'Hence my many ratures '. About the origins of 'The sorrow of Belgium (1983)'

Hugo Claus's manuscripts and notes for his novel The Sorrow of Belgium (1983) confront textual scholars and genetic critics with a profound challenge, not only because the material is so rich, but also because Claus's most lengthy, complex and ambitious novel continuously topicalizes its own writing process. As a result there is a 'real', historical genesis of the novel and a fictitious genesis (what the reader is being told about the writing of The Sorrow of Belgium in the very novel itself). Both are inextricably linked up. This article investigates the complex relation between the real and the fictitious genesis, and aims to reconstruct what could be described as the 'real' genesis of the 'fictive' genesis of 'The Sorrow' (the first part of the novel). Our approach makes use of both exogenetic (sources used by Hugo Claus) and endogenetic (the author's manuscripts) evidence. It shows that even a limited selection of The Sorrow of Belgium's genetic material can shed new light on the fundamental tension between structure and chaos, programme and process at the basis of Claus's poetics.

Publication year:2016

Keywords:A1 Journal article

BOF-keylabel:yes

Authors from:Higher Education

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