Although Anna Maria van Schurman (1607–1678) has, over the past decades, become the subject of several major studies in English, until now, much of her correspondence remained untranslated. Letters and Poems to and from Her Mentor and Other Members of Her Circle, edited and translated by Anne Larsen and classicist Steve Maiullo, publishes much of Van Schurman's extant correspondence for the first time in English, relying predominantly on an autograph manuscript collection of seventy-four of her letters held by the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in The Hague. The edition includes not only letters to and from Van Schurman but also letters about her, poems sent to and by her, and the seventeenth-century biography by Pierre Yvon, along with helpful charts and lists. The result is a highly significant and much-needed addition not only to Van Schurman studies but also, given her general importance, to the larger field of early modern women's writing, the history of the Republic of Letters, and the cultural history of early modern Europe.
Van Schurman's career and network can be traced through the letters, which span from 1631 to 1669. To gain cultural visibility in the Dutch Republic, one had to be introduced or introduce oneself to its cultural, academic, and political elite, something often done through letter writing. The Dutch Republic was home to numerous foreign thinkers and academics and to Dutch and English royalty. Although Van Schurman's extraordinary talents for learning and art became apparent at a young age, her entry into elite circles was by no means a given and relied, as her correspondence shows, on a campaign of careful self-promotion to the right individuals. As Larsen and Maiullo note, her letters are complexly positioned between public and private; some of her letters were published in print and others circulated in manuscript form (95). While there are clearly personal communications in her letters, the content of many suggests that they were written with an eye to wider circulation.
This edition centers mostly on Van Schurman's exchanges with her two most important correspondents. André Rivet (1572–1651), a professor of theology at Leiden University and tutor to the later William II, was Van Schurman's mentor and life-long friend. Through Rivet, Van Schurman made friendships with other important French thinkers and learned men and women, having been adopted as his fille d'alliance (covenant daughter), a type of mentoring relationship seen in networks in France that mimicked a familial one. Constantijn Huygens (1596–1687) was one of the Dutch Republic's most important poets and a diplomat and cultivator of friendships, especially with women. His relationship with Van Schurman was marked by ups and downs, complicated by his expressions of desire for her, her apparent rejection of him, and her eventual decision to withdraw from public life and join the religious community around Jean de Labadie (1610–1674). Much, though not all, of the correspondence with both was conducted in Latin. The primary documents in this edition, which also include correspondence with others in Van Schurman's circle, reveal the complicated relationships she maintained in and through the epistolary medium.
In a solidly researched introduction, Larsen and Maiullo detail not only the vagaries of these relationships but also the larger historical context for Van Schurman's life and the many subjects touched upon in the letters and poems, which frequently discuss what Larsen and Maiullo call “Affairs of Church and State” (40). Responding to polemics on thorny religious questions and news of political developments at home and abroad, the letters show that despite her modest self-presentation, Van Schurman was deeply engaged in the larger world. For Van Schurman, with her astonishing command of languages and learning and her profound Calvinist devotion, international borders were porous. Her letters register her contacts with royalty, academics, politicians, and authors from all over Europe, and a helpful section in the introduction informs the reader of her afterlife and fame in nine different countries, suggesting her international impact on debates on gender and theology.
Van Schurman struggled throughout her life to reconcile two opposing desires—one for intellectual exchange and the other for a retired life in accordance with the dictates of feminine modesty and devotion. Her letters are witness to these contradictions in the surprising shifts in tone between modesty and assertiveness, her expressions of concern about her reputation, and her attempts to negotiate and respond to the pressures placed on her by virtue of her fame. Larsen and Maiullo explain that Van Schurman's Latin is markedly different in the two sets of letters: “If her letters to Rivet show her facility with Latin prose and classical allusions as well as a tendency toward frankness and openness as the relationship develops, her exchange with Constantijn Huygens proves Van Schurman to be playful and well-humored, but also always on her guard against Huygens's flirtatious overtures” (92). While capturing the writing style of Van Schurman and her correspondents, the edition is generously footnoted and provides helpful information on the problems of translating puns and wordplay in Latin and Dutch. Overall, this book is a wonderful achievement. The translations are a pleasure to read, and each letter is carefully situated in its historical and cultural context. Even though Van Schurman's autobiographical work of theology, Eukleria, still awaits a modern translation, this publication will undoubtedly give impetus to more studies of this fascinating cultural icon, thinker, and writer.
