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Cultural Criticism in the Netherlands, 1933-1940
The Newspaper Columns of Menno ter Braak
Series: - Literary Modernism, Volume: 8
Author:
In Cultural Criticism in the Netherlands, 1933-40, Jacob Boas offers a broad selection of the newspaper columns of legendary Dutch cultural critic Menno ter Braak. Ter Braak’s columns are noteworthy not only for their distinctive treatment of disparate cultural components ranging from literature to the social sciences, but also for the light they throw on the extent to which politics intruded on the cultural sphere in the years prior to the outbreak of war.
Ter Braak set a standard for literary criticism of surpassing quality. Moreover, a staunch advocate of democracy, the critic joined the battle against fascism, urging fellow intellectuals to rise to the occasion. The ‘conscience of Dutch letters’ killed himself on the eve of the German occupation, May 1940.
Ter Braak set a standard for literary criticism of surpassing quality. Moreover, a staunch advocate of democracy, the critic joined the battle against fascism, urging fellow intellectuals to rise to the occasion. The ‘conscience of Dutch letters’ killed himself on the eve of the German occupation, May 1940.
Jacob Boas, Ph.D. (1977), University of California, Riverside, has published articles on various subjects, several books on the Holocaust and Writers’ Block, the Paris Antifascist Congress of 1935 (2016).
"[...] je inleiding gelezen: heel mooi en informatief, met heel veel sprekende details." – Vic van de Reijt.
"The introduction reads very well, mercurial yet solid." – Prof. Laureen Nussbaum.
"Erudite, highly readable, a sophisticated and welcome contribution to intellectual history.”- Prof. Anthony D'Agostino.
"[...] een heel mooi tijdsbeeld dankzij de artikelen die je hebt uitgekozen." - Ronald Rupp.
"I am thoroughly enjoying your book. I love the way it's laid out." - Craig Florence.
"The introduction reads very well, mercurial yet solid." – Prof. Laureen Nussbaum.
"Erudite, highly readable, a sophisticated and welcome contribution to intellectual history.”- Prof. Anthony D'Agostino.
"[...] een heel mooi tijdsbeeld dankzij de artikelen die je hebt uitgekozen." - Ronald Rupp.
"I am thoroughly enjoying your book. I love the way it's laid out." - Craig Florence.
Acknowledgments
Introducing Menno ter Braak (1902–1940)
1 A Note on Translation, Selections, Etc.
PART 1
1933
1 Morgenstern’s Enchanted World
1 The Spirit of Hieronymus Bosch
2 A People and Its Myth
1 Emigrants about Germany
3 André Malraux: La Condition Humaine
PART 2
1934
4 Jakob Wassermann
5 The Place of the Newspaper Critic
1 A New Year’s Meditation
6 Hitler’s Mein Kampf
7 The German Writer Heinz Liepmann Under Arrest
1 A Worrisome Precedent
8 Literary Awards
1 The Nobel Prize in Particular
1.1 Ivan Bunin, Mitya’s Love
2 Objective and Subjective
3 Prizewinners
4 Ivan Bunin
5 Lyrical Decay
9 The Novel as Document
1 The Significance of Max Havelaar
1.1 Objections to the documentary Novel
10 Art and the Art of Storytelling
11 Hero Worship
1 Carlyle’s “Living Rock”
2 No Recipe for Heroes
3 The Book and the Newspaper
12 Races
1 Race as Self-glorification
2 Horizontal-Vertical
3 Apologia for Jewry, Lack of Self-criticism
13 Writing as Enchantment
1 Literature and Advertising
1.1 Writers Who Have “Nothing to Say”
2 Persuasion and Poverty of Ideas
14 Conversation with Erika Mann
15 The Simple Style
16 Le Chemin des Dames
1 The Writing Woman and Her Genre
1.1 Possibilities and Limits
2 “Woman” and “Lady”
