Willem Bilderdijk
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Willem Bilderdijk (; 7 September 1756 – 18 December 1831) was a Dutch poet, historian, lawyer, and linguist.


Life

Willem Bilderdijk was born on 7 September 1756 in
Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...
in the
Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, commonly referred to in historiography as the Dutch Republic, was a confederation that existed from 1579 until the Batavian Revolution in 1795. It was a predecessor state of the present-day Netherlands ...
.Joris van Eijnatten,
Bilderdijk, W.
, ''Bio- en bibliografisch lexicon van de neerlandistiek'', 2004. Retrieved 5 December 2021.
He was the son of an
Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...
physician A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...
. When he was six years old an accident to his foot incapacitated him for ten years, and he developed habits of continuous and concentrated study. His parents were ardent partisans of the
House of Orange-Nassau The House of Orange-Nassau (, ), also known as the House of Orange because of the prestige of the princely title of Orange, also referred to as the Fourth House of Orange in comparison with the other noble houses that held the Principality of Or ...
, and Bilderdijk grew up with strong monarchical and
Calvinistic Reformed Christianity, also called Calvinism, is a major branch of Protestantism that began during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. In the modern day, it is largely represented by the Continental Reformed Christian, Presbyterian, ...
convictions. After studying at
Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; ) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. Established in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince of Orange as a Protestantism, Protestant institution, it holds the d ...
, Bilderdijk obtained his doctorate in law in 1782, and began to practise as an advocate at
The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...
. Three years later he contracted an unhappy marriage with Rebecca Woesthoven. He refused in 1795 to take the oath to the administration of the new
Batavian Republic The Batavian Republic (; ) was the Succession of states, successor state to the Dutch Republic, Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. It was proclaimed on 19 January 1795 after the Batavian Revolution and ended on 5 June 1806, with the acce ...
, and was consequently obliged to leave the Netherlands. He went to
Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...
, and then to
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
, where his great learning procured him consideration. There he had as a pupil (1776–1830), the daughter of the Dutch painter Heinrich Wilhelm Schweickhardt and herself a poet. When he left London in June 1797 for
Braunschweig Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( ; from Low German , local dialect: ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the ...
, this lady followed him, and after he had formally divorced his first wife (1802) they were married. In 1806 he was persuaded by his friends to return to the
Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
, where the Batavian Republic had been replaced by a monarchy, the first king being
Louis Bonaparte Louis Bonaparte (born Luigi Buonaparte; 2 September 1778 – 25 July 1846) was a younger brother of Napoleon, Napoleon I, Emperor of the French. He was a monarch in his own right from 1806 to 1810, ruling over the Kingdom of Holland (a French c ...
, a brother of the French emperor
Napoleon Bonaparte Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...
. Louis Napoleon received Bilderdijk kindly and made him his librarian, and a member and eventually president (1809–1811) of the Royal Institute. Bilderdijk also taught the king Dutch although on one occasion, the king supposedly told his people that he was the "Konijn van 'Olland" ("rabbit of 'Olland"), rather than "Koning van Holland" ("King of Holland") because he had difficulty mastering Dutch pronunciation. After the abdication of Louis, Bilderdijk suffered great poverty; on the accession of
William I of the Netherlands William I (Willem Frederik; 24 August 1772 – 12 December 1843) was King of the Netherlands and List of monarchs of Luxembourg, Grand Duke of Luxembourg from 1815 until his abdication in 1840. Born as the son of William V, Prince of Orange, ...
in 1813, he hoped to be made a professor but was disappointed and became a history tutor at Leiden. He continued his vigorous campaign against liberal ideas to his death. Bilderdijk was the founder of the spiritual movement " Het Réveil", which tried to give a
Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...
answer to the ideals of the French Revolution. Among his disciples were
Abraham Capadose The Revd Dr Abraham Capadose or Capadoce (22 August 1795, Amsterdam – 16 December 1874, The Hague) was a Dutch physician and Calvinist writer. A Jewish convert to Christianity from 1822 onwards, he was part of the Dutch Réveil circle that ...
,
Willem de Clercq Willem de Clercq (15 January 1795 – 4 February 1844) was a poet and leader of the Réveil, the Protestant Church Revival in the Netherlands. He is known for his diary entries, which contain extensive reports of the events he witnessed. He was al ...
,
Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer (21 August 1801, Voorburg – 19 May 1876), was a Dutch politician and historian. Overview Groen's father, Petrus Jacobus Groen van Prinsterer, was a physician, and at adult age operated in aristocratic circles. ...
, and especially
Isaac da Costa Isaäc da Costa (14 January 1798 – 28 April 1860) was a Jewish Dutch poet. Da Costa was born in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. His father, an aristocratic Sephardic Portuguese Jew, Daniel da Costa, a relative of Uriel Acosta, was a promi ...
, who called his teacher " anti-revolutionary, anti-Barneveldtian, anti-Loevesteinish, anti- liberal". Bilderdijk died in
Haarlem Haarlem (; predecessor of ''Harlem'' in English language, English) is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the Provinces of the Nether ...
in the
United Kingdom of the Netherlands The United Kingdom of the Netherlands is the unofficial name given to the Kingdom of the Netherlands as it existed from 1815 to 1839. The United Netherlands was created in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars through the fusion of territories t ...
on 18 December 1831.


Legacy

According to Godfried Bomans, who named a club after his pseudonym ''Teisterbant'', the bed Bilderdijk died in was kept until 1950 as a curiosity for people to look at. A commemorative gable stone was placed on the top gable of his old house in 1885, and a commemorative stone is also in the St. Bavochurch. The collection of the Bilderdijk Museum is available at
Leiden University Library Leiden University Libraries is the set of libraries of Leiden University, founded in 1575 in Leiden, Netherlands. A later edition entitled ''The bastion of liberty : a history of Leiden University'', was published in 2018. Full-text at archive ...
.


References

Attribution: *


External links

* * *
The Bilderdijk Haarlem Foundation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bilderdijk, Willem 1756 births 1831 deaths 19th-century Dutch historians Linguists from the Netherlands 18th-century Dutch lawyers Dutch male poets Writers from Haarlem Leiden University alumni Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences