Deyssel, Lodewijk Van

Deyssel, Lodewijk van (lō`dəvĭk vän dē`səl), pseud. of Karel Joan Lodewijk Alberdingk Thijm, 1864–1952, Dutch novelist, critic, and essayist. He was editor of De Nieuwe Gids [the new guide], the monthly organ of the progressive literary movement, the "Eighters." His two novels, De kleine Republiek [little republic] (1886) and Een Liefde [love story] (1887), shocked Dutch society with their explicit naturalism. Deyssel subsequently shifted to mysticism, documenting his evolution in Van Zola tot Maeterlinck [from Zola to Maeterlinck] (1895).

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Deyssel, Lodewijk Van 

(pseudonym of Alberdingk Thijm). Born Sept. 22, 1864, in Amsterdam; died Jan. 26, 1952, in Haarlem. Dutch writer and critic.

Deyssel was a representative of the democratic movement of the Tachtigers. In 1883 he published the essay “Effusions of the New Year” and in 1886, another essay, “On Literature.” His book New Holland (1886-87) came to be the manifesto of progressive writers. He was the author of the naturalistic novels A Love Affair (1887) and The Little Republic (1889). In his books The Death of Naturalism (1891) and From Zola to Maeterlinck (1895) he announced his shift to symbolism. His novel The Life of Frank Rozelaar (1911) is permeated with individualism and mysticism. He is the author of works on “Multatuli” (pseudonym of E. D. Dekker; 1891) and E. Zola. In 1924 he published Notes, a work about Rembrandt, and in 1950, a collection of essays entitled Notes in the Margins.

WORKS

Verzamelde Werken, vols. 1–2, Amsterdam, 1922.

REFERENCES

Stokvis, B. J. L. van Deyssel. Amsterdam, 1921.
Jansonius, F. L. van Deijssel. Lochem, 1954.

I. V. VOLEVICH