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- Title
Objectivity and Emotion, the Challenge of the Nieuwe Zakelijkheid: Albert Kuyle As a Test Case.
- Authors
Missinne, Lut
- Abstract
In 1930 the critic Victor van Vriesland commented on the school of the Nieuwe Zakelijkheid as follows: "It was up to literature to fully obscure and confuse a notion which was originally clear and well defined." [Het bleef [...] voor de letterkunde weggelegd, de volle maat tot de verdoezeling en verwarring van een oorspronkelijk klaar omschrijfbaar denkbeeld bij te dragen. (1954:72-73)]. More than eighty years later there still isn't much clarity about the definition of the literary movement Nieuwe Zakelijkheid. Dissension exists with regards to the point whether Nieuwe Zakelijkheid should rather be regarded as a reaction to effusive expressionism (Anten, Becker) or as a continuation of expressionism (Goedegebuure). Neither is it clear if this designation mainly concerns phenomena of content or style, nor if it has a normative poetical purport or a literary historical and descriptive meaning. The names of the authors quoted as typical examples of Nieuwe Zakelijkheid even complicate matters. For one Willem Elsschot is the "indisputable champion of Nieuwe Zakelijkheid in Dutch Literature" [de onbetwistbare kampioen van de Nieuwe Zakelijkheid in de Nederlandse literatuur" (Schampaert 1985:130)]. Yet Nieuwe Zakelijkheid is only applicable to Elsschot in a restricted sense, referring to his sober style (Van Boven&Kemperink). While Hans Anten rates Ferdinand Bordewijk among the expressionist generation and contests the inclusion of his novels in the Nieuwe Zakelijkheid (1982:113-114), Jaap Goedegebuure considers Bordewijk's novels Blokken, Knorrende beesten and Bint as "the crown" of the Nieuwe Zakelijkheid (1992:105). Besides disagreement on the representatives of this literary movement, there is also disparity on the criteria determining a literary work to be 'zakelijk' or not. Some authors, like Goedegebuure (1992) and Anten (1982), discern a thematic dimension (a preference for modern technical developments and social issues, regardless of whether it is linked up with critical engagement), from a stylistic and formal one (a sober style, cinematic influence, simultaneity). More relevant than this question however, is the question how a key notion like objectivity - as a potential counterpart of engagement - manifests itself in the formal and narratological characteristics of these novels, in particular in the use of narrator types, narrator comment and focalisation. One of the most intricate obscurities in defining Nieuwe Zakelijkheid is the paradox in the author's attitude towards social reality. On the one hand these authors are presumed to favour a form of social realism, which suggests a critical disposition towards social problems and a certain partiality in rendering reality. On the other hand it is generally assumed that they aim for objectivity and detached observation.
- Subjects
NEUE Sachlichkeit (Literature); 20TH century literature; EXPRESSIONISM (Literature); LITERARY movements; DUTCH literature
- Publication
Avant-Garde Critical Studies, 2013, Vol 29, p313
- ISSN
1879-6419
- Publication type
Article