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Project

Why Belgian poets became Flemish. Origins, forms and legitimizing strategies of poetical ethos in Belgium (1850-1880).

Why did the Belgian poets become Flemish? Strangely enough, this question seems to apply to both the Flemish and Belgian-francophone poets of the nineteenth century. By closely analyzing Flemish and Belgian-francophone periodicals published between 1850 and 1880, I aim to come to a better understanding of why Belgian-francophone poets profiled themselves more and more as Flemings, and disclose the role the Dutch-speaking Flemings played in this. More precisely, I will examine book reviews and essays as well as poems so as to discover, on the one hand, how critics contributed to establishing the image of the Flemish poet, both on the francophone and Dutch-speaking side, and, on the other hand, which image the poets created of themselves. By doing so, I want to call attention to those poets who paved the road for the great icons of the last decades of the nineteenth century (Georges Rodenbach, Emile Verhaeren and Maurice Maeterlinck on the one hand; Willem Kloos, Herman Gorter and Frederik van Eeden on the other hand), but who have regularly been forgotten in traditional literary studies.
Date:1 Oct 2011 →  31 Aug 2013
Keywords:Poetical ethos, Literary periodicals, Poetry in Belgium, Discourse analysis
Disciplines:Language studies, Literary studies, Theory and methodology of language studies, Theory and methodology of linguistics, Theory and methodology of literary studies, Other languages and literary studies