Vorm of vent

[p. 499]

Summary

In 1931 the poet D.A.M. Binnendijk published an anthology of poems entitled Prisma (Prism). In his introduction to it he made - not altogether clearly - a number of statements which may be regarded as the manifesto of several young writers and critics grouped around the periodical De Vrije Bladen (The Free Folia). Binnendijk was here concerned with the nature of the literary work of art (henceforward called ‘poetics’ in this book), and the standards for evaluating it, as he had applied them, or thought he had applied them, in his anthology. As his point of departure he took the term ‘creativity’, by which he meant the poetic faculty to transmute experience into a phenomenon of an essentially different order.

Another young writer, the essayist Menno ter Braak, who, although he belonged to the Vrije Bladen circle, had gradually drifted away from it at the end of the Twenties, attacked the Prisma introduction. In his opinion, Binnendijk's point of view opened the door to epigonism, and the anthology was proof of this. To ‘creativity’ he opposed ‘personality’: what matters most is whether a poet has something to say.

This debate, neatly summarized by the older poet Bloem in the phrase ‘vorm tegen vent’ (‘form versus fellow’), had a remarkably strong effect on the development of Dutch literature and criticism. Ter Braak won the approval of the most talented polemist Dutch literature had known for many years; this was E. du Perron, an outsider, but for this very reason a free agent. Binnendijk was supported, albeit reluctantly, by his old comrade H. Marsman, who, from 1925 to 1930, was generally considered to be the leading writer of the younger generation. As the new allies Du Perron and Ter Braak founded, as early as 1932, the periodical Forum (Forum), of which, although it lasted only four years, the influence is still felt today, the Prisma debate can be regarded as an event which signified a fundamental change throughout Dutch literature.

This event, and what preceded and followed it, is the subject of this thesis, but not considered from a literary-historical perspective. The primary object has been to determine what opinions about the nature of the liter-

[p. 500]

ary work of art (poetics) and the aims of literary criticism (in theory and in practice) are to be found among Dutch critics of the period 1916-1940, this within the framework of the more general question of what the literary theorist can learn from this enquiry about the nature of the phenomenon he is studying.

1916 and 1940 are customary period-boundaries in Dutch literary history and are also valid for the present enquiry. 1916 was the year in which writers such as Martinus Nijhoff, Paul van Ostaijen and Herman van den Bergh began to emerge: from them new ideas about literature originated. 1940 marks the end of the ‘Forum period’. (In that year the two central figures of Forum died.)

The general scheme of Vorm of Vent (Form or Fellow) is as follows: a ‘portrait’ is given of a number of critics with emphasis placed on the following facets of their work: their poetics, their critical theory (if there is one) and their critical practice. The approach adopted for the second and third points has been to ask whether, and if so, in what way, critical theory and practice correspond with the poetics of their authors. Bloem's description of the conflict between the two parties as one of ‘form’ versus ‘fellow’ is a particularly accurate one, since, quite unwittingly, he indicates that, both in the Prisma debate and elsewhere, two sets of problems are confused: the relation of form to content (an aspect of poetics) and the primacy of work or personality (which concerns the aims of literary criticism).

Apart from those critics of whose opinions a detailed portrait is attempted, a small number of critics will be discussed, who, however important they may sometimes be for their particular ideas or methods, are principally relevant within the scope of this thesis as representatives of a (religious or ideological) creed, whether it be Roman-Catholic, Protestant or Socialist.

Finally, a number of critics are dealt with in brief as only certain aspects of their ideas are relevant to the present enquiry; otherwise, their opinions are closely related to those of critics already discussed.

Part i, The situation in 1916 (chapters 1-5)

In this section a description is given of the ‘status quo’ in 1916, when the ‘younger generation’ began to emerge. (As no comprehensive survey has yet been written of criticism in the crucial period from 1885 to 1916, these chapters are of a provisional nature). Four main subjects are discussed:

The first to be treated is De Nieuwe Gids (The New Guide), the periodical which, in 1885, produced a revolutionary change in Dutch literature, the

[p. 501]

so-called Beweging van Tachtig (Eighties' Movement). The main period discussed in this work, from 1916 to 1940, has frequently been regarded as that in which certain basic principles (or extreme consequences) of this movement, such as the emphasis on the graphic power of the word and the primacy of poetry, were reconsidered and finally abandoned. In 1916 the veteran leader of the movement, Willem Kloos was still defending in the pages of De Nieuwe Gids the views he had held in 1885. In the face of moralists old and new he maintained in its entirety the principle of l'art pour l'art. The poetics of De Nieuwe Gids greatly stress the unity of form and content. Its criticism aims at a particular kind of objectivity: the critic must trace the intentions of the poet and ask whether they have been fulfilled in the work. As nothing can be learnt about this except by impression, the critical practice of this group is impressionistic.

