Willem Kloos

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Willem Kloos

Willem Johannes Theodorus Kloos (born May 6, 1859 in Amsterdam ; † March 31, 1938 in The Hague ) was a Dutch poet and an important representative of the Dutch artist group "The Eighties".

Life

Kloos was born the son of the tailor Johannes Kloos and his wife Anna Cornelia Amelse. His mother died the year after Willem was born and the father remarried the following year. From 1879 Willem Kloos studied classical philology at the Gemeentelijke Universiteit van Amsterdam and completed his studies in 1884 with the title Candidaats . During his studies he met Jacques Perk , whose poems he edited and published after Perk's death. The introduction that Kloos wrote for this 1882 edition was later considered the manifesto of the movement of the "eighties". In 1880 he made his debut as a poet in the magazine Nederland with the poem Rhodopis . His poems of the 1980s are influenced by the English poet Shelley .

De Nieuwe Gids

In 1885 Kloos founded the literary magazine De Nieuwe Gids together with Frederik van Eeden , Albert Verwey , Frank van der Goes and Willem Paap . There he published a number of literary chronicles, which together give a picture of his poetics. He puts the emphasis on the personal rendering of emotions by the poet. A much-quoted saying by Kloos is that art should be “the most individual expression of the most individual feeling”. Form and content are inseparable; it's about L'art pour l'art . To describe what is going on in his soul, the poet has two means: sound expression and imagery. Kloos found that every single feeling has its own imagery. With his vision, he set himself apart from the generation of so-called “dominee poets” (e.g. Jan Jakob Lodewijk ten Kate, Nicolaas Beets and Bernard ter Haar ), who in his eyes mainly wrote domestic poetry, full of clichés and petty morals . Kloos also published many of his sonnets in the Nieuwe Gids . These sonnets are generally regarded as his best literary work and characteristic of the conceptions of the "eighties". The poems describe the poet's feelings and changes of mood. The most cited poetry rule by Kloos is probably “I am a god in the depths of my thoughts” (“Ik ben een God in 't diepst van mijn gedachten”).

At the end of 1885 Kloos wrote the novel Julia together with his good friend Albert Verwey . A tale of Sicily (Julia. Een verhaal van Sicilië) . The work is written in the old-fashioned romantic style they disdained in the manner of Nicolaas Beets and Fiore della Neve and was published under the pseudonym "Guido". It was meant to be fun, and it was meant to piss off the literary critics of the time. The campaign succeeded, even if the magazine De Gids, which is important to them, did not react. Kloos and Verwey exposed their joke in a pamphlet called The Inkompetenz der Dutch literary criticism (De onbevoegdheid der Hollandsche literaire kritiek) .

Likewise in 1885 Kloos wrote a foreword to the collection of grass blades or songs in the field of virtue, godliness and fatherland (Grassprietjes of Liederen op het gebied van Deugd, Godsvrucht en Vaderland) , published by under the name Sebastiaan Slaap ("Sebastian Schlaf") a certain "Cornelis Paradijs", behind which a group of "eighties" (including Frederik van Eeden) hid. This volume was a pastiche of dominee poetry.

End of the "eighties"

Willem Kloos (r.) With his friend Hein Boeken

In the 1890s, various poets began to oppose the individualism of Kloos and his “L'art pour l'art” principle and wanted a more socially oriented, social poetry. There were also conflicts in the original “eighties” movement. Frederik van Eeden and Frank van der Goes believed that socialism could bring improvement, while Kloos and Lodewijk van Deyssel thought that socialism would lead to the leveling of art. Kloos held onto his original ideals and withdrew to write poetry. He also fared worse in his personal life; he began to drink, developed psychosis and wrote insult sonnets. For some time he was under the strong influence of the much younger but also nervous poet Pieter Tideman. De Nieuwe Gids was temporarily discontinued in 1894, but continued to appear later.

In 1896 Fourteen Years of Literary History (Veertien jaar literatuurgeschiedenis) , an anthology of Kloos' literary reviews, was published. In 1900 he married Jeanne Reyneke van Stuwe, a prolific writer of social novels. Kloos' influence had waned even more, but he continued to publish poetry in De Nieuwe Gids and remained on the editorial board until his death.

Later years

On June 14, 1919, a few weeks after his sixtieth birthday, Kloos was received by Queen Wilhelmina in the Palais Huis ten Bosch . On March 3, 1935 Kloos received, together with Lodewijk van Deyssel, an honorary doctorate from the University of Amsterdam .

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personal data
SURNAME Kloos, Willem
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kloos, Willem Johannes Theodorus (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch poet
DATE OF BIRTH May 6, 1859
PLACE OF BIRTH Amsterdam
DATE OF DEATH March 31, 1938
Place of death The hague