- Willem Bilderdijk
Willem Bilderdijk (
Amsterdam ,September 7 ,1756 -Haarlem ,December 31 ,1831 ), Dutchpoet , the son of anAmsterdam physician . 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 theHouse of Orange-Nassau , and Bilderdijk grew up with strong monarchical and Calvinistic convictions.After studying at
Leiden University , Bilderdijk obtained his doctorate in law in 1782, and began to practise as an advocate atThe Hague . Three years later he contracted an unhappy marriage with Rebecca Woesthoven. He refused in 1795 to take the oath to the administration of the newBatavian Republic , and was consequently obliged to leave the Netherlands. He went toHamburg , and then toLondon , where his great learning procured him consideration.There he had as a pupil Katharina Wilhelmina Schweickhardt (1776-1830), the daughter of a Dutch painter and herself a poet. When he left London in June 1797 for
Braunschweig , 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Netherlands , where the Batavian Republic had been replaced by a monarchy, the first king beingLouis Bonaparte , a brother of the French emperorNapoleon Bonaparte . Louis Napoleon kindly received Bilderdijk 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- he 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 the pronunciation.After the abdication of Louis Napoleon Bilderdijk suffered great poverty; on the accession of
William I of the Netherlands 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, which took place atHaarlem on the 18th of December 1831.Bilderdijk was the founder of the spiritual movement that is called "Het Réveil", which tried to give a Christian answer to the ideals of the
French Revolution . Among his disciples wereAbraham Capadose ,Willem de Clercq ,Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer , and especiallyIsaac da Costa , who called his teacher "anti-revolutionary, anti-Barneveldtian, anti-Loevesteinish, anti-liberal".There is a Bilderdijk Museum in Amsterdam.
References
*1911
External links
*gutenberg author|id=Willem_Bilderdijk|name=Willem Bilderdijk
* [http://bilderdijk.org The Bilderdijk Haarlem Foundation]
* [http://www.bilderdijkmuseum.vu.nl/ Bilderdijkmuseum]
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