Secondly, there is Albert Verwey, who, himself one of the prominent figures of the Eighties' Movement, founded in 1905 the periodical De Beweging (The Movement), which also still existed in 1916. To the sensory art of the original Eighties' Movement, Verwey opposed a ‘spiritual’ art. It is in the poetic utterance that ‘spirit’ becomes one with ‘nature’. Among his writings are many about the principles of literary criticism. He believed that the work should be considered separately from its biographical origins, and he regarded it as the urgent task of the critic to enter into the work as completely as possible. In practice, his criticism often amounts to the description of a work in terms of his conceptions of rhythm, sound and imagery.

Thirdly, this section deals with C.S. Adama van Scheltema, a socialist who had great influence on the younger writers of the years 1916-21, including the non-socialists among them. This was due to his undogmatic opinions. While defending the importance of humanly significant content in literature, he rejected ‘engagé literature’ of the superficial kind. For he regarded art not as a faithful reproduction, but as a re-creation of reality. For this reason he raised no objection to the claim that ‘form and content are one’, and showed, moreover, an exceptional interest in matters of literary technique.

Finally in this section, Karel van de Woestijne, one of the few Flemish critics who have actually been read in the north (Holland), is discussed. In his writings on poetry, Van de Woestijne gives rhythm - as that from which both form and content are equally derived - the central place. His poetics have certain elements, usually considered to be incompatible, in common with those of Kloos, Verwey and Adama van Scheltema.

[p. 502]

Part ii, De Nieuwe Beweging (The New Movement) (chapters 6-9)

De Stijl (The Style), Theo van Doesburg. This periodical, founded in 1917, which represented the modernism of the latter war years and the immediate post-war period, was principally devoted to the plastic arts and architecture. Van Doesburg also wrote about literature, however, under the pseudonym of I.K. Bonset. The character and value of the (literary) work of art are, in his view, determined by its non-naturalness, its constructional properties. In this anti-mimetic theory full emphasis is laid on the use of language (which explains the typographic experiments); content is not pre-existent, but is the result of the special positioning of the words, something to be taken literally with this critic.

Het Getij (The Tides). After an uninspired start, this periodical, founded in 1916, brought together for the first time many of the younger writers in the period under discussion. It was not long before Herman van den Bergh became the dominating figure. At first strongly influenced by Scheltema's ‘new humanism’, he very soon came to formulate his own opinions. These are recorded in his Studiën (Studies), which, although they number only a few dozen pages, were to be of far-reaching influence. By way of exception, Van den Bergh's poetics are not concerned with the origins of the literary work of art. For him, the poem is a special world permeated by the writer's personality, in which a new relationship to reality is established. In such thinking there is no place for the primacy of form or content, any more than there is for a severance of personality and work.

In his critical writings Van den Bergh was particularly interested in technical matters such as rhyme, assonance and rhythm. In this respect, he can be regarded as the Dutch representative of the vers-libre.

In Van den Bergh's writings, poetics, critical theory (never developed fully) and critical practice are united.

Part iii, De Stem (The Voice) (chapters 10-12)

This periodical, founded in 1921 by Just Havelaar and Dirk Coster, represented the moral idealism of the latter war and immediate post-war years. As early as 1912, in a polemic against Kloos, Coster had contended that, primarily, the critic must be ‘a strong personality’ and that criticism consisted not only of tracing the author's intentions, but above all of the confrontation of the critic with these intentions. In De Stem Coster developed this line of thought, without coming to any essentially different views. The ultimate task of the critic is to arrive, on the basis of a writer's

[p. 503]

utterances, at a formulation af the ‘great themes of existence’. The work of art is merely the pretext for a new creation - criticism, in which the critic records his ideas about life. With regard to poetics, Coster scarcely formulated any theories; form is, for him, a matter of secondary importance; it is to content (and more still to what the critic can do with it) that he devoted his attention.

