ink to flow than was expended on the real romantic schools themselves. The remarks about the ‘Sekte’ of the Schlegel brothers were extremely summary and showed no signs of affinity. In the sporadic discussion we again meet with the cliché objections; the tone is too mystical, there is an exaggerated bias towards the middle ages, there is too strong a flirtation with catholicism. The degree to which people were misled by the external aspects of German romanticism is evident from the discussion by Van der Hoop mentioned earlier: for him romantic drama can quite simple be equated with the fashionable ‘Schicksals-drama’. Once again Van Ghert forms a worthy exception. His Levens- en karakterschets van den dichter F. von Hardenberg, bekend onder den naam van Novalis (A sketch of the life and character of the poet F. von Hardenberg, known by the name of Novalis), published in 1820, betrays a quite un-Dutch enthusiasm for this romantic writer.

The tone adopted towards English romanticism was a good deal more benevolent. In his discussion of 1823, mentioned earlier, Van Kampen still denied Byron entry to the romantic camp, but by the '30s Scott and Byron were discussed at length and appreciatively as the chief representatives of the English romantic school. Out and out romantics like Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley and Keats, however, attracted little attention. The strong sympathy with the English romantic movement led to repeated appeals in the magazines to young poets to allow themselves be guided, not by French or German models, but solely by those from England. Apart from a few earlier remarks in the magazines, the reactions to the French romantic school did not gather force until after 1830. It was only a very occasional figure, like Greb in his essay entitled Iets over Victor Hugo en zijn werken (On Victor Hugo and his works), published in 1836, who opted straightforwardly for French romanticism, but his plea was totally swept away by his countrymen's uncompromising rejection. What people objected to in the French romantic school, and in Hugo in the first place, were the lengths to which realistic representation had gone in the novel and the drama, and these were rejected on ethical and esthetic grounds. Only the poetry found pity in the eyes of the critics.

It was a fairly long time before the term romantisch began to be used for contemporary Dutch literature. There is no Dutch author to whom this epithet was applied before 1830. After that date opinions were divided as to whether romanticism had made its entry into the Netherlands or not. Some critics joyfully claimed that Dutch literature had remained unsullied by the disastrous influence of French romanticism; others discovered, to their dismay, that the infiltration was in full flow and probably no longer to be resisted. At all events, it became customary in the period between 1830 and 1840 to call figures such as Van der Hoop, Withuys, Beets, Van Lennep, Vinkeles, Greb

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and Drost romantisch, but we do not get the feeling that there was much belief in the existence of a properly organized Dutch romantic school, complete with a forceful leader and a programme of its own. It is significant that Van Kampen in his Handboek van de geschiedenis der letterkunde (Manual of literary history) (1834/1836), while using the term in connexion with contemporary foreign literature refrains from applying it to the contemporary literature of his own country.

Reflections on the essential characteristics of romanticism during the 1830s were strongly influenced bij de defensive attitude towards the French romantic school. Two tendencies can be distinguished. In the first place people came to realize, as Geel put it, ‘that a literary dispute lasting 25 or more years can contain more than one phase’, and this awareness of the existence of a number of stages in the development of romanticism creates a more critical attitude towards the Schlegelian distinctions, and simultaneously calls into question Van Kampen's proposed compromise. Van der Palm's conservative Verhandeling over eenheid en verscheidenheid (Essay on unity and diversity) of 1831, and the translation of Bouterwek: Grondbeginselen der leer van het schoone (Principles of aesthetics), published in 1830/1831 unfold the antithesis intact, but Bakker's essay Iets over het onderscheid tusschen de klassische en romantische poëzij (On the difference between classical and romantic poetry), dating from 1832, already contains a number of basic reservations about the Schlegelian construction. Kinker's speech, Iets over het romantische (On the romantic), of 1836, and Bakhuizen van den Brink's review of Geel's Onderzoek en phantasie (Inquiry and imagination), of 1838, perplex the antithesis still further by finding romantic elements in the classical authors as well.

The second, and related, tendency is for critics to lose faith during the '30s in the possibility of a synthesis between the classical and romantic movements, and for them to take sides, in many cases, against the romantic movement. We find such opinions frequently expressed in the magazines, as well as in the discussions by Van der Palm, Kinker and Bakhuizen van den Brink mentioned already.

Both tendencies were most eloquently expressed by Geel however. His Gesprek op den Drachenfels (Conversation on the Drachenfels) of 1835, with its playful approach to the subject, stands head and shoulders above all the other contributions to the debate on romanticism in the Netherlands, and as an ‘effort in art’ deserves to be called an unqualified succes. In this dialogue Geel attacks not only the antithesis but also the indiscriminate use of the adjective romantisch in general. In this respect he compares favourably with his fellow-countrymen, who were barely aware of the semantic devaluation of the adjective. In his rejection of the romantic movements in Germany and France, however, Geel does not differ at all from his fellow critics. As the laudatory reviews in the magazines show, Geel's adoption of this extremely conventional viewpoint was just what the conservative Dutchman wanted, and it cast therefore a blight on the burgeoning growth of romanticism.

This sketch of the development of the adjective romantisch up to 1840 by no means says all that there is to say about the career of the term. A further investigation is needed of its penetration into the leading literary histories. There is a wide gap between the literary history by Van Kampen, mentioned earlier, where the adjective is not used at all with reference to Dutch literature,

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and Knuvelder's Handboek tot de geschiedenis der Nederlandse letterkunde (Manual of Dutch literary history) of 1967 (fourth edition), in which we find no fewer than two ‘romantic breakthroughs’ recorded. Such an investigation would, moreover, possibly shed some light on the stubborn habit displayed by many Dutch literary historians of calling certain seventeenth-century Dutch dramatists romantisch.