17 The European Spirit
1 A Gathering of Intellectuals in Paris
2 Thinking European: a Concern of Intellectuals 69
3 Politics Non Grata
4 Pros and Cons
18 The Simple Task
1 Weekly Masterpieces in the Haagsche Post
2 Disadvantages of the Reviewing Patent
19 Objective Criticism
1 Dr. Ritter’s Case for Mediocrity
2 What Is “Description”?
3 45% Subjectivity
20 Temporary Illiteracy
1 The Benefit of Not Reading
2 A Monster of Civilization: Homo Lector
3 When Reading becomes Dangerous
4 One Book, One Person!
21 Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844–1934
1 Misconstruing His Personality
2 Nietzsche’s Race Problem
3 Nietzsche and the Antisemites
4 The Appropriation
PART 3
1935
22 Ethics of the Weapons Industry
1 Nations Will Always Abuse Their Weapons
2 The Benefits of War
23 The War Film Okraina (a Film by Boris Barnet)
Dames
Othello
26 Popular History (i)
1 Good and Bad Popularization
27 Popular History (ii)
1 Historical Materialism
1.1 Historical Materialism and Its Usefulness for the Historian
1.1.1 No Deadly “Impartiality”
28 Max Havelaar: Multatuli’s Timeless Book, 1869–1935
1 The Meaning of Max Havelaar’s Readability
29 Writers’ Congress in Paris (I)
1 Paris, June 24
30 Writers’ Congress in Paris (ii)
1 Paris, 25 June
1.1 The Problem of Individualism Goes Begging
1.1.1 What Is Gide’s Future?
31 Russian Literature
1 Where Does Literature Belong?
32 Our Humanity
1 Humanity “Close to Home”
2 The Individual and His Meaning of Life
33 Huizinga’s Defense of Culture
34 Helping Writers!
35 Aphorisms (i)
1 Between Flaubert and Nietzsche
36 André Gide’s the Immoralist
1 Synopsis (Provided by Ter Braak)
2 The Autobiography
PART 4
1936
37 Eros as Rebel
1 Lawrence as Author of “Shocking Words”
38 Thomas Mann under Fire
1 An Attack on His Position by Schwarzschild
1.1 Between Third Reich and Emigration
39 Thomas Mann Speaks
1 Declares his opposition to Hitler’s Germany
1.1 Hatred of Jews Concerns Europe and the Higher Levels of German Culture
40 About Franz Kafka (i)
1 A First-rate Jewish Writer
1.1 His style and existential predicament
2 A World of His Own
3 Gate, Gatekeeper, Man of the Country
41 Emigration Embraced
1 Falling from Germany, Love of Germany
1.1 A Novel on the Frontier of Two Countries
2 The Surprise of the Unknown
3 Falling into the Netherlands
42 Unemployment
1 Crisis in the Work Ethic
1.1 The Generation of War Children
2 Labor’s Don Quixote
43 Freud’s Impact
1 European Intellectual Life Inconceivable without Freud
1.1 Not “Freudism” but Critical Gratitude
44 Humanist
1 Erasmus’ Struggle in Behalf Tolerance
1.1 His life in Letters
2 Warring Instinct of the Pacifist
45 History or Criticism?
1 Objectivity v. Subjectivity
46 Committee of Vigilance of Anti-National Socialist Intellectuals
1 Defense of Intellectual Freedom
47 Paradoxical Democracy
1 Prohibition of Die Pfeffermühle
2 Democracy as Weakness and as Strength
48 Thomas Mann No Longer German
1 The Final Phase of a Development
1.1 Nobel Prize without Fatherland
PART 5
1937
49 Thomas Mann v. Bonn
1 Open Letter to the German Academic Establishment
1.1 Response to “the Betrayal of the Intellectuals”
2 Honorary Doctorate Rescinded
3 National Socialism and War
50 Machiavelli
1 His Breviary for Rulers
2 The Trajectory of a Book
3 Realism v. Idealism
51 Ranking
1 A Militant Construct Par Excellence
2 Subjectivity of the Ranking Construct
52 About Franz Kafka (ii)
1 End and Beginning
1.1 Master of the Dream
2 Jew, German, Czech, Prague
3 “Decadent without Decadence”
4 The Dream
5 Kafka v. Freud
53 Aphorisms (ii)
1 Differences between a Court and Sermonizing Culture
54 Suicide and the Writer
55 Ortega as Erasmus
1 Historical Reason v. Cartesianism
2 Politicians and Intellectuals Have Different Tasks
3 The United States of Europe Not a Utopian Dream
4 “Imbeciles” of Left and Right
PART 6
1938
56 Diderot’s Dilettantism
1 An Undogmatic Mind without Prophetic Gestures
2 Diderot as Mentor and Writer for Pleasure
57 Tarentella
1 Jeanette MacDonald in a Musical Spy Film
58 Literator and Writer
59 Nobel Prize for Pearl S. Buck
60 In Memorium Lev Shestov (1866–1938)
61 Homo Ludens
1 Huizinga’s Work about the Play Element in Culture
1.1 The Cultural Historian and the Problem of Play and Seriousness
2 Learned Foray into Nomansland
PART 7
1939
62 Book Reviewer and Book Critic
63 The Average
1 Bartje as the Measure of All Things
1.1 The Cobbler and His Last
2 Hanseatics v. Pirates
64 German and European Future
1 A Book about the Education of Youth in the Third Reich
1.1 The Totalitarian System in Pedagogy
2 How Will Youth Respond?
3 From the family to the Hitler Youth
65 Thomas Mann in Our Country
1 He seeks respite at the North Sea
1.1 Moderate optimism of a pessimistic temperament
66 The Construct Civilization
1 On the Frontier of Civilization and Culture
1.1 Erasmus as Moralist
2 The Concept Steeped in History
3 About Spitting
4 Repression and Domestication
5 Erasmus: Nose-blowing and Sneezing
67 The Importance of Being Earnest
1 Wilde’s Earnestness
68 At Freud’s Death
1 The Viennese Doctor Succeeded Queen Victoria
1.1 EInfluence through Intellectual Integrity
2 Two Eras
3 Freud Fought for His Truths
PART 8
1940<>
69 Selma Lagerlöf Deceased
1 The Author of Gösta Berling
1.1 The Book That Made Her Famous
2 Her Masterpiece
3 Selma Lagerlöf in Real Life
4 On Writing
70 Rauschning’s Book Seized
1 The Opinion of the Translators
2 One Chapter Omitted
71 The Merchant of Venice
1 The Meaning of Shylock
APPENDICES
Appendix 1 1933 Hitler, in the Lord’s Image
Appendix 2 1934 Einstein’s Worldview
Appendix 3 1935 Discourse on Freedom
Appendix 4 1937 National Socialism as a Doctrine of Rancor
Appendix 5 1938 Betrayal of the Flags
Appendix 6 1939 Hitler’s Own Words
Appendix 7 1939 Ter Braak’s Journal 1939
Bibliography
Index
Introducing Menno ter Braak (1902–1940)