Part iv, Two ‘formalists’: Nijhoff and Van Ostaijen (chapters 13 and 14)

With his ideas on form and content, usually referred to as ‘Nijhoffs vorm-theorie’ (‘Nijhoff's theory of form’), Martinus Nijhoff had a decisive influence on the younger generation of writers. Ter Braak was quite correct in seeing Nijhoff as the auctor intellectualis behind, for instance, Binnendijk's term ‘creativity’.

The distinguishing feature of Nijhoffs ideas on form and content lies principally in the notion that there are two kinds of content, a notion stemming from his special theories about the unique linguistic potentialities of poetic form. On the one hand, there is content in the sense of ‘material’; this is only of historical importance in so far as it gives rise to the poem, the form making it redundant when the poem itself is actually composed. So form shapes a new content, inseparably linked to form and peculiar to one particular poem.

Form is therefore ‘creative’. The poet who gives life to new forms, and thereby to new contents, is able to do so because of the special properties of language, which can ‘express more than the poet says’. The extreme version in which this theory reached and often influenced others, could be stated as follows: the poet releases the poem from the language in which it is already latently embedded, and to which it owes its special effect.

This theory was clearly the result of Nijhoff's experience as a poet. As it stands, it is suitable neither as a theory of criticism, nor as a basis for the practice of criticism. If it were going to be either of these, a new phase would have to be inserted: what is the poem for the reader? But Nijhoff never wrote a theory of criticism. In his critical practice, which varied in quality, he did at times discuss the poem as an organic and coherent unit of language.

Paul van Ostaijen, the second Fleming to be discussed in this thesis, is - as far as the theory of both poetics and criticism is concerned - one of the most important figures of the Dutch-language area. If Nijhoff can be tentatively compared with Eliot, Van Ostaijen could take his place among the great foreign critics. As a poet he was one of the most outstanding represent-

[p. 504]

atives of Expressionism, but he soon left behind him the unanimistic and humanistic ideas which, in Flanders, were often linked with expressionism, and formulated the theory of what he termed the pure lyric. From the poet's point of view, the poem is a special way of apprehending reality; from the reader's, it is a closed organism which does not refer directly to its maker or to his experience. The task of the poet who wishes to make his poem accessible to the reader is primarily one of depersonalisation; only by freeing the poem from his own individuality can the poet make it an experience sui generis, a way of apprehending, for the reader too. (Here, there are points in common with Nijhoff's theory.) Van Ostaijen stresses the fact that poetry can give visible shape to sub-conscious truths.

If we compare Van Ostaijen with the other critics so far discussed, we are struck bij his clear insight into both the connection and the difference between poetics and critical theory. The critical principle which followed from his poetics, stating that the poet as a person is of no more concern to the reader than his unrealized intentions are - a view held by Van Ostaijen before 1925 - links his poetics with his critical theory and a critical practice directly based upon that theory. This means that Van Ostaijen's criticism is entirely ‘ergocentric’.

Part v, De Vrije Bladen (The Free Folia): Marsman, Binnendijk (chapters 15-17)

Although De Vrije Bladen, from 1924 to 1930 the most important general periodical of the younger generation of writers, was, throughout its existence, a magazine with its own individual stamp, there were nevertheless various phases in its development, determined partly by the presence or absence of H. Marsman on its editorial board and partly by the stage in his own development in which Marsman found himself at any given time during these years.

From Marsman comes the term ‘vitalistic’, often used to refer to the whole group. Ter Braak, however, spoke of the Vrije Bladen poets as being ‘aesthetes’, which implies almost the opposite of vitalistic.

As far as Marsman himself is concerned, it is indeed true that his position long remained rather ambivalent; moreover, his habit of setting out his ideas in articles which resembled manifestos did not exactly contribute to their clarity. It was not until the late Thirties that his opinions became more balanced. This is all connected with Marsman's rôle as a poetic leader, as a result of which the poetics he wrote in snatches determined everything else he wrote. The essence of his poetics is that poetry is not a direct ex-

