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'Sociable men of letters. Literary sociability in the Netherlands in the second half of the eighteenth century' (1996)

'Sociable men of letters. Literary sociability in the Netherlands in the second half of the eighteenth century'

(1996)–Kees Singeling–rechtenstatus Auteursrechtelijk beschermd

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Cees B.F. Singeling

Sociable Men of Letters
Literary Sociability in the Netherlands in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century1

Each scientist tends to exaggerate the importance of his research. Whatever the subject, he will tell you that it was neglected in the past; that this lack of attention is very unjust; and that research will show that the subject is far more important than anyone previously thought it was.

Dutch historians share this urgent need to justify their subject of research with their foreign colleagues. However, international congresses like this one give them a hard time. The importance and unicity of most phenomena in a small country's history prove to be very limited when put in an international perspective.

Naturally, there is our famous seventeenth century to boast of. In this period, known as the ‘Golden Century’, the Dutch republic was one of the most important European nations in military strength, economics as well as culture. But in the eighteenth century it could not maintain this unique position. As far as culture is concerned: no eighteenth-century painter was a match for Rembrandt and his many contemporaries, and no eighteenth-century playwright or poet became a celebrity outside the small Dutch-speaking area like Joost van den Vondel, Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft and Cornelis Huygens.

So for Dutch cultural historians the eighteenth century is not likely to provide for thrilling subjects. Each story will sound familiar to those who know the international context - the only thing they will hear is a less important, less spectacular version.

Still, there are a few exceptions. The subject of my paper, Dutch literary sociability, is one of them. In the second half of the eighteenth century some forty literary societies florished in the larger Dutch cities. The total number of people who participated in one or more of these societies is approximately two thousand. Altogether they edited more than 150 miscellanies, filled with poems or essays on literary

their programmes and prize contests can be found in the contemporary newspapers; their best poems and essays were printed and for sale in the bookshops and are still in our libraries; and because they often had a highly complex organization, all matters of organization were put down in writing or printed - therefore, in public archives one can find agreements with the local government about the rent of the meeting-place; in private archives one can find the dignified, if not pompous certificates of membership. It would take a very mediocre historian not to come across these societies, one way or the other. But the societies that do not show up in any of these various ways, how different they must have been! One or two meagre discoveries in archives, due to sheer luck and coincidence, confirm the existence of an unknown number of societies that did not want to be made public at all. They operated as private clubs; the intimacy and secrecy of their unions enabled the members to educate themselves among equals, without suffering pressure or mockery from the outside world. But they were literary societies in every respect.

It is important to stress that the societies with which I and other historians are dealing tell only a part of the story of sociability. They are the ‘public’ societies which made their existence and efforts known. Just like the ‘private’ societies they wanted to protect themselves against the outside world. But their means of protection was not secrecy but a highly complex, exclusive organization with its own rules and agreements - and in doing so, they escaped oblivion and left enough sources for the later historian to study them.

I. A short history of Dutch literary sociability

The story of eighteenth-century literary sociability in the Netherlands begins in the seventeenfifties at the universities.2 Of course, earlier in

the century there are some unions to be traced that might fit my definition of ‘literary society’. But they were all small and hardly institutionalized; they published one or two books and vanished again. More important: they were incidents. They were hardly aware of each other's existence and were too obscure to make sociability an important phenomenon in literary life.

In the late fifties this changed. Some young students in theology and law at Leyden university founded a society called Linguaque animoque fideles (1757). They wanted to study and practise Dutch history, language and literature. At that time nearly all university teaching was based on a profound philological knowledge of classical and biblical culture. Moreover, Latin was the language in which all courses were held. But modern European language and culture received no attention at all. The average student was better in Greek and Latin than in Dutch, and during the whole century there are striking examples of very learned professors who could hold lively debates in Latin or Greek, but could not read a word of English or German. The students of Linguaque animoque fideles wanted to apply this philological instrument to the study of their national language and culture. The fact that their motto was still in Latin shows how much they were rooted in the classical philological tradition.

Two years later, in 1759, a group of Utrecht students founded Dulces ante omnia musae, a society modelled exactly after that of their Leyden colleagues. In the same year Magna molimur parvi was founded in the city of Hoorn. Close personal contacts developed between the three societies, not least because they all contributed to a Leyden periodical, the Bydragen.3 Within a few years a relatively small but unprecedented circle of literary sociability was in full action.

