Hendrik Houwen's post

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Hendrik Houwens Post (born September 18, 1904 in Surakarta , † September 1, 1986 in Utrecht ) was a Dutch Romanist and Lusitanist .

life and work

Houwens Post, whose father was a rubber farmer and whose mother was of Indonesian descent, grew up separated from his parents in Groningen and Winschoten in 1911 . He studied Romance studies in Groningen, was a French teacher in Ter Apel from 1929 and received his doctorate in 1932 under Kornelis Sneyders de Vogel with the thesis L a société des nations de l'abbé de Saint-Pierre Charles Irénée Castel de Saint-Pierre (Amsterdam 1932).

In 1934 he went back to Indonesia and taught French in Surabaya . Since the grammar school did not appeal to him, he traveled again to Holland in 1936 and studied law in Utrecht with the intention of working in the Indonesian colonial administration. When he finished his studies in 1940, the German occupation of Holland on May 10, 1940 prevented him from leaving and he was a French teacher in Breda until 1956 .

From the age of 17, Houwens Post dealt with Portuguese, which was discovered in Berlin in 1921 . While studying law, he attended lectures by Marcus de Jong at the University of Amsterdam . In 1939 he traveled to Portugal for the first time. He was particularly fascinated by Luís de Camões , to whom he felt personally connected on the basis of a family legend through transmigration of souls . As a self-taught amateur Lusitanist, he promoted Portuguese, including Brazilian.

At the University of Utrecht , where an Ibero-Romance department had to be set up (with Cornelis Frans Adolf van Dam as director), he became a private lecturer in Portuguese in 1948, a lecturer in 1952, and from 1956 an endowed professor (Bijzonder Hoogleraar, until 1974).

His extensive Portuguese grammar (created from 1959 to 1969) was not accepted for print either in the Dutch version (as Portugese Grammatica ) or in the English version (as Descriptive Grammar of the Portuguese Language ) and remained a manuscript. The same happened to the novel Félicien van Ranelagh, Européen, written from 1974 to 1980 (written in French) .

In 1941, under the pseudonym WL Vreede, Houwens Post obtained the first complete Dutch translation of the prophecies of Nostradamus .

Other works

  • B ergson. De philosophie der intuïtie , The Hague 1940
  • Montesquieu en de westersche geest , The Hague 1941
  • (Translator, under the pseudonym WL Vreede) De profetieën van Nostradamus. Nederlandsche vertaling, voorafgegaan door een levensschets en een inleiding, en van aantekeningen voorzien , The Hague 1941
  • Het leven van den vernuftigen ridder Don Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra , The Hague 1947
  • Culturele stromingen en intellectuele invloeden der Renaissance in het werk van Luís de Camões , Groningen 1948 (lecture)
  • Het heroïeke leven van Luís Vaz de Camoëns. Portuguese renaissance poets en avonturier, 1524-1580 , Amsterdam 1950
  • Palavras e expressões Portuguesas da língua cotidiana. Portugese woorden en uitdrukkingen uit de dagelijkse spreektaal , The Hague 1952
  • (Translator) Hélio A. Scarabôtolo, Beknopte geschiedenis van de Braziliaanse letterkunde , Amsterdam 1952
  • Het Portugese werkwoord. Lijst van vervoegde Portugese werkwoorden , Den Haag 1953 (Portuguese conjugated verbs)
  • Het Portugees van Brazilië , Groningen 1957 (lecture)
  • (Ed.) Gesproken Portugees. Handboekje voor de moderne Portugese omgangstaal , The Hague 1958
  • (Ed. And translator) Meesters der Braziliaanse vertelkunst , Amsterdam 1961

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Houwens Post, Hendrik
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wreede, WL (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch Romanist and Lusitanist
DATE OF BIRTH September 18, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Surakarta
DATE OF DEATH September 1, 1986
Place of death Utrecht