By European Studies
Paul van Ostaijen wrote his poetry collection Bezette Stad (‘Occupied City’), with art work by Jesper Oscar and René Victor, in 1921. It was published by Sienjaal, set in Antwerp and written in Berlin. The Great War is the topic, and stream of consciousness is the style. The original manuscript was recently bought by the Flemish government for €725,000, and has been made available online.
In honour of the centenary of this work, I have made a visual version of the brief information above, inspired by Ostaijen’s Dada-esque style, as well as offering a bibliography of works by and about Ostaijen from the British Library’s collections.
References/further reading
Paul van Ostaijen, Bezette Stad (Antwerp, 1921), Cup.503.p.5 (Online edition of the manuscript at https://consciencebibliotheek.be/nl/pagina/blader-digitaal-door-het-handschrift-%E2%80%98bezette-stad%E2%80%99-van-paul-van-ostaijen). English translation by David Colmer, Occupied City (Ripon, 2016). YK.2017.a.540
Paul van Ostaijen, De feesten van angst en pijn (Nijmegen, 2006) YF.2008.a.12964. English translation by Hidde Van Ameyden van Duym, Feasts of fear and agony, translated by Hidde Van Ameyden van Duym (New York, 1976). X.950/45770
Paul van Ostaijen, The first book of Schmoll: selected poems 1920-28, translated by Theo Hermans, James S. Holmes, and Peter Nijmeijer, ([Amsterdam], 1982) Cup.935/283
E.M. Beekman, Homeopathy of the absurd: the grotesque in Paul van Ostaijen’s creative prose. (The Hague, 1970), W19/5382
E.M. Beekman, Patriotism, Inc. and other tales ([Amherst], 1971), A71/5805
Gerrit Borgers, Paul van Ostaijen. (The Hague, 1971), X.909/24106.
Geert Buelens, Van Ostaijen tot heden. (Antwerp, 2001), YA.2002.a.37134
Frances Bulhof (ed.), Nijhoff, Van Ostaijen, “De Stijl” (The Hague, 1976), X:410/6582
Wright, Edward, Paul van Ostaijen, ([S.l., 196-?), YA.2003.b.2422
On the web:
On the fringes of Dada in Berlin (Blogpost)
Besmette Stad (A multimedia project inspired by Ostaijen’s work)
From Occupied City to Infected City (Blogpost)
Marja Kingma, Curator Germanic Collections
Posted by European Studies at 1:33 PM
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This post was previously published on BLOGS.BL.UK and is republished under a Creative Commons License.
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Photo credit: European Studies
