Lodewijk Van Deyssel

Personal

Vocation

Dutch writer, poet and influential literary critic. He was youngest the son of the influential Dutch catholic writer, poet, professor in letters and publisher Joseph Albert Alberdingk Thijm (13 Augustus 1820 8 AM, Amsterdam - 17 March 1889, Amsterdam) and Wilhelmina Kerst (1824-1894). His brothers Jan and Frank were resp. 17 and 10 years older, his sister Catherina was 15 when he was born. As his mother was often ill and his father away from home, he was educated at catholic boarding schools Rolduc (1843-1946) from 3 October 1875 till 25 May 1878 and later in Katwijk. As he was not an eager student, his father gave him June 1879 a job in his bookstore firma Wed. van Langenhuysen ate the Singel in Amsterdam. He made his debute at age 17 in the "Dietsche warande" of his father. The article defending Victor Hugo, published in 1881 in a catholic periodical, aroused a lot of controversy, as Hugo was considered amoral in the eyes of Catholics. Like his hero Hugo, Lodewijk broke with Catholicism in 1883 in favour of "l'art pour l'art". But he remained a spiritual seeker, whose published and unpublished writings can be found in the Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren (DBNL, the Digital Library of Dutch Literature) and projects like Gutenberg. He became a young member of the Tachtiger movement and adopted the pennname Lodewijk van Deyssel on 29 Augustus 1881. Thirteen days before, he still used the long distance traveller bird penn-name Jan van Gent (Northern gannet) in the proof sheet of "De Eer der Fransche Meesters". He was first influenced by the naturalism of Emile Zola and admired his novel Germinal about the desolate life of mine-workers. Later he turned to symbolic mysticism/realism in the article "Van Zola tot Maeterlinck "(1895). He believed that art and words could transcendent reality in one ecstatic moment. Later in his life Forum members would criticize his idealistic vision. His novel "Een liefde" (a love-story, 1887) was too sexually explicit even in the eyes of his Liberal New Guide members. His personal life was less impressive than the heroic attitude he propagated in his writings. Actually, he did not travel a lot and was like his friend Van Booven a dandy. Without doubt he had little affinity working class heroes. On 6 May 1887 he married Catharina Bartholomea Horijaans (23 July 1864, Amsterdam - 21 February 1941, Laren). They got two sons and a daughter, but divorced on 5 December 1918. He died 26 January 1952 at 8 PM in the Frederik van Eedenstraat in Haarlem. Link to Wikipedia