However, there was one weak spot in their organization. The rules stated that the nucleus of active members should consist of students only. Students have a habit of leaving the university after a few years, entering another life, getting honourable jobs and skipping the things they did in their student years. Therefore, the success of these societies depended heavily on a continuous flow of new members, who, it was hoped, were as enthusiastic as their predecessors. One year providing less talent and enthusiasm could be fatal. And it was. By 1763, all three societies had lost nearly all of their founders, and lacked strong newcomers to keep the work going. Curiously enough

it was the only non-student, the merchant Frans van Lelyveld, leader of the Leyden society, who kept sociability alive.4 He was able to mobilise nearly all members of the three societies for a daring initiative: the founding of a national literary academy after the model of the famous Académie Française. His plan succeeded, and in 1766 the Maatschappij der Nederlandsche letterkunde was presented to the public.5

The Maatschappij still exists. However, in its first decades it had difficulties attaining a stable organizational structure. Originating from relatively small, local societies with a coherent group of members the Maatschappij converted to a national academy, consisting of more than hundred men of letters, spread all over the Netherlands. But the necessity of a different organizational structure was not recognized until the original structure proved to be a failure. For instance: each essay handed in by one member needed the unanimous approval of all other members before it could be published. In the former societies such a procedure took three weeks at the most; in the Maatschappij it more than once took three years and much work for the national Post Office before any essay was read by all members. If one of the members suggested emendations - the very intention of sociable activity! - the whole procedure started all over again: everyone should approve of the emendated essay. Such problems soon were recognized but could be solved only by altering the society's legislation. And - oh irony! - in order to alter the legislation an unanimous approval was required ...

By 1772, six years after the foundation, the Maatschappij was able to publish its first collection of essays. In the next fifteen years six other volumes followed.6 All in all, only twenty members contributed to this series, though all members were expected to be active participants. The slow procedures frustrated the initial enthusiasm, and many of those who wanted to participate devoted themselves to an ambitious project launched in 1773: the making of a Dutch national dictionary. Over the years a lot of material was gathered, and even a few servants were hired to make copies of word-lists. But soon it

became clear that at short notice no concrete results could be expected, and here too the impetus slowly diminished.7

The activities of the Maatschappij show how they wanted to contribute to a better Dutch literature: they took the classic philological route of linguistics. Knowledge of the national language was a necessary condition to improving the standard of literature. Though a better canon of literature was their ultimate goal, the members did not write literature themselves; they concentrated their work fully on the study of language. Knowledge of the national past was required in order to interpret old Dutch documents - for in their opinion the choice between good and bad language could be made by studying the roots. This explains the interest in history as a consequence of the linguistic study.8

In 1772, rather suddenly, a new kind of literary sociability emerged. In The Hague a new society was founded: Kunstliefde spaart geen vlijt (Love for art spares no diligence).9 Its immediate success was not the only way in which it differred from the Maatschappij. The members of Kunstliefde had no interest in promoting Dutch literature by studying linguistics; they took a shortcut and concentrated their activity on the creation of literature, especially poetry (therefore, this kind of society is often referred to as ‘dichtgenootschappen’, ‘poet societies’).10 This difference was reflected in the social background of most members. No longer were university students in the centre of literary sociability. Kunstliefde gathered the upper-class of local life: members of the local administration, the clergymen, the lawyers, the wealthy and important merchants. These men did not bother with philology; they wanted to participate in or support the writing of poetry.

Even more important was the change in organizational structure. Kunstliefde solved a problem for Dutch sociability. In contrast to foreign countries, where sociability was often financed by a strong na-

tional or local government, sociability in the Netherlands was a matter of private enterprise. They had to finance themselves. If a society wanted to remain small, without the need to come into the open by publishing its poems or essays, there was no problem. But if they wanted more, then they had an unpleasant decision to make: In order to maintain their quality standards they should restrict the membership to the better men of letters, leaving second-rank poets aside. But if they did so there were not enough members to finance the society with their subscriptions. This problem haunted the Maatschappij: in order to finance the ambitious projects a minimum of a hundred members was required; therefore they admitted members who lacked the skill to carry out these projects. As a result more than 75% of the members remained passive, though society rules stated otherwise.