[p. 505]

pression, but a transposition, a transformation of life - a view closely allied to that of De Beweging, especially that of the younger members of that school which is usually called ‘de generatie van Tien’ (‘The 1910 Generation’). What is more, we can recognize here the connection with (and influence of) the more extreme consequences of this principle present in Nijhoff's theory of form; in addition to ‘vorm als contour’ (‘form as contour’), Marsman distinguished ‘vorm als kracht’ (‘form as power’), and this is reminiscent of Nijhoff. But Nijhoff's particular interest was in the special effect of form (as he phrases it, the relationship between form and second content), while Marsman's statements are chiefly concerned with the relationship between poetry and life, in other words, that between form and first content. The term ‘vormkracht’ (‘formative power’), as he uses it, refers above all to a faculty of the poet, not to particular properties of the poem or of language. But he is not altogether consistent, with the result that the concepts ‘vormkracht’ and ‘vorm als kracht’ cannot always be distinguished. There are, in Marsman's writings, indications of a critical theory to match his (generic) poetics, but he never developed them in detail. In early years, at least, he was content with merely identifying ‘vormkracht’ (often synonymous with ‘vitaliteit’), the presence of which can scarcely be demonstrated. In later years, however, Marsman wrote criticism of a more ergocentric type and also expressed his (theoretical) preference for an intrinsic method, although he never set out the arguments fully. Here, at last, the link was established between his criticism and his poetics, the basic ‘transformation’ principle of which implies that the work does not refer directly to its author.

D.A.M. Binnendijk agreed in many respects with both Marsman and Nijhoff. His great misfortune during the Prisma dispute (sparked off by the weakest argument he ever presented as a critic) was to use the term ‘creativity’ without examining it more closely. At times one is reminded of Nijhoff's ‘kreatieve vorm’ (‘creative form’), and then again of Marsman's ‘vormkracht’, in the more restricted meaning of the formative ability of the poet. Far worse, however, than this obscurity, was the fact that neither of these two terms was suitable, as it stood, without an intermediary theory, as a basis for the practical evaluation of a work, for instance, as a selective criterion for an anthology. Yet it was for this very purpose that Binnendijk used them.

It would, however, be unfair to regard Binnendijk as a clumsy populariser of borrowed theories. Not only did he develop his ideas at the same time

[p. 506]

as, and in some cases even before, Nijhoff and Marsman, but later he also evolved critical principles which accord more fully and more consistently with his poetics. We may indeed speak of a rudimentary form of what was later to be called ‘structural’ criticism. This was in fact visible much earlier in Binnendijk's critical practice, as he would quite often deal with various aspects of the literary work, sometimes even linking them up to some extent.

In 1931 however, he must be seen as the spokesman of an ill-conceived Vrije Bladen aesthetic.

Part vi, The Prisma Debate (chapter 18)

That Ter Braak used Binnendijk's introduction to Prisma to expound ideas which were becoming increasingly at variance with those of De Vrije Bladen, is in itself proof of his polemic talent. In no utterance of a prominent critic from the Vrije Bladen circle was such contestable use made of a blanket term like ‘creativity’, nor the disparity between poetics and criticism so blatently revealed. The peg on which Ter Braak hung his objections to the Prisma introduction was epigonism. Although it would certainly be untrue to say that Binnendijk's views on literature implied a defence of epigonism, it cannot be refuted that the criterion for selection which he expounded in his introduction (the ‘creativity’ of the work) clearly did not prevent him from including certain epigoni in the anthology. This Ter Braak pointed out, and also that Binnendijk's blanket term was untenable as a norm. As opposed to this norm, Ter Braak proposed that of the personality, ‘the fellow’, and even though this concept is neither as lucid nor as unequivocal as Ter Braak apparently thought, it at least provided a suitable basis for the construction of a coherent poetic, and of a critical theory: literature (including poetry) should, according to Ter Braak, be the most direct possible expression of a strong personality, and the critic should be primarily concerned with the content of that ‘expression’; his activity should be aimed not at the work, but at the ‘man behind the work’, and his ideas.

The Ter Braak-Binnendijk debate was continued in that between Du Perron and Marsman. Du Perron had made his début in Dutch literature only a short time before (he came from Indonesia and was then living in Belgium), but he immediately had great influence on Ter Braak. Driven by the polemic urge that was so strong in him, he tried to force an issue with Marsman whom he regarded as the force behind Binnendijk (and who,

[p. 507]

moreover, in his eyes, represented the position of his friend Van Ostaijen, who had died prematurely, from which he felt himself moving further and further away). In this, he had little success, but as a result, at least, he and Ter Braak made common cause, their partnership finding expression, as early as 1932, in the foundation of a new periodical, Forum.

