Indigenous roots of the Dutch Renaissance. A study of the conceptions of the medieval in early modern Dutch literature

The starting point of the research project proposed is the fascinating paradox in Dutch literature that many literary sources from the Middle Ages were still creatively used, interpreted and adapted by early modern authors and editors, while the various histories of Dutch literature take a perspective of discontinuity, of a rapture between the Middle Ages and the early modern period, dominated by classicism and humanism. The project will take the opposite perspective and look at the transition from the Middle Ages to the following centuries as a continuous process. Not only were medieval classics avidly read and adapted, authors also used medieval themes and characters to gain acceptance for the new poetical or political ideas. The project intends to investigate the various conceptions of the medieval in early modern literature; the sources will be studied from a new perspective, focussing on canonical and uncanonical texts, following a current in the international field of medievalism.