1 A Note on Translation, Selections, Etc.
PART 1
1933
1 Morgenstern’s Enchanted World
1 The Spirit of Hieronymus Bosch
2 A People and Its Myth
1 Emigrants about Germany
3 André Malraux: La Condition Humaine
PART 2
1934
4 Jakob Wassermann
5 The Place of the Newspaper Critic
1 A New Year’s Meditation
6 Hitler’s Mein Kampf
7 The German Writer Heinz Liepmann Under Arrest
1 A Worrisome Precedent
8 Literary Awards
1 The Nobel Prize in Particular
1.1 Ivan Bunin, Mitya’s Love
2 Objective and Subjective
3 Prizewinners
4 Ivan Bunin
5 Lyrical Decay
9 The Novel as Document
1 The Significance of Max Havelaar
1.1 Objections to the documentary Novel
10 Art and the Art of Storytelling
11 Hero Worship
1 Carlyle’s “Living Rock”
2 No Recipe for Heroes
3 The Book and the Newspaper
12 Races
1 Race as Self-glorification
2 Horizontal-Vertical
3 Apologia for Jewry, Lack of Self-criticism
13 Writing as Enchantment
1 Literature and Advertising
1.1 Writers Who Have “Nothing to Say”
2 Persuasion and Poverty of Ideas
14 Conversation with Erika Mann
15 The Simple Style
16 Le Chemin des Dames
1 The Writing Woman and Her Genre
1.1 Possibilities and Limits
2 “Woman” and “Lady”
