Een eerlijk zeemansgraf
 | |
| Author | J. Slauerhoff |
|---|---|
| Language | Dutch |
| Genre | Poetry |
| Publisher | Nijgh & Van Ditmar |
Publication date | 1936 |
| Publication place | Netherlands |
| Preceded by | Soleares (1933) |
Een eerlijk zeemansgraf ("An honest seaman's grave") is the last volume of poetry published by Dutch poet J. Slauerhoff before his death.
Background and content
[edit]Slauerhoff's health had always been frail, and in October 1935 he was sick again, with malaria He was taken off his ship and brought to a hospital in Genoa. He spent time rehabilitating in Merano, Annecy, and Lausanne and by February 1936 fell ill again. He returned to the Netherlands, tenaciously hanging on to life in a nursing home in Hilversum but too weak to travel to a spa. He worked on Een eerlijk zeemansgraf in Hilversum, and wrote a note to fellow poet P. C. Boutens saying the volume's title was ominous. The collection indeed contains a poem called "Uitvaart" ("Funeral"), whose first draft he jotted down in his journal 12 years before, when he fell ill on his first sea journey.[1]
Publishing history
[edit]The collection was published (by Nijgh & Van Ditmar, Rotterdam) as Slauerhoff was in the nursing home in Hilversum, where he would die of malaria and tuberculosis on 5 October 1936.[2] The book was reprinted in 1937 and 1954 (edited by Kees Lekkerkerker), and then again in 1985 for Nijgh & Van Ditmar's edition of Slauerhoff's poetry in individual volumes.
Critical responses
[edit]Critic Kees Fens, in 1996, remembered that Een eerlijk zeemansgraf was, for him, the most engrossing of Slauerhoff's poems in part because it sketched a sailor's life so well. Fens loved the exotic names, and remarked that for Slauerhoff every port was his homeport as long as it wasn't a Dutch port.[3]
References
[edit]- ^ Blom, Onno (26 July 2001). "Recht en slecht een onverdraagzaam leven". Trouw (in Dutch). Retrieved 6 May 2018.
- ^ van der Vegt, Jan, ed. (2013). Brieven 1919-1952: Hendrik de Vries en Constant van Wessem (in Dutch). Hilversum: Verloren. p. 21. ISBN 9789087043995.
- ^ Fens, Kees (5 July 1996). "En daar bleek het jongensboek uit". de Volkskrant (in Dutch). Retrieved 6 May 2018.