1: The Middle Ages until circa 1400
Frits van Oostrom
2: The Late Middle Ages and the Age of the Rhetoricians, 1400–1560
Herman Pleij
I. Literary Life in the City
II. The Chambers of Rhetoric
III. Literature and the Printing Press
IV. Farewell to the Middle Ages
3: The Dutch Revolt and the Golden Age, 1560–1700
E. K. Grootes and M. A. Schenkeveld-Van der Dussen
I. Literature and the Dutch Revolt
II. Renaissance and Renewal
III. Literature as a Medium of Instruction: Drama
IV. Literature as a Medium of Instruction: Prose and Poetry
V. Literature as an Elite Phenomenon
4: Literature of the Enlightenment, 1700–1800
Marleen de Vries
I. Introduction
II. Early Enlightenment Literature, 1680–1725
III. Classical Poetry and Modern Prose, 1725–1760
IV. The Shaping of a National Literature, 1760–1800
5: The Nineteenth Century, 1800–1880
Willem van der Berg
I. Introduction
II. The Early Decades
III. The Historical Novel
IV. From Byronic Poetry to Realist Prose V. Literary Critics
VI. Multatuli
VII. Poetry Around and After the Mid-Century
6: Renewal and Reaction, 1880–1940
I. Literary Renewal, 1880–1893
Ton Anbeek
II. A New “Spiritual” Art, 1893–1916
Anne Marie Musschoot
III. Between Two World Wars: 1916–1940
Jaap Goedegebuure
7: The Postwar Period, 1940–
I. From the Hunger Winter to the First Morning, 1940–1960
Ton Anbeek
II. The Revolution of the Sixties, 1960–1970
Anne Marie Musschoot
III. The Imagination Seizes Power, 1970–1980
Anne Marie Musschoot
IV. The Ego Looks Back, 1980–
Anne Marie Musschoot
List of English Translations of Literary Works