Literary Renewal, 1880–1893

The Movement of 1880

AT THE END OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Dutch literature in the Netherlands was radically transformed by the appearance of the so-called Generation of 1880. Of course, even radical transformations never come completely out of the blue. Impulses toward change had been discernible before, but they remained isolated and lacked wider resonance; one example is Busken Huet's novel Lidewyde, which was discussed in the previous chapter. The strength of the men of 1880 (women played virtually no role in the movement) was that they formed a united front in breaking with the literary conventions that had dominated Dutch literary life until then.

Significantly, they called the magazine that was to be their mouthpiece The New Guide (De nieuwe gids). Just as in 1837 The Guide (De gids) had asserted itself in opposition to an older periodical, so this new generation wanted to inject new life into literature — and not only into literature, for the magazine's subtitle was “Magazine for Literature, Art, Politics, and Science.” The first year's issues devoted more pages to political commentary than to all its poetry and creative prose combined. Their politics soon became radicalized, with socialists and anarchists campaigning against the heartless liberalism that dominated the political stage. The prosperous middle classes became the target of the left-wing contributors to the new magazine, just as poets and prose-writers pilloried the sedate literary taste of the liberal bourgeoisie. For the first few years of the periodical’s existence, artistic and political reformism seemed to be in unison — until both sides realized that while they might be fighting the same enemy, they were striving for very different ideals.