17 The European Spirit
1 A Gathering of Intellectuals in Paris
2 Thinking European: a Concern of Intellectuals 69
3 Politics Non Grata
4 Pros and Cons
18 The Simple Task
1 Weekly Masterpieces in the Haagsche Post
2 Disadvantages of the Reviewing Patent
19 Objective Criticism
1 Dr. Ritter’s Case for Mediocrity
2 What Is “Description”?
3 45% Subjectivity
20 Temporary Illiteracy
1 The Benefit of Not Reading
2 A Monster of Civilization: Homo Lector
3 When Reading becomes Dangerous
4 One Book, One Person!
21 Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844–1934
1 Misconstruing His Personality
2 Nietzsche’s Race Problem
3 Nietzsche and the Antisemites
4 The Appropriation
PART 3
1935
22 Ethics of the Weapons Industry
1 Nations Will Always Abuse Their Weapons
2 The Benefits of War
23 The War Film Okraina (a Film by Boris Barnet)
Dames
Othello
26 Popular History (i)
1 Good and Bad Popularization
27 Popular History (ii)
1 Historical Materialism
1.1 Historical Materialism and Its Usefulness for the Historian
1.1.1 No Deadly “Impartiality”
28 Max Havelaar: Multatuli’s Timeless Book, 1869–1935
1 The Meaning of Max Havelaar’s Readability
29 Writers’ Congress in Paris (I)
1 Paris, June 24
30 Writers’ Congress in Paris (ii)
1 Paris, 25 June
1.1 The Problem of Individualism Goes Begging
1.1.1 What Is Gide’s Future?
31 Russian Literature
1 Where Does Literature Belong?
32 Our Humanity
1 Humanity “Close to Home”
2 The Individual and His Meaning of Life
33 Huizinga’s Defense of Culture
34 Helping Writers!
35 Aphorisms (i)
1 Between Flaubert and Nietzsche
36 André Gide’s the Immoralist
1 Synopsis (Provided by Ter Braak)
2 The Autobiography
PART 4
1936
37 Eros as Rebel
1 Lawrence as Author of “Shocking Words”
38 Thomas Mann under Fire
1 An Attack on His Position by Schwarzschild
1.1 Between Third Reich and Emigration
39 Thomas Mann Speaks
1 Declares his opposition to Hitler’s Germany
1.1 Hatred of Jews Concerns Europe and the Higher Levels of German Culture
40 About Franz Kafka (i)
1 A First-rate Jewish Writer
1.1 His style and existential predicament
2 A World of His Own
3 Gate, Gatekeeper, Man of the Country
41 Emigration Embraced
1 Falling from Germany, Love of Germany
1.1 A Novel on the Frontier of Two Countries
2 The Surprise of the Unknown
3 Falling into the Netherlands
42 Unemployment
1 Crisis in the Work Ethic
1.1 The Generation of War Children
2 Labor’s Don Quixote
43 Freud’s Impact
1 European Intellectual Life Inconceivable without Freud
1.1 Not “Freudism” but Critical Gratitude
44 Humanist
1 Erasmus’ Struggle in Behalf Tolerance
1.1 His life in Letters
2 Warring Instinct of the Pacifist
45 History or Criticism?
1 Objectivity v. Subjectivity
46 Committee of Vigilance of Anti-National Socialist Intellectuals
1 Defense of Intellectual Freedom
47 Paradoxical Democracy
1 Prohibition of Die Pfeffermühle
2 Democracy as Weakness and as Strength
48 Thomas Mann No Longer German
1 The Final Phase of a Development
1.1 Nobel Prize without Fatherland