Part vii, Views and Convictions (chapters 19-24)

Naturally, not all the leading critics in and around the year 1931 were directly involved in the Prisma debate. In this part the views of some of these other critics are discussed in so far as they have a bearing on the problems raised in the polemic between ‘Vrije Bladen’ and ‘Forum’.

The poet J.C. Bloem, from whom the phrase ‘form versus fellow’ originated, was one of the first who, while realising that Ter Braaks' criticism was justified, still believed that Ter Braak, by laying all the emphasis on (direct) contact between author and reader, and thereby neglecting the special nature of the literary utterance, especially in poetry, was running the risk of losing far more than he could ever gain.

The position with the poet-critic-literary historian Anthonie Donker (N.A. Donkersloot), is slightly different. In this context, he is discussed primarily as proof of the argument that the points of view which, in the Prisma debate, were opposed to one another, were not as incompatible as was - and still is - thought. In Donker's writings, we find a harmonious relationship between essential elements of both. This is of importance for the final chapter.

A critic of special importance both in his theory and in his practice of criticism was P.N. van Eyck, together with Van Ostaijen perhaps the most important critic of the whole period from an international perspective. His coherent ideas on poetics and literary criticism, expounded in some thousands of pages, can be described as autonomistic and ergocentric. For him the poem is a closed world in which the ‘self-revelation of God’ takes place by the poetic personality expressing itself as completely as possible. He therefore makes no distinction (such as is made by Nijhoff c.s.) between the ‘personal’ and the ‘impersonal’.

The critical theory that Van Eyck attached to the poetics just outlined (which possibly sound rather too esoteric in this brief summary) is linked to their more sober side, the consideration of the poem as an organically coherent whole. The aim of the critic must be to gain knowledge of the writer's personality from the work, so that, armed with this knowledge, he can

[p. 508]

go back to the work and examine in detail how it operates, and then arrive at a more complete characterisation of the personality, and so on, the ultimate goal being an insight as complete as possible into the work and the (poetic) personality.

As Van Eyck continually stressed the demand that a poem should express a balance between man and the cosmos, in practice, despite all the verifiable points which are made, his criticism always leads to a ‘last judgement’ of a philosophical order, a confrontation of the poet and his works with Van Eyck's own ideas on existence, which can ultimately be called religious. It goes without saying that Van Eyck kept out of the Prisma polemic; he had been considering the problems raised in it for many years and had formulated his own views, which he based on completely different foundations.

Among the critics belonging to a group with a religious or ideological creed which can be expressed in general terms (Roman-Catholic, Protestant, Socialist), a strong emphasis on that creed will invariably be found. The greatest latitude in this respect was shown by the Catholic group, where Jan Engehnan, for a short time leader of the younger Catholic writers, had ideas which scarcely differed from those of the Vrije Bladen group, (indeed work was freely exchanged). But just as in 1932 Forum took over the rôle of De Vrije Bladen as the major ‘paganist’ periodical, so Engelman had to yield his place as spokesman for the Catholics to the ‘apologist’ Anton van Duinkerken. In the Thirties, the literary debates of the Twenties were replaced by mainly ‘ideological’ (‘weltanschauliche’) polemics, such as those between Van Duinkerken and Ter Braak, and Du Perron's scathing dismissal of the humanitarian Dirk Coster.

An individual brand of Protestant criticism hardly existed. The literary views of the Protestants were usually somewhat flexible (or indifferent) as far as ‘aestheticism’ was concerned, until that decisive point was reached beyond which everything was measured by religious doctrine.

Socialist criticism, which had already reached a high standard in the writings of such fundamental Marxists of past generations as the great poet Herman Gorter, moved closer during this period to the criticism of the ‘bourgeois’ critics. Thus the young Garmt Stuiveling found it quite easy to be in sympathy with the Forum writers Ter Braak and Du Perron, just as the latter, for their part, accepted the democratic socialists as allies in the struggle against totalitarianism, especially against fascism, of course. It is principally in its basic objectivism that Stuiveling's position differs from that of the Forumists, an objectivism, which, while certainly being con-

[p. 509]

nected with his socialist views, is nevertheless backed by arguments of the literary historian Stuiveling is.

Part viii, Forum (chapters 25-28)

The primacy of ‘weltanschauliche’ criticism in the Thirties, finds its strongest expression in the central rôle played by the Forum editors Ter Braak and Du Perron; (the third editor of the periodical for the year in which it was founded, the Catholic Fleming Maurice Roelants, remained in the background).

