Poetry
Tempel en kruis
Not translated into English
Hendrik Marsman · 1940
Synopsis
In a room in Utrecht, between two canals, a poet looks back on his own path: the impulses of his youth, his wanderings, his search for meaning between the temple of pagan Antiquity and the cross of Christianity. A verse narrative of his own formation, the cycle leads him to reaffirm humanist values, and to hold the poet responsible for giving form to the vital impulse of the world.
Context
The cycle was completed shortly before its author's death and appeared in 1940. It gives poetic form to the conviction, matured after his successive temptations by Catholicism and then by a vitalism close to fascism, from which he had turned away in 1933, that the poet must give shape to the life force. Its first lines, which set the scene between the Nieuwegracht and the Kromme Nieuwegracht, wrongly led people to believe that his practice had been located there.
Who it is for
A long cycle of poems in Dutch, steeped in classical and Christian references. No French or English translation exists.
Prizes and reception
The author's last collection, the one in which critics see a return to humanist ideals.