Kunstliefde's solution was plain: it created different ranks of members, each rank with its own specific duties. The total number of members fluctuated between 150 and 200. Only some thirty of them had the obligation to write poetry. To become one of these ‘extra-ordinary members’ literary skills were required. The bulk of the society's population, some 100 or 120 men, filled the rank of ‘honorary members’; they paid double subscription, and were not obliged to participate in literary activities. To become a ‘honorary member’ one just needed the money to pay for a subscription. The management of the society consisted of a small group of ‘ordinary members’. An ‘extra-ordinary membership of merit’ was meant for a limited number of literary laureates; they were not obliged to write poetry, and did not have to pay subscription; just their names on the list of members provided enough benefit for the society. Finally, young children with poetical talent could be elected as ‘aankweekeling’ (a sort of literary ‘foster child’). An ordinary member served as private tutor of this child on the first shaky steps of a literary career hoping it would be a future extra-ordinary member of the society.11

The formula of Kunstliefde proved to be a success. They were selective in their admission of members in the rank that carried out the poetical activities, but they welcomed every honorary member they

could get in order to keep their finances healthy. The local upper class was eager to fill the ranks; it was part of being a modern civilian to support cultural activities, and having your name on the list of a local society amongst other well-respected citizens proved you were a well-respected citizen yourself.

Within a few years the success of Kunstliefde had initiated the founding of many other poet societies. Those in Leyden and Rotterdam became as big as Kunstliefde; at a more modest level societies operated in Gouda, Schiedam, Amsterdam, Haarlem and other cities. In 1780 this kind of literary sociability consisted of some 1000 people. Because many of them wanted more than one certificate of membership, close personal relations developed between societies in different towns. Soon a network of literary sociability existed in the Netherlands, concentrating in the province of Holland. Each year the larger societies published volumes of poems, opened prize competitions and held festive annual meetings.

In the eighties no new form of literary sociability emerged. However, some important changes took place. The Maatschappij slowly collapsed. In 1787 it published its last eighteenth-century volume of essays; nearly all activity ceased. The society did not liquidate itself, but it would take some twenty years to get out of the crisis.

The poet societies remained and showed no signs of crisis. However, some doubts about the quality of their work began to emerge. Some stated that the continuous flow of verses produced only more of the same, not the better literature they wanted. The constant urge to fill the annual volumes left no time to reflect on fundamental questions, such as: What was beauty? Which were the characteristics of good literature? Was writing good literature a matter of skills one could learn, or a matter of talent with which one was born? In other countries traditional opinions on these issues had become open to question. Baumgarten, Mendelssohn and Lessing in Germany; Shaftesbury, Kames and Hume in England; Du Bos and Batteux in France had written essays in which a new view of aesthetics was developed. In his Theorie der schoone kunsten en weetenschappen (Theory of the fine arts and sciences, 1778-1780) the poet Hieronymus van Alphen had made a first attempt to explain these new opinions to the Dutch public.12 Some poet societies, especially those in Leyden

and Amsterdam, decided to continue the work of Van Alphen. In Leyden, Kunst wordt door arbeid verkreegen (Art is acquired by labour) opened special prize contests for essays on the theory of aesthetics and literature. Apart from their poetical works a whole series of essays was published. The Amsterdam society Wy streeven naar de volmaaktheid (We strive for perfection) also took great interest in theoretical issues. It even decided not to publish its essays, thus inspiring the members to discuss new opinions more freely. This decision shows that another change took place: in some societies the habit of turning all activity into publications was criticized, and in return the advantages of privatism were stressed.

Other societies, for instance Kunstliefde, kept working in the old fashion: creating literature as the one and only activity and publishing as many poems as possible.

So far I have pointed out developments within the field of literature. But during the eighties, external factors had a strong impact on the literary societies. A democratic movement, known as the ‘patriots’, infiltrated all social classes and divided the Netherlands into two parties: ‘patriots’ against ‘monarchists’. At first it was a political disagreement, but by 1787 it had become a civil war. Patriots had taken over local governments, and the central monarchist government restored its power with the help of a Prussian invading army. Notorious patriots took exile in France, the less notorious went into hiding and eschewed all social activity. Eight years later, in 1795, the tide turned. The patriot exiles returned to the Netherlands, accompanying the French invading army, and took over. Now the monarchists were exempt from political and social life.13

Literary societies wanted to be neutral in religious as well as political matters. In their poems they stressed general nationalistic values; only a united strive for virtue, a sense of responsibility and nationalistic pride could help the Netherlands in its attempt to regain the position and wealth it had in the seventeenth century. Discord was the worst enemy. Most societies had written legislation to reject all poems about sensitive political or religious matters.14

Therefore, in the struggle between patriots and monarchists no literary society choose sides. However, having upper-class people with

important positions as members, there was no way of excluding politics. Furthermore, regardless of which side was chosen, the loss of a considerable number of members was the ultimate result. But they left not only their literary societies, but also their jobs in central and local government. Monarchists had to fill the gaps, and so, rather suddenly, many monarchist members of literary societies too had more important things to do than participate in a literary society. In 1795 it was just the other way round, yet again with consequences on both sides, and sociability as the ultimate loser.

