Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 06.djvu/633

* DUTCH LANGUAGE. 551 DUTCH LITERATURE. seq.). The best etymological diL-tionary is Joli. Franct's (1884-92). For English students there are Bomboli's (Arnheim, 1S77), and C'aliseh's (1-eyden, 1890). Of grammars in Knglish, may' be mentioned Ahn's (Loudon, 18S7), and Hoog- vliet's (Tlie Hague, 18'J0). The best account of the language outside of Holland is Jan te Winkcl's in Paul, Gruiidriss dcr gcrmanischen Philoluyic, vol. i. (2d ed. Strassburg, 1901). DUTCH LIQUID (so called as being first prepared by an association of Dutch chemists), or Etiiylkne Dicih-okiok. An oily substance ob- tained by mixing chlorine and olefiant gas. It acts as an anaesthetic, and has been shown to be safer than chloroform. Besides being very costly, however, it is liable to cause irritation of the throat, and is therefore not used and little known. DUTCH LITERATURE. The dawn of Dutch literature appears in the Jliddle Dutch sagas of Charlemagne and Arthur in the thirteenth century, adapted from the French epics, and obviously intended for the nobility. Such are Klaas van Haarlem's ^yiUiam of Orange (1191-1217): Dederic van Asscnede's Floris and Jihinchefleur (about 1250) : an anony- mous lioland Song, a Gaicein, and a Lancelot of the Lake. Reynard the Fox was also done into Dutclr about 1250. (See, also, IIaer- l.A>T.) The Dutch hTims of the thirteenth cen- tury are perfunctory, but there are folk-songs . and historical ballads of the fourteenth century of some merit. The general tendency in the first half of this century, here as in France, was toward connnercial democracy. This appears in ilacrlant (q.v.) aiid in his chief disciple, the moral chronicler Boendale (1280-1.305). in Weert (died 1362), and Melis Stoke. With 1350 there is an aristocratic reaction, apparent before in the epics -of -Jan van Heelu and Ilein van Aken (c. 1255-1330) ; but this movement expires in the early fifteenth century with Dirk Potter's Course of Love. ileantime prose romance was cultivated for the ^Tilgar, the Old Testament was translated about 1300, a Life of Jesus, the Gospel story popularly rendered : and the drama, sacred and semi- profane, shows characteristic traces of the Dutch genius for low comedy. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries literature in the Netherlands was dominated by the literary guilds, as burgher in tone as were the Meistersingers (q.v.). These, by public festivals^ popular dramas, and social in- fluence, made literature at once democratic and conservative. A new spirit came from the renas- cence of classical learning in which Dink Coorn- hert (1.522-90) and Houwaert (1533-99) led, and Cornelis van Ghistele (fl. 1555-83) followed, but with less effect on letters than was exerted by the Reformation, through translations of the Psalms (1540, 15C6, 15G7) and hynms (1562 and 1569), and most of all by the battle-songs of liberty and bitter political scorn of the Geusen Lieden Boeexken (1588). The stylistic reform- ers of this period were the Catholic Anna Bijns (1494-1567?) and the Protestant van ]Marnix (1. 538-98). From the close of the sixteenth centtiry .Vm- sterdam becomes the literary centre, for here only is thought free. Humanism is fostered by Hendrik Spiegel (1549-1612) and Koemer Vis- scher (1545-1620), and by the .Latin scholars Cjrotius, Drusius, and 'ossius. In the next gen- eration the beautiful and accomplished daugh- ters of Visscher, Anna (1584-1651) and Tessel- schade (1594-1649), poets both, were the friends, admirers, and critics of the poets of the Dutch Augustan age, Vondel (q.v.), Hooft, Iluygens (q.v.). In their salon the comedies of Bredero and his rival Coster, afterwards a diligent culti- vator of the dramatic shudder, were first dis- cussed, and here Starter (born 1594), an emi- grant from England, introduced to the Nether- lands the IClizabethan lyric (1612-14), Cats (q.v., 1577-1660) escaped at Middelburg the Visschers' genial inlluence; nor is it to be found in the Amsterdamcr Bekker (1634-98), the most philosophical of writers in Dutch. The immediate pupils of the classical genera- tion were the dramatists Vos (died 1667), Brandt (1626-85), van der Goes (1647-84), and Oudaen (1628-92), the epic poet Anslo (1626- 69), the didactic Dekker (1610-66), VoUenhove (1631-1708), the lyric Luiken (1649-1708), and Jonctijs (1600-52), Fiction was cultivated by Hermskerk, who emulated Urfe in his liatnvian Arcadia (1637), and was himself imitated by Zoeteboom {Zaanlandsche Arcadia. 1658) and Bos (Dortsche Arcadia, 1662), while Heinsius (q.v.) preferred to imitate Le Sage {Mirandor, 1675). Drama by 1700 was completely Gallicized and insignificant, and lyric poetry rapidl.y declined. Prose is the normal vehicle of the eighteenth century thought. Here the first conspicuous fig- ure is van Eft'en, with his Bollandsehe Specta- tor (1731-35), and the next ones the ladies Betjen Wolff (1728-1804) and Aagjen Deken (17'41-1804), who in 1780 issued Letters on Di- verse Subjects, and followed this with three novels unrivaled in Dutch literature (Sara Burgerhart, 1782; Willem Leevend, 1785; Corne- lia Wildschut, 1792). The first signs of the contagion of German romanticism appear in Xieuwland (1764-94), but more oVjviously and eff'ectively in Bilderdijk (q.v.), though he aff'ected to scorn it as he did Shakespeare. Feith (q.v.) showed himself an avowed disciple of Goethe, and Simons ( 1755- 1812) of Klopstock, though Dutch realism was not without its protesting witnesses in Per- poncher (1741-1819) and van Zon (Bruno Dall- berg. 1758-1818). Jlore national in his expres- sion of romanticism is Loosjes (1761-1818), a novelist who continues the good tradition of Mesdames Wolff and Deken. Nationally roman- tic, too, are the poets Tollens (q.v., 1780-1856), Messchert (1790-1844), and Bogaers (1795- 1870), whose Jochehed (1835), Voyage of Hermskerk to Gibraltar (1836), and Romances and Ballads (1846) are probably the most significant Dutch poetry of his generation. Nameworthv, too, are the songs in lighter vein of Antoni Staring (1767-1840), Since the middle of the century the achieve- ments of Dutch scholars, especially in theology and history, deserve special recognition. The most striking novelists are T.ennep (q.v.. 1802- 68), Dekker (q.v.). and ;Maartens (q.v.): the best essavist. Hasebrook: noteworthv poets. Pot- gieter (1808-75). Pieter Genestet (1830-61). Da Costa (1798-1860). Ten Kate (horn 1819). Vosmaer (1826-88). Emants (bom 1848). and Beets, whose Camera Obseura is remarkable for its humorous portrayal of character. Among