Dutch and Flemish Feminist Poems from the Middle Ages to the Present: A Bilingual AnthologyMaaike Meijer, Erica Eijsker, Ankie Peypers Each bilingual volume in The Defiant Muse series includes 60 to 80 poems by both well-known and rediscovered poets, selected on the basis of their individual merit and as illustrations of the evolution of feminist thought and feeling. The Defiant Muse: Dutch and Flemish Feminist Poems from the Middle Ages to the Present includes poetry by Hadewijch, undeniably the greatest Dutch poet of the 13th-century, whose poems about love are rooted in deep mystical experience; by the 16th-century poet Anna Bijns, the first woman in Dutch literary history to write about sexual desire; and by the 18th-century poet-novelists Elisabeth Wolff-Bekker and Agatha Deken, who lived together for 33 years and co-wrote the first modern Dutch novel. Contemporary poets range from Sonja Pos, who writes about the difficulty of living after the horrors and losses of the Holocaust, to Loes Nobel, whose work draws upon traditional poetic forms from her native Indonesia, to Ely de Waard, who worked as a rock critic and writes ecstatic, explicitly lesbian poetry. The volume presents poems in the original language, with exquisite English translations on opposite pages. It contains an introduction which places the poems in historical, cultural, and literary perspective, and full bibliographic and biographical notes. |
Contents
SONJA POS 1936 | 18 |
ANNA BLAMAN 19051960 | 19 |
De ploegtrekker 36 The Song of the Plow | 37 |
HADEWIJCH Thirteenth Century | 43 |
ANNA ROEMERS VISSCHER 15841651 | 50 |
MARIA TESSELSCHADE ROEMERS VISSCHER 15941649 | 57 |
ELISABETH KOOLAERTHOOFMAN 16641736 | 60 |
To Miss Agatha Deken | 71 |
Derde grafgedicht voor Kira | 106 |
Interpretatie van het uitzicht | 112 |
Letter | 119 |
het zijn de zwarte schimmen 126 it is the black ghosts | 126 |
Tijd | 132 |
Anadyomene | 139 |
Toen ik opkeek | 148 |
CARLA BOGAARDS 1947 | 156 |
Over het ontwaken mijner ziel | 78 |
A la Omar Khayyam | 80 |
Archaic Gravestone | 87 |
ELISABETH EYBERS 1915 | 96 |
The triumphant mothers | 103 |
The New Savages 1987 | 162 |
ANNEMARIE DE WAARD 1944 | 168 |
Endnotes | 175 |
Notes on the Editors | 187 |
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Common terms and phrases
AGATHA DEKEN Amsterdam Anna Bijns Anna Blaman Christine D'haen Csárda daar daer doen doet door Dutch eens Elisabeth Eybers feminist gaan gaen gaet geen geluk ghij haar Hadewijch haer Hare haren heeft Henriette Roland hert hoofd houwen Ida Gerhardt J. H. and J. W. J. W. Prins Judith Herzberg leven lief liefde maar maer Manfred Wolf Maria Tesselschade Meijer mijn minnen moeder moet Myra Scholz nacht naer neen Netherlands niet meer nieuwe nooit Peypers poems poetry Puszta te Hortobágy Reprinted by permission Roemers Visscher Roland Holst romantic friendship Say Anne Marieken schoon sijn Sir Halewin song tijd toen translated tussen vader Vasalis veel vrouw waar Waard waer Wanda Boeke weer Wel Anne Marieken wilen women poets write zachte zelf zich zijn zonder zult