[en] Towards the end of his life, the Dutch poet Willem Jacobsz. Hofdijk wrote his ambitious verse epic In ’t harte van Java, set in seventeenth-century Indonesia. Two similar works soon followed. This article examines the various literary techniques used by the author to evoke the exoticism of a world he had never experienced himself. The received idea that Hofdijk started writing his Dutch East Indies poems when his son joined the colonial army is exposed as a fallacy. It is my contention that Hofdijk’s epics, deliberately distorting historical facts, were intended to strengthen the resolve of the Dutch against the rebellious province of Aceh.
Research Center/Unit :
Lilith, Centre d'Enseignement et de Recherche en Etudes Postcoloniales - CEREP
Disciplines :
Literature
Author, co-author :
Steyaert, Kris ; Université de Liège > Département de langues et littératures modernes > Littérature néerlandaise
Language :
Dutch
Title :
'In 't harte van Java' (1881): Exotiek en nationalisme in het Indische oeuvre van Willem Jacobsz. Hofdijk
