Betje Wolff
Betje Wolff , also Elizabeth Bekker (maiden name) (born July 24, 1738 in Vlissingen , † November 5, 1804 in The Hague ) was a well-known Dutch writer.
She was married to the Reformed preacher and dialect poet Adrian Wolff from Beemster . At first she wrote small satirical works, later also larger works. Her story De menuet en de Dominées-Pruik caused a stir right from the start , a witty work that is extremely apt in its naive portrayals of customs .
Then she delivered serious poems, e.g. B.
- Walcheren (1769),
- The letter from Jacoba van Bayeren ,
- Andromache aan Agamemnon (a heroid) and others
After the death of her husband, she lived in close friendship with the witty Aagje Deken with whom she moved to France during the so-called English war and settled in Trévoux in 1788 . This is where her collection of songs, Wandelingen in Bourgogne, came into being .
In 1798 they returned to Holland and took up residence in The Hague, where Wolff died on November 5, 1804. Aagje Deken died on November 14th, 1804. The importance of Wolff for Dutch literature is not based on her poems, but on her prose works, namely the novels which she wrote together with Deken, and in which she tried to make the written language the casual one to give natural ease of conversational language.
Both women are to be regarded as the creators of the original Dutch novel. Her main work is the De historie van mejuffrouw Sara Burgerhart (Haag 1782, 2 vols.), Which turned against French romanticism as well as against German sentimentality and sought its value without any hesitation for effect in simple, well-motivated presentation and dignified characteristics. In 1796 a German translation appeared under the title Sara Reinert. A story in letters, dedicated to the beautiful sex in Germany by Johann Gottwerth Müller .
The following novels are held in the same spirit, but broader and more talkative, and give more room to the tendency to moralize. Your name is:
- Historie van Willem Leevend (Haag 1784–85, 8 vols.);
- Brieven van Abraham Blankaart (Haag 1787-89, 3 vols.);
-
Cornelia Wildschut (Haag 1793, 6 vols.).
- Klärchen Wildschütt or the consequences of upbringing. German by Johann Gottwerth Müller. Berlin 1800.
Johannes van Vloten published an anthology of her works together with her biography : Het leven en de uitgelezen werken van E. Wolff-B. (Schiedam 1866) and Pilot proza-stukken en brieven (Schiedam 1866).
The Dutch feminist Johanna Naber wrote a biography about Elizabeth Bekker (Betje Wolff).
literature
- Hermina J. Vieu-Kuik: Keur uit het werk van Betje Wolff en Aagje Deken . Thieme, Zutphen 1967.
Web links
- Literature by and about Betje Wolff in the catalog of the German National Library
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Wolff, Betje |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Bekker, Elizabeth; Wolff-Bekker, Elizabeth |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Dutch author |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 24, 1738 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Vlissingen |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 5, 1804 |
| Place of death | The hague |