Star Authors in the Age of Romanticism
Literary Celebrity in the Netherlands
9789087283087
284 pages
Amsterdam University Press
Overview
"Although there has always been a fascination for famous people, the invention of modern celebrity culture goes back to the nineteenth century. During Romanticism the position of the author changed, but, with the phenomenon of the fan and associated fandom coming into existence, also that of the public with the phenomenon of the fan and associated fandom coming into existence. In Star Authors in the Age of Romanticism Dutch literary celebrity culture is analysed and embedded in the international discourse on this subject. Internationally, scholarly attention has over the last years been given to literary celebrity. This book supplies the Dutch dynamic to the international prevailing scholarly discourse on the development of literary celebrity by focusing on five famous Dutch authors from the nineteenth century: Willem Bilderdijk, Hendrik Tollens, Nicolaas Beets, François HaverSchmidt (alias Piet Paaltjens) and Eduard Douwes Dekker (better known as Multatuli). "
Author Bio
Rick Honings is Scaliger Professor Special Collections at Leiden University and a specialist in nineteenth-century Dutch and Dutch Indies literature. In 2018 he published Star Authors in the Age of Romanticism: Literary Celebrity in the Netherlands, the international edition of his monograph De dichter als idool: Literaire roem in de negentiende eeuw (2016). In 2021, he co-edited De postkoloniale spiegel: De Nederlands-Indische letteren herlezen. Currently, he works with a research team on the NWO Vidi project Voicing the Colony: Travelers in the Dutch East Indies, 1800-1900. He is editor-in-chief of the journal Indische Letteren.
