The poet Anna van der Horst was the first female author in the Dutch Republic to publish an epic featuring a female protagonist. However, there has been minimal scholarly attention directed... Show moreThe poet Anna van der Horst was the first female author in the Dutch Republic to publish an epic featuring a female protagonist. However, there has been minimal scholarly attention directed towards her epics De gevallen van Ruth (1764) and Debora (1769). This article posits that an intertextual analysis of Debora contributes to the ongoing scholarship on early modern Dutch women’s writing, which has predominantly focused on paratextual material. Van der Horst modifies the traditionally masculine genre of the epic by introducing a heroine aligned with conventional masculine expectations, simultaneously challenging the traditional portrayal of the female protagonist. Furthermore, she transforms Judges 4-5 and the contemporary epic Abraham, de aartsvader (1728) in a manner that amplifies the role of women and diminishes the significance of men. This strategy strongly resembles the postmodern act of feminist revision. These transformations challenge gender stereotypes and suggest that Van der Horst’s poetry may possess a more subversive or radical nature than anticipated based on the afterwords of her epics. The article therefore also compels a re-evaluation of the Biblical epic, not solely as a religious genre but also as an emancipatory one, particularly when examining the contributions of women writers. Show less
In Babylon (1997) by the Dutch author Marcel Möring seems to be highly self-reflexive, just in line with the non-committed way most postmodern novels have been characterized. What tends to be... Show moreIn Babylon (1997) by the Dutch author Marcel Möring seems to be highly self-reflexive, just in line with the non-committed way most postmodern novels have been characterized. What tends to be overlooked in this characterization however is that a very real historic event lies at the basis of the novel’s foundation, namely the Shoah and its aftermath. This event permeates the whole structure of the novel. As argued in this article, this foundation is implied, amongst other things, by the presence of ghosts. Read in conjunction with Van Dijk’s and Whitehead’s analyses of trauma in contemporary novels, and with a focus on haunting and intertextuality, this article demonstrates both the presence of and the struggle of the text with the notion of loss. Show less
This thesis compares the uses of the classical underworld descent, or katabasis, in three contemporary English-language authors, women and/or Black writers, as an instrument to express their... Show moreThis thesis compares the uses of the classical underworld descent, or katabasis, in three contemporary English-language authors, women and/or Black writers, as an instrument to express their poetics. It focuses on one central text from each author, contextualizing its use of katabasis within the author's larger oeuvre. For this analysis, use has been made of Conceptual Metaphor Theory and cognitive theory of allegory, theories of metaliterature and intertextuality, and transgeneric narratology. Katabasis has proven to hold a central position in the oeuvre of all three authors, albeit in very different ways. In the work of Boland and Naylor, the motif is omni-present. Boland maps katabasis onto the moment of poetic creativity, in which access to the female underworld is attempted, but nevertheless remains barred. Naylor's work combines the various regions of Dante's afterlife with western esotericism, offering a somewhat happier prospect for women and writing. For Walcott, on the other hand, katabasis is omni-present in his magnum opus Omeros only, and is applied as a final reckoning with his literary critics. Thus, for all three authors katabasis has proven to be used as an instrument to appropriate the western literary canon and to define their poetics. Show less
This PhD-thesis investigates the role and function of tradition in the composition of new ritual texts in Ptolemaic Egypt on the basis of an in-depth analysis of the structural organisation and... Show moreThis PhD-thesis investigates the role and function of tradition in the composition of new ritual texts in Ptolemaic Egypt on the basis of an in-depth analysis of the structural organisation and ritual composition of one the most elaborate and complex temple rituals known from Ptolemaic Egypt: the coronation ritual of the sacred living falcon. The available source material suggests that this ritual was a new composition of the Ptolemaic period in which tradition was merged with contemporary ideas. An investigation of the interrelations of the ritual texts and iconographic themes of this ritual with other textual and iconographic materials enabled us to investigate the role and function of tradition in the ritual, to identify the editorial processes to which the new composition was subjected and to reach conclusions on the extent of originality and the conceptualisation of innovation in ancient Egyptian ritual composition. Furthermore, the in-depth analysis of the structural organisation of the ritual resulted in a new reconstruction of the ritual sequence of the ritual based on the hieroglyphic inscriptions. On the basis of textual, iconographic, lexicographic and archaeological sources a new identification was proposed of the various locations where the ritual was carried out. Show less
Considering that early modern scholars often referred to the Middle Ages as an uncouth period of darkness and ignorance, it is surprising that humanist historians by no means neglected the era. The... Show moreConsidering that early modern scholars often referred to the Middle Ages as an uncouth period of darkness and ignorance, it is surprising that humanist historians by no means neglected the era. The central hypothesis of this book is that the ways in which historians such as Reynier Snoy, Adrianus Barlandus, Petrus Divaeus, and Janus Dousa Sr described the medieval past can be explained by the political context from which their writings originated and in which they were often directly involved. This context was marked by upheavals caused by factors such as the Habsburg centralization policy, the Reformation, and the Dutch Revolt. This book brings forward key characteristics of early modern medievalism, showing how concepts of the medieval were used as rhetorical tools, how medieval forms and ideals were appropriated, and how the classical heritage was involved in the representation of the medieval. This analysis is informed by an approach to historical writing that differs from what is common in the study of sixteenth-century historiography. Historiography is regarded not as a means to uncover the historical truth, but as narrative rhetoric. It deploys narrative techniques and intertextual allusions and plays with genre expectations in order to convey its message. Show less
