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Published January 1, 1884
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About the author
Willem Bilderdijk
417 books3 followersWillem Bilderdijk was a Dutch poet, historian, lawyer, linguist, botanist and theologian. In the early nineteenth century he was regarded as the greatest living poet in the Netherlands. At the age of six an accident to his foot incapacitated him for ten years, and he developed habits of continuous study. His parents were ardent partisans of the House of Orange-Nassau, and Bilderdijk grew up with strong monarchical and Calvinistic convictions.
Bilderdijk obtained his doctorate in law at Leiden University in 1782, and began a legal career in The Hague. During this time he entered an unhappy marriage with Catharina Rebecca Woesthoven. When in 1795 he refused to take the oath to the administration of the new Batavian Republic, he was forced to leave the Netherlands. He went to Hamburg, and then to London, where he worked as a language instructor. When he left London for Braunschweig, his pupil Katharina Wilhelmina Schweickhardt (1776-1830), the daughter of a Dutch painter and herself a poet, followed him. The two started an affair and, after he had formally divorced his first wife, he moved in with her.
In 1806 he returned to the Netherlands, where the Batavian Republic had been replaced by a monarchy, with as its first king Louis Bonaparte, a brother of the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Bonaparte kindly received Bilderdijk, appointed him his librarian and eventually president of the Royal Institute of Dutch Literature. After the abdication of Bonaparte, Bilderdijk suffered great poverty; when William I of the Netherlands ascended the throne in 1813 he hoped to be made a professor, but was disappointed and instead became a private tutor in Leiden.
Bilderdijk was the founder of the spiritual movement called the "Réveil", which tried to give a Christian answer to the ideals of the French Revolution. Among his disciples were Abraham Capadose, Willem de Clercq, Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer, and most notably Isaac da Costa. Bilderdijk continued his vigorous campaign against liberal ideas until his death on December 18, 1831.
Bilderdijk obtained his doctorate in law at Leiden University in 1782, and began a legal career in The Hague. During this time he entered an unhappy marriage with Catharina Rebecca Woesthoven. When in 1795 he refused to take the oath to the administration of the new Batavian Republic, he was forced to leave the Netherlands. He went to Hamburg, and then to London, where he worked as a language instructor. When he left London for Braunschweig, his pupil Katharina Wilhelmina Schweickhardt (1776-1830), the daughter of a Dutch painter and herself a poet, followed him. The two started an affair and, after he had formally divorced his first wife, he moved in with her.
In 1806 he returned to the Netherlands, where the Batavian Republic had been replaced by a monarchy, with as its first king Louis Bonaparte, a brother of the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Bonaparte kindly received Bilderdijk, appointed him his librarian and eventually president of the Royal Institute of Dutch Literature. After the abdication of Bonaparte, Bilderdijk suffered great poverty; when William I of the Netherlands ascended the throne in 1813 he hoped to be made a professor, but was disappointed and instead became a private tutor in Leiden.
Bilderdijk was the founder of the spiritual movement called the "Réveil", which tried to give a Christian answer to the ideals of the French Revolution. Among his disciples were Abraham Capadose, Willem de Clercq, Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer, and most notably Isaac da Costa. Bilderdijk continued his vigorous campaign against liberal ideas until his death on December 18, 1831.
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