The Dutch writer Louis Couperus published De Stille Kracht (The Hidden Force), his classic portrait of life in the Dutch East Indies, within a year of the first publication of Joseph Conrad’s Heart...Show moreThe Dutch writer Louis Couperus published De Stille Kracht (The Hidden Force), his classic portrait of life in the Dutch East Indies, within a year of the first publication of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899). From at least the early 1890s, their careers and preoccupations converge to the extent that Couperus has on occasion been referred to as the Dutch Conrad. While the setting and style of their keynote works often contrast in distinct ways, they align through the subtle yet unmistakeable anti-colonial critique they deliver, not least in their representation of degenerate white protagonists. To this, The Hidden Force adds an overripe and decadent Wildean style which invites a queer or oblique postcolonial reading, as this essay will demonstrate. This style allows Couperus to adopt a more radical position vis-a-vis the Dutch colonial presence in the Indies than has hitherto been considered to be the case, or that the plot mechanics of white degeneration make possible – one compares in interesting ways with the inescapable ambiguities of Conrad’s colonial fiction. Show less
Although Oscar Wilde is mostly known for his work in the theatre and his novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1890), he also produced a great variety of poetry in his lifetime. 'The Garden of Eros'... Show more Although Oscar Wilde is mostly known for his work in the theatre and his novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1890), he also produced a great variety of poetry in his lifetime. 'The Garden of Eros' is a long poem published in the collection "Poems" in 1881. This poem not only illustrates Wilde’s extreme cultural repertoire in Greek and Roman mythology and his expertise in creating poetic imagery but also manifests Wilde’s ideas on love and the essence of art, as well as being a declaration of love to poetry. Based on Octavio Paz’s (1996) ideas on poetry as the eroticism of language, I analyze Wilde’s role as a lover poet, his criticism on modern art and his entreaty for the beauty of art. Show less
What is it like to be imprisoned, to spend months or even years in solitary confinement? Apart from the answers that psychology, criminology of philosophy may hold, the biographical-historical... Show moreWhat is it like to be imprisoned, to spend months or even years in solitary confinement? Apart from the answers that psychology, criminology of philosophy may hold, the biographical-historical study The Hour of Truth. On Imprisonment as a Literary Experience looks at what answers literature has to offer to this question. Concentrating on the period roughly between the French Revolution up to and including the Second World War, this book mainly concerns itself with three European writers who have written about their own prison experiences: Silvio Pellico, Oscar Wilde and Albrecht Haushofer. How did those extreme experiences shape and influence the descriptions of their prison life? What does one write about in the ‘the hour of truth’, when life has been reduced to four walls and a barred window, and when all that remains of one’s authorship is a scrap of paper and a pencil? Do these three writers succeed in adequately conveying this ultimate experience to the reader? In a comparative analysis of three examples of imaginative literature (by Stendhal, Charles Dickens and the Dutch poet Jan Campert) Maarten Asscher suggests that the extreme truth of prison experience is better served by literary imagination than by autobiographical testimony. Show less
