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- Title
The Function of Ilja Ehrenburg Concerning the Dutch Prose of the Nieuwe Zakelijkheid.
- Authors
Grüttemeier, Ralf
- Abstract
In Dutch literary historiography on the Nieuwe Zakelijkheid - the Dutch version of Neue Sachlichkeit - a very influential role is ascribed to Ilja Ehrenburg and the German translation of his 1929 novel Das Leben der Autos (1930), translated into Dutch in 1931. A closer look reveals that what seems to be a literary fact is identical with the judgment of a contemporary critic of the Nieuwe Zakelijkheid: Menno ter Braak (cf. Grüttemeier 1995), an outspoken opponent of the Nieuwe Zakelijkheid. This raises the following question: do Dutch literary histories present as fact what is the view of one side on the battleground of poetics, or does this image (of Dutch Nieuwe Zakelijkheid following Ehrenburg) have enough substantial descriptive and analytical value to deserve a place in the Dutch literary historiography of the interbellum period? I will try to answer these questions with the methodological assumption that a poetics can be analyzed more adequately when its strategic role within the institutional context is taken into account (cf. Van Rees/Dorleijn 1993; Van Rees 1994). My analysis will be structured as follows: after having reconstructed the dominant image in Dutch literary historiography on Nieuwe Zakelijkheid (1.), I will compare this image with the self-presentation of the Nieuwe Zakelijkheid-authors regarding Ehrenburg (2.) and the role of Ehrenburg in German and Russian literary histories regarding Neue Sachlichkeit (3.). In a final step, I will take a closer look at the functions that the Ehrenburg-mention had for Ter Braak and other critics (4.).
- Subjects
ERENBURG, Ilia, 1891-1967; NEUE Sachlichkeit (Literature); DUTCH literature; HISTORIOGRAPHY of literature; LITERARY movements
- Publication
Avant-Garde Critical Studies, 2013, Vol 29, p229
- ISSN
1879-6419
- Publication type
Article