1 - The Calvinist Celebrity: Willem Bilderdijk

Summary

In Haarlem, on 18 December 1831 the Dutch poet Willem Bilderdijk (1756-1831) breathed his last. It was the end of the life of one of the most colourful, influential and versatile figures in the Netherlands of the early nineteenth century. Even though his poetry is hardly read any more – predominantly because of its bombastic and sometimes obscure style – he still counts as one of the most celebrated authors from this period. By the end of the nineteenth century a new generation of poets, the socalled ‘Tachtigers’ (Eighties Movement), brought an end to his status as leading poet. Yet, many Dutch cities still boast a Bilderdijk street, avenue or square. He also still appears in almost every overview and textbook on Dutch literature.

Bilderdijk not only wrote poetry; he was also a lawyer, linguist, literary critic, historian, philosopher, theologian, botanist, mathematician, architect, (portrait) painter and illustrator. However, nowadays he is mainly remembered and regarded as the romantic and ever-mournful poet, who expressed his Weltschmerz in melancholic poetry. Bilderdijk was an exceptionally prolific author, writing about anything and everything that came his way: life and death, love and hate, religion, politics, the death of a child, the birthday of the king, the boiling of eggs. He could even find inspiration in autumn houseflies. By the same token his aversion to tobacco and German stoves found its way into his poems.

In the early nineteenth century Bilderdijk was regarded as the greatest living poet in the Netherlands. His contemporaries compared him to Homer, Dante, Shakespeare and Goethe, and during his life he was often referred to as the ‘Second Vondel’. No genre was left untouched by him. In total he wrote more than 300,000 verses. His collected poetry comprises fifteen volumes filled with mythological, political and religious poems, as well as many occasion poems. He also tried his hand at prose, for instance his Kort verhaal van eene aanmerkelijke luchtreis en nieuwe planeetontdekking (Short story of a remarkable air journey and the discovery of a new planet). This happened to be – fifty years prior to Jules Verne – the first Dutch sciencefiction novel.