Again, I must stress the specific nature of literary sociability in the Netherlands. Societies with a different organizational structure should be able to survive political turmoil, even if it would mean the loss of members. They would simply continue their activities. Dutch literary sociability depended heavily on the subscription of large numbers of honorary members. Losing a poet was no problem; other poets remained to fill the annual volume of poems. Losing honorary members meant less income and, eventually, the financial impossibility of producing the annual volume at all. The literary societies did lose members, poets as well as sponsoring members; as a result publications became less frequent, and a general sense of crisis crept in.15

In 1800, at the turn of the century, the Maatschappij, the outcome of the first, philological phase of literary sociability was not able to continue any activity and was waiting for better times. Kunstliefde in The Hague, the famous initiator of the second, creative phase of literary sociability, had lost 100 of its former 150 members; what remained was a group of monarchist dissidents having difficulties surviving the patriot government. The Leyden, Rotterdam and Amsterdam societies had turned into patriot societies, but having no government support, they were also in a crisis. As a last resort, pleasing the new government in its wish to create strong national institutions, the three societies combined, and in the very year 1800 the Bataafsche maatschappij van taal- en letterkunde (Batavian society of linguistics and literature16) was founded. Meanwhile nearly all other, smaller societies had vanished.17

II. Sociability and literature

Though literary societies were part of a general sociability movement producing societies with a variety of activities, it is important to stress that the origin of literary societies was favoured by current literary opinions matching the general striving for sociability. These eighteenth-century opinions may sound strange to us. Since Romanticism in the nineteenth century linked the creation of literature with individualism and a touch of unpredictable talent and since it had marked poets as unsociable men of genius closer to heaven than to earth, the very idea of poets working together became incompatible with the creation of good literature. Such ideas still define our view of the literary process. For instance: try to imagine a meeting of the four best novelists in your country today. One of them has just finished his latest novel, but it is not yet published. He has handed over the manuscript to his collegues. Having read the manuscript, the first of the other three strongly suggests leaving out the last chapter, the second one has listed more than a hundred sentences to be rephrased, and the third one is convinced that adding two more main characters is the only way to save the novel. They discuss the matter all evening, and two weeks later they meet again. The author has rewritten the last chapter of his novel, rephrased fifty sentences and added one main character. After another evening of discussing all four agree it is a very good novel, and in a short while the author will proudly present his - mind you, his latest - novel to the public. I bet no twentieth-century writer would allow his personal creation to be mutilated by other opinions in this manner. And it certainly would take them more than two evenings to reach an unanimous decision on such a piece of delicate and individual expression in art.

Yet, basically, this is the way literary societies operated. It is clear that opinions on the meaning, the essence and the creation of literature must have been completely different from those nowadays.

First of all, poets were no special people. Just like all other people they were part of a community and had to behave as social beings. In eighteenth-century opinion the unconventional individual who secluded himself from social life was despised. Poets too had to stay in contact with their surroundings, for the benefit of themselves as well as the community.

Furthermore, literature should not be created in isolation. Solitude led to obstinacy and self-conceit, which was wrong because no one had a monopoly of wisdom. In this context, ‘obstinacy’ and ‘self-conceit’ refers to the same attitude which Romanticism considered a very positive one in men of letters: a strong personality, expressing individual emotions in a very original way.

In the eighteenth century one believed in a general standard of quality as far as literature was concerned. This standard implied that every poet was trying to achieve the same goal. A very popular metaphor for poetical activities was the climbing of a mountain. At the top the ideal poem was waiting. Everyone writing poems was on his way to the top. Some were close to the top - the first-rank poets - others had just left the valley - the second-rank poets. However, the road towards the top was the same for everyone. It implicated that individualism was really foolish. All fellow climbers could help you to get higher and higher. Anyone who tried to find his own way was overrating himself and could fall into the ravine.

It is obvious that organizing an expedition with your fellow mountain-climbers was a much better way of reaching the top than foolishly trying to do it on your own. In other words: writing your poetry in cooperation with others, in a literary society, benefited the quality of your work instead of threatening your artistic integrity.

The metaphor of mountaineering shows another important aspect of eighteenth-century literary opinions. Not everyone is born to be a mountaineer; you need some innate talent. But much more decisive are other qualities: practice, experience, common sense, judgement, knowledge, control, tact, diligence, virtue and friendship. Everyone, gifted with talent or not, could develop such qualities. The name of most literary societies clearly show this eighteenth-century belief in mankind: Kunst wordt door arbeid verkreegen (Art is acquired by labour), Vlijt volmaakt (Diligence perfects), Vlijt kweekt kunst (Diligence fosters art), Sine labore nihil ...

