‘Romantische poëzij’ en ‘Bilderdijksche snaren’. De literatuurpolitieke agenda van de dichter-criticus Adriaan van der Hoop, Jr. (1802-1841)

Abstract

The poet and critic Adriaan van der Hoop, Jr (1802-1841) is known in literary history as a predecessor of the literary renewal of the 1830’s, known as ‘Young Holland’. The innovative character of Van der Hoop’s literary criticism is mainly a matter of style: he and kindred spirits like Jan Wap and Jacob van Lennep broke with the existing hesitant practice of reviewing literature. As for the substantial part of his poetics Van der Hoop was not a revolutionary. His original success and later abuse can best be explained by looking at the position Van der Hoop held in the literary field of his days. In the first years of his career Van der Hoop tried to acquire a position in this field. He succeeded by cooperating with other coming men and by obtaining a sharp profile through outspoken statements: he criticised the domestic poetry of Tollens and praised the works of Bilderdijk as well as the ‘romantic’ legend in the manner of Walter Scott. Having become an established poet he largely withdrew as a critic after 1830. His statements on poetics, manifested mainly in the prefaces of his literary publications, found approval with a younger generation. Nevertheless, after 1835 Van der Hoop had to cope with his ‘decline and fall’, as Hasebroek, one of his criticasters, put it. The members of ‘Young Holland’, Hasebroek being one of them, took their chance trying to obtain a profile by dissociating themselves from their former role model. Van der Hoop fought against this, but in the end the younger poets succeeded in condemning him to the margins of Dutch literary history. It was not until the twentieth century before Van der Hoop was modestly rehabilitated.