Modellen in de Nederlandse literatuur: De jaren 1900-1920. Een inleiding

In Dutch literary history, the timespan between 1900 and 1920 has often been
conceived of as a period of relative calm and stability in contrast to the
preceding fin-de-siècle years and the years following World War I. Recent
publications, however, broadening their scope from the canonical literary
texts and the major authors to a more comprehensive view on literary culture,
have revealed that the first decades of the 20th century saw important
changes in the structure of the literary field, alongside (and in close connection
to) the emergence of new cultural practices. This special issue of
Nederlandse Letterkunde wants to chart some of these changes, ranging from
the rise of new genres and new ideas about literature and authorship, to a
reorganization of the institutional infrastructure of literature. In the introduction
we argue that, to analyze such phenomena, it is fruitful to focus on the
development, reinterpretation and circulation of literary and cultural models,
since all cultural behavior is model-based, as are cultural artifacts, which might
in turn function as models themselves for new practices or products. To
illustrate the possibilities of the concept ‘model’ we present a brief case study
on the literary interview, a media genre emerging internationally at that time,
followed by some general reflections on the ‘model’ approach in literary and
cultural studies.