Language, Literature and the Construction of a Dutch National Identity (1780-1830)

The final decades of the eighteenth and the first decades of the nineteenth century show the birth of an early Dutch identity. In this time of political upheavel (the battle between Patriots and Orangists, the French occupation years and the period of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands), the study of Dutch language and literature received an important impulse. Many scholars, such as Matthijs Siegenbeek, Johannes Henricus van der Palm, Johannes Kinker and Willem Bilderdijk, made an effort to promote (the study of) Dutch language and culture, by writing studies, anthologies, essays. The study of the national language and literature was considered to be significant, not only for the Dutch sense of self-worth, but also for the recovery of the country, which was - according to many contemporaries - declining. In this book attention will be paid to twenty founding fathers of newly developed cultural nationalism in the period 1780-1830 and their various efforts in the creation of a new national identity.