Mijn verlustiging - Bilderdijk, Willem 1756-1831 (Leiden van Hoogeveen, 1781)
Willem Bilderdijk (1756-1831) was a Dutch poet, historian, lawyer, and linguist.
It was not until 1781 that the definitive edition of Bilderdijk's first lyric collection appeared anonymously. It opened with a short introduction, defending the genre of erotic poetry 'against the timidity of heavy-handed moralists', on the grounds that even when 'the Minnedichten depict their own lust...', this is done only to 'make the sense of pleasure... (to) depend on the immaterial lust of souls ..., on that union of will, of heart, of soul, which is the essence of love'.On closer inspection, this introduction appears to have been taken from one of the appendices to Bilderdijk's 'Verhandeling over het verband van dichtkunst en welsprekendheid met de wijsbegeerte' (1783), which was awarded a prize in 1780, and this alone largely negates the anonymity of the edition. This anonymity was in fact immediately compromised by the simultaneous publication by the same publisher of a 'Supplement', consisting of a fable signed with the letter B ('Vertelling voor de minnedichteren en hunne lezeren'), preceded by a poem of praise by François Halewijn on the collection 'Mijn Verlustiging', in which Bilderdijk is directly mentioned as the author.(Translated by Deepl from https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_spi007197801_01/_spi007197801_01_0009.php)
Keywords: 18th Century (1701-1800); Poetry; Netherlands