Poetry
Eldorado
Not translated into English
Jan Jacob Slauerhoff · 1928
Synopsis
Poems of sailors and pirates, driven by the sole desire to depart, and for whom life on land and in society is impossible. A personified ship wanders the seas, Columbus and the discoverer press obstinately towards empty, dead coasts, Camões returns home, the Flying Dutchman passes far offshore, and an elegy leads as far as Africa. Memories of Spain, Portugal and South America surface for the first time in the author's verse.
Context
The collection appeared in 1928 from C. A. J. van Dishoeck, in Bussum, in a volume of one hundred and fourteen pages, the same year as a set on the Far East that its author had signed John Ravenswood. It contains an adaptation of Le Bateau ivre, and a Flemish critic noted as early as 1929 the attraction Rimbaud held for the poet, even more than Hölderlin. Another critic compared one of the pieces to Baudelaire. The book was reprinted from 1942.
Who it is for
Poems, mostly rhymed, in Dutch, in a deliberately rough language. No French or English translation exists.
Prizes and reception
One of the richest collections by a poet who has remained popular; the critics of 1929 welcomed in it a harsh poetry that stood out against the emphasis of the older generation.