Of course, still some talent was required to make it to the absolute top. But everyone could become at least a meritorious poet. And above all: everyone could be a useful poet. In the eighteenth century poetry was meant to propagate social virtues. It was a perfect medium, for poetry was believed to have a much stronger impact on its readers than prose. So, if a poem promoted social values, it was worthy of being written. Artistic value was less important.

As I explained before, in the eighties literary opinions slowly started to change. Individualism and genius were considered more and more the essential characteristics of the poet. Poetry should express personal feeling instead of common values. Members of literary

societies were one of the first in the Netherlands to discuss these new ideas, not realizing it would eventually strike at the roots of literary sociability itself.

III. The twofold character of societies

In the brief sketch of literary sociability in the Netherlands in the first part of this paper I have mixed two sorts of explanations in order to account for the major developments. A short excursus on this point will be useful.

On the one hand each society, whatever its activities may be, is part of sociability in general and will be influenced by general factors. For instance, W.W. Mijnhardt points out a gradual shift from scholarly societies towards dilettante societies.18 Literary sociability fits this pattern as well as any other kind of sociability. The student societies and the Maatschappij der Nederlandsche letterkunde were scholarly societies, the poet societies like Kunstliefde are considered dilettante societies. Moreover, each society, whatever its activities, is influenced by general social and political developments. Politics in the Netherlands in the eighties and nineties had its effect on both literary and other societies.

On the other hand, each discipline of cultural or scientific activity has, at least partly, its own specific history. A change of literary opinions does not always coincide with a comparable change in opinions on natural science or the art of painting. As a consequence literary sociability has, at least partly, its own autonomous development, just like societies in other disciplines. For instance, the new aesthetics that entered the Netherlands in the beginning of the eighties stressed the importance of talent and individualism in the process of literary creation and threatened the belief in skills and cooperation as far as the creation of literature was concerned. At the same time, in the philosophy of natural sciences, cooperation was still highly valued, and individualism was considered a foolish vanity.

So far, most research on Dutch sociability has concentrated on one of the possible angles. W.W. Mijnhardt has provided us with a well-balanced study on the general developments of cultural sociability as a whole and stresses the similarities between all kinds of societies. His category of scholarly societies is rather coherent, but especially the category of dilettante societies - a multi-coloured spectrum of literary societies, reading societies, art societies, masonic lodges, and socie-

ties on all kinds of scientific disciplines - is an invitation to consider the consequences of the variety in activities.19 Other scholars concentrate on specific kinds of societies: P. Knolle on art societies,20 R. Hooykaas and H.A.M. Snelders on scientific societies,21 M.J. van Lieburg on medical societies,22 P.J. Buijnsters on reading societies23 and W. van den Berg and C.B.F. Singeling on literary societies.24 A comparison at least partly suggests autonomous developments in each discipline, notwithstanding the rightfullness of the general developments pointed out by Mijnhardt.

In my opinion future research on sociability should examine this interference of general and specific influences. In this research the organizational structure of a society must be taken into account. In most cases, external factors are reflected in the fluctuation of the number of members. Societies with a relatively cheap budget could easily survive a sudden loss of members, because the progress of their activities did not depend on subscriptions. In the eighties and nineties societies such as Felix meritis and Concordia et libertate suffered the consequences of political turmoil just like any other society. But in these societies poems and essays were recited in society meetings. They had no intention of publishing a series of miscellanies to make their activities known to the Dutch public and did not need the constant flow of money. Their downfall, due to external events, was, temporarily, not a structural crisis. As a consequence, their development was more influenced by specific developments in their range of activities; for instance, these societies were the first to discuss the philosophy of Kant, react to the latest developments in foreign literature and show quick interest in the recent scientific discoveries.

Societies like Kunstliefde, having their annual volume of poems to finance, depended heavily on the subscription of their honorary members. Any loss of members, due to external events, threatened their way of operating. As a result, external conditions had a much stronger impact on these societies. Before their members had a chance to adapt new opinions in their field of activity, they could be faced with a financial crisis in the society, which obstructed the frequency of publication and paralysed the society's stamina.

Perhaps I am exaggerating the importance of organizational structure. Yet, in research on societies the success or failure of all kinds of sociability is often too easily linked with general historical events, while a thorough examination of organizational structure could provide us with less spectacular but simple explanations. At least it shows how difficult it is to take all relevant aspects into account and to do justice to the twofold, if not even more complicated, character of sociability.


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