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Document Details : Title: Boer Battus versus Wim uit Parijs Subtitle: De Multatuli-polemiek van Hugo Brandt Corstius en Willem Frederik Hermans Author(s): VAN ZOGGEL, Marc Journal: Spiegel der Letteren Volume: 55 Issue: 2 Date: 2013 Pages: 133-161 DOI: 10.2143/SDL.55.2.2977267 Abstract : In 1987 Willem Frederik Hermans and Hugo Brandt Corstius started to polemicize about the writer Multatuli. This polemic would, in varying intensity, continue until 1995, the year of Hermans’s death. In this article I describe the evolution of this polemic. Using a theoretical model by Jürgen Stenzel, I point at some rhetorical strategies that can influence the course of a polemic. Moreover, I argue that the role of the polemical authority, i.e. journalists, critics, other writers, readers etc. who follow, comment upon and evaluate the polemic, is fundamental to its course and outcome: within a polemic, it is of crucial importance who is said to be right, not who is right. By framing the analysis in a more institutional approach and within a broader historical context, I argue that factors not directly related to the polemic itself are nevertheless important in the scholar’s analysis and interpretation. |
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