"'t Pakt misschien op onze adem".: Een topicale proefboring in het milieujaar 1972

Abstract

It was not until this century that ecology emerged as a major theme in Dutch-language literature. Most overviews of literary history, in fact, do not touch upon the subject. Reading historically situated literature in light of – and in dialogue with – the then-contemporary environmental debates can fill up this historiographical lacuna. In this article, I aim to do precisely that by presenting a contextualizing analysis of the Dutch literary production of 1972, the year in which 250.000 copies were sold of the Dutch translation of The Limits to Growth. My analysis focuses on a wide and diverse selection of texts, including poetry (Sonja Prins, H.H. ter Balkt, Lucebert, Robin Hannelore, Rutger Kopland, Dick Hillenius), prose (Gerrit Krol, Anton Koolhaas, Roel van Duyn, Ben Borgart), theatre (Walter Van den Broeck), comics (Suske en Wiske, Jommeke, Safari, Tom Poes), song lyrics (Farce Majeure, Jan De Wilde), diaries (Jan Wolkers), documentary scripts (Koolhaas for Bij de beesten af by Bert Haanstra; Geert Bekaert for De straat by Jef Cornelis), television interviews (Hillenius) and a special issue of the literary journal De Gids. The leading research question is: how did authors respond to the projected environmental crisis? Did they agree with the Club of Rome that there were, indeed, limits to growth? What causes of, and solutions for, this crisis did they identify