Abstract
In order to define their own academic practice Dutch literary scholars tend to differentiate between academic literary criticism (in Dutch: literatuurwetenschap) and (journalistic) literary reviewing (in Dutch: literatuurkritiek). According to this generally accepted theoretical distinction, academic criticism is characterized as descriptive, objective, unbiased and detached, whereas literary reviewing is understood as normative, subjective and explicitly participating in the literary debate. In practice, however, this theoretical distinction between academic literary criticism and literary reviewing is difficult to maintain. Firstly, because from an institutional perspective it should be noted that a considerable amount of literary scholars engage actively in the literary field (e.g. they participate in literary jury’s, write literary reviews, work as editors or even as creative writers themselves). Secondly, because both the object of study and the products of literary scholarship are determined – often implicitly – by predominant ideas of what literature is, what it is not, and what it should be.
This PhD-thesis traces the roots of the contemporary distinction between the practice of academic literary criticism and literary reviewing in order to better understand the present dichotomy. Where, when and why does the tension between critics and scholars occur within the history of Dutch literary studies? What institutional and cultural circumstances make it possible for scholars, critics and writers alike to talk and think about a distinction between academic and non-academic literary criticism? And how is the distinction between public and academic criticism evaluated through time, both within and outside of the university? By investigating from an discourse analytical and institutional perspective the work of scholars who were also poets, critics or essayists (e.g. Albert Verwey (1865-1937), Nico Donkersloot (1902-1965) and Hans Gomperts (1915-1998)) this study sheds light on the general development of literary studies in the Netherlands since 1876 and the way scholars in the past have perceived the societal role of literary studies in particular. In addition, the study touches upon a fundamental and longstanding conceptual problem within the humanities, namely the conflict between subjective and objective standards and approaches at work in scholarly practice.