Forum's watch-word was ‘personality’, as against ‘aestheticism’ or ‘worship of form’. This does not mean, however, that a concept such as form meant the same thing for both Ter Braak and Du Perron.

Menno ter Braak came from the Vrije Bladen group, and his position there had been a special one, particularly on account of his interest in philosophy. Gradually, he found himself disagreeing more and more with most of his associates, not because his ideas about the depersonalisation which poetic composition entails (in other words, Nijhoff's theory of form) were fundamentally different, but because he saw this depersonalisation as one of the dangers of literature. For him, art was primarily a hazardous adventure in which the living ‘personality’ bears the rigours of constricting ‘form’ in order to reveal itself. Form, however, may be no more than a temporary dwelling for the personality, lest paralysis ensues - which would mean the extinction of the personality.

As a critic, Ter Braak aimed at finding the living personality ‘behind the form’; as a result, his critical writings can be described as psychological, although the professional psychologist would probably not agree with this description. Ter Braak's conception of the nature of the literary work of art also led him to prefer less ‘finished’ utterances from the confines of the strictly literary, like letters and diaries.

The partnership of Ter Braak with Charles Edgar du Perron was in many ways the result of fortuitous similarities, for on essential points their opinions differed. Du Perron did not share the suspicion of poetry which long marked Ter Braak's writings.¹ But on the other hand, in 1931, he felt no affinity

1 Since it is not possible in this short summary to trace the development in the ideas of the critics discussed, I merely note that, after 1935, not only Du Perron and Ter Braak, but also Binnendijk and Marsman, often revised their opinions, with the result that former contrasts partially disappeared.

[p. 510]

whatsoever to notions of form of the Nijhoff or Marsman type. For him - who did not concern himself very seriously with these matters - the poetic form was the fancy wrapping round what was really important, the expression of an interesting personality. The less wrapping around the expression, the better. Terms like ‘courage’, ‘personal involvement’, and ‘integrity’ (in the original Dutch, ‘moed’, ‘inzet’ and ‘eerlijkheid’) are the key terms of his criticism. At least, during the years of the Prisma debate and of Forum, he demanded that literature - poetry or prose - should be a direct communication from man to man. In his practical criticism, therefore, his ideas are very akin to those of Ter Braak. This explains their joining at a decisive moment.

In retrospect, it seems remarkable that Simon Vestdijk, the greatest writer of the Dutch language-area since 1930, should have made his début in Forum, and that, historically speaking, he cannot be detached from this periodical. For in many respects he proved to be ‘disloyal’. Although he never openly polemised against Ter Braak and Du Perron, and even aligned himself with them to some extent, he came to write criticism (in Forum!) which was clearly directed towards the work itself, and not ‘the man behind it’, and then, a short time afterwards, to evolve a type of poetics, which, while it cannot simply be regarded as being in opposition to Forum, was nevertheless based on an elaborated version of Nijhoff's theory of form.

Vestdijk's critical method, chiefly demonstrated in long essays, is quite original. He prefers to start by defining a general concept, like baroque, byzantinism or appolinism, on which he places a special value, thereby guaranteeing the ‘personal stake’ so beloved of Forum. Then he develops this concept, with which he claims to be able to characterise the work of the author in question, until it becomes a detailed structure, at the same time linking it in various ways to the work in question, so that there is a constant to-and-fro movement between the conceptual framework and the object itself. The end result is not only a proven definition of, for example, a cultural period, but also the discussion of an author with attention focussed on the work (and ultimately, less tangibly, a self-projection of Vestdijk himself).

Vestdijk's poetics are no less exceptional. Like Nijhoff, he distinguishes two types of content, the first of which he calls ‘material’; and, like Marsman, he posits two concepts of form. In one of its uses, the term ‘form’, corresponding with ‘material’, refers to properties which are present in varying degrees: one can regard material as being ‘formed’ (i.e. shaped) to a greater

[p. 511]

or lesser extent. The individual work of art will not give us this sort of information: we can find out only by comparing it with other works.

The pair of concepts ‘form-and-content’, more important than the last pair, does not indicate realita, properties of the work itself, but refers to certain ways of looking at one and the same object. Every element of a work of art can always be considered from both points of view, from that of form, and that of content. Thus imagery is ‘form’ in relation to what it expresses, and ‘content’ in relation to the words used.