PART 5
1937
49 Thomas Mann v. Bonn
1 Open Letter to the German Academic Establishment
1.1 Response to “the Betrayal of the Intellectuals”
2 Honorary Doctorate Rescinded
3 National Socialism and War
50 Machiavelli
1 His Breviary for Rulers
2 The Trajectory of a Book
3 Realism v. Idealism
51 Ranking
1 A Militant Construct Par Excellence
2 Subjectivity of the Ranking Construct
52 About Franz Kafka (ii)
1 End and Beginning
1.1 Master of the Dream
2 Jew, German, Czech, Prague
3 “Decadent without Decadence”
4 The Dream
5 Kafka v. Freud
53 Aphorisms (ii)
1 Differences between a Court and Sermonizing Culture
54 Suicide and the Writer
55 Ortega as Erasmus
1 Historical Reason v. Cartesianism
2 Politicians and Intellectuals Have Different Tasks
3 The United States of Europe Not a Utopian Dream
4 “Imbeciles” of Left and Right
PART 6
1938
56 Diderot’s Dilettantism
1 An Undogmatic Mind without Prophetic Gestures
2 Diderot as Mentor and Writer for Pleasure
57 Tarentella
1 Jeanette MacDonald in a Musical Spy Film
58 Literator and Writer
59 Nobel Prize for Pearl S. Buck
60 In Memorium Lev Shestov (1866–1938)
61 Homo Ludens
1 Huizinga’s Work about the Play Element in Culture
1.1 The Cultural Historian and the Problem of Play and Seriousness
2 Learned Foray into Nomansland
PART 7
1939
62 Book Reviewer and Book Critic
63 The Average
1 Bartje as the Measure of All Things
1.1 The Cobbler and His Last
2 Hanseatics v. Pirates
64 German and European Future
1 A Book about the Education of Youth in the Third Reich
1.1 The Totalitarian System in Pedagogy
2 How Will Youth Respond?
3 From the family to the Hitler Youth
65 Thomas Mann in Our Country
1 He seeks respite at the North Sea
1.1 Moderate optimism of a pessimistic temperament
66 The Construct Civilization
1 On the Frontier of Civilization and Culture
1.1 Erasmus as Moralist
2 The Concept Steeped in History
3 About Spitting
4 Repression and Domestication
5 Erasmus: Nose-blowing and Sneezing
67 The Importance of Being Earnest
1 Wilde’s Earnestness
68 At Freud’s Death
1 The Viennese Doctor Succeeded Queen Victoria
1.1 EInfluence through Intellectual Integrity
2 Two Eras
3 Freud Fought for His Truths
PART 8
1940<>
69 Selma Lagerlöf Deceased
1 The Author of Gösta Berling
1.1 The Book That Made Her Famous
2 Her Masterpiece
3 Selma Lagerlöf in Real Life
4 On Writing
70 Rauschning’s Book Seized
1 The Opinion of the Translators
2 One Chapter Omitted
71 The Merchant of Venice
1 The Meaning of Shylock
APPENDICES
Appendix 1 1933 Hitler, in the Lord’s Image
Appendix 2 1934 Einstein’s Worldview
Appendix 3 1935 Discourse on Freedom
Appendix 4 1937 National Socialism as a Doctrine of Rancor
Appendix 5 1938 Betrayal of the Flags
Appendix 6 1939 Hitler’s Own Words
Appendix 7 1939 Ter Braak’s Journal 1939
Bibliography
Index
All interested in the confluence of culture, history, and politics in the turbulent decade of the 1930s: literary and cultural historians, literary critics, historians proper.