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Title: 'De Verlichting brandt'
Subtitle: Een kwart eeuw verlichte letteren in Noord en Zuid (1370-1815)
Author(s): HANOU, André
Journal: Spiegel der Letteren
Volume: 46    Issue: 3-4   Date: 2004   
Pages: 215-225
DOI: 10.2143/SDL.46.3.2004772

Abstract :
Until the Seventies, the Dutch-language literature of the ‘long’ eighteenth century was, due to nineteenth-century views, considered to be a composite of Renaissance epigonism and pre-romantic elements. Since then the focus for analysis has shifted to the concept of Enlightenment (in a Dutch context). A much wider range of texts was explored, unexpected riches were found. More light is now being shed on philosophical, political, satirical, autobiographical, and esoteric texts. The novel, all kinds of magazines and societies, literature by women, and much more phenomena attract attention. This is all just the beginning; especially in the South (Belgium), more research is needed. The overall conclusion: all texts reflect contemporary tensions in a changing world with its own problems, which were very different from those in the seventeenth or nineteenth century.


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