In such thinking, there is no place for the contrasts between writer and work, and form and content (not to mention form and fellow). It can be said that in Vestdijk the polarities of the Prisma debate are not so much reconciled, or settled by arbitration, as ignored. He views the problems from such a completely different angle that the polemic appears to be nothing more than a misunderstanding, a conflict based on false premises.

Conclusion

It is not hard to establish that, for the literary theorist, those critics who think in terms of the autonomous nature of the literary statement defend a far more tenable position than those who deny its special character or consider this to be a secondary aspect. If we regard the poetics and critical theories produced by creative writers simply as the extra-academic (or pre-academic) formulation of problems which are also the concern of literary scholarship, we may conclude that, from the scholar's point of view, critics such as Nijhoff, Marsman and Van Ostaijen, but also Van den Bergh, Van Eyck and Vestdijk for instance, are correct in basing all their further ideas on the premise that the literary statement is a phenomenon sui generis. They can be contrasted with Coster, Ter Braak and Du Perron, who generally regard the special character of the literary work as something which can be neglected or even disputed, and who start by considering literature as a form of direct communication fundamentally indistinguishable from, for example, diaries or letters. For the same reasons it can be stated that the poetics defended by Binnendijk against Ter Braak during the Prisma debate offer a more fruitful basis for reflection on the nature of the literary work of art than those of Ter Braak, even though he conducted his defence so clumsily that this conclusion cannot be drawn directly from the polemic itself.

It makes sense to state the matter thus, if only because literary criticism and literary scholarship have so many interests in common that the funda-

[p. 512]

mentally important, the vitally centred attitude to literature of such gifted writers as Ter Braak and Du Perron has a decisive effect on the development of literary scholarship. Such a verdict will not, however, satisfy the literary theorist. He is not a one-man council of appeal for literary polemics, but views the facts from a different angle. After he has determined, if this is required, that one of the two parties to a polemic is more in the right (or pronounced a non liquet), he will go on to ask another question which is at least as important for him. The authors who were ‘wrong’ must have had good reasons for taking the positions they chose to defend with such tenacity; assuming that they are writers of stature (which is true in the case of the Forum writers), then the literary theorist is bound to ask: what latent qualities - neglected in their opinion - within the literary work of art made them adopt critical principles which, from an academic point of view, are so untenable? Beneath the ‘wrong’, the literary theorist must look for a ‘right’ which is an undeniable property of the literary work of art.

Historically speaking, the contrast between ‘Vrije Bladen’ and ‘Forum’ (to summarise it in terms of the periodical titles) is a variant of the perennial debate between ‘l'art pour l'art’ and what, to use a contemporary word, can be called ‘engagement’. The permanent character of this debate in itself clearly suggests that the theorist would be wise not to make a choice, however well documented, for one or other of these positions, but to regard them as the indicators of polar opposites, contrasted yet related properties of the literary work of art.

Against the background of the Dutch views and contrasts in the period from 1916 to 1940 which have been examined at length in this book, the dual nature of literature can be summarised as follows: the literary work of art is a statement sui generis about life. Modern literary scholarship has spared no efforts in demonstrating this special character of the literary statement, - and with good reason, as any study of literature as a phenomenon is bound to fail unless it takes this as its point of departure. Thus, one party to the Prisma polemic was undoubtedly in the right. But the ‘right’ beneath the ‘wrong’ of Forum can make us aware of what is (in my opinion) an undeniable fact: that literary theory has so far not paid sufficient attention to the consideration of the literary work of art as a statement about life.

Certainly, it would not be true to say that no-one has ever devoted his attention to this problem. Even among the Dutch-language critics treated in this book as being (to a greater or lesser extent) autonomistic, there are

[p. 513]

several writers who had most interesting remarks to make about this aspect of literature. Here again the names of Van Eyck and Van Ostaijen especially spring to mind.

Yet the systematic and scholarly treatment of literature as a corpus of statements about life, which is based on the premise that these are statements of a special kind, but does not fail to study the scope of these statements, is an enquiry which is still in its infancy. A number of American studies about the cognitive nature of the literary work of art does exist, but the very fact that the question I have outlined has been formulated in such a limited way in these works, is an indication of their tentative nature. Meanwhile, this is a question which the literary theorist cannot ignore, if he is not to stagnate in studying solely the means of literary expression, and if he is to take the next step towards his ultimate goal: an insight as complete as possible into the phenomenon of literature.

Translated from the Dutch by Michael Rigelsford, Cambridge.