Between the Individual and Society

Postwar Prose in Holland and Flanders

By Jaap Goedegebuure

Dutch is a language spoken not only by some twenty-five million people living in the Netherlands and Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) but also in Surinam and on the islands of Curaçao, Bonaire and Aruba. Authors who write in Dutch can therefore communicate with readers in a variety of different countries. Books cross borders drawn by history, just as history has left its mark on literature. Colonisation and decolonisation have profoundly influenced many of the novels that appeared since Multatuli’s landmark Max Havelaar (1860). The Northern Netherlands broke away from Spain during the Eighty Years’ War (1568-1648) while Spain retained control of the south. The Southern Netherlands had a decisive impact on the respective cultures of modern Holland and Belgium. Protestantism determined the culture of the north to a large extent, Catholicism that of the south.

Protestant Legacy

The Protestant legacy is still evident in Dutch literature, the contemplative character of which has a moralistic tinge. This is easily explained: in the sixteenth century the Reformation, which permeated Dutch intellectual life, emphasised individual responsibility to God and society. The Northern Netherlands’ most distinguished writers-the humanist Erasmus, the baroque poet Vondel, the free-thinker Multatuli, and the nihilist sceptic Ter Braak - were all moralists. Even when they resorted to irony or satire to make their point, they were always either allies or rivals of priests and preachers.

Even in the late twentieth century, now that Dutch society has been thoroughly secularized, the contemplative element remains. Almost all contemporary authors integrate the situations, events and characters they depict into a form that resembles a parable: reality is not only described or transformed into art, it also serves to illustrate a particular vision of life or society. This is especially characteristic of those writers who have drawn their material from World War II.