Louis Couperus
Encyclopedia
Louis Marie-Anne Couperus (10 June 1863 – 16 July 1923) was a Dutch
novelist and poet
during the Belle Époque
. There is a wide variety of genres in his oeuvre, which contains poetry
, fairy tale
s, psychological novel
s, and historical novel
s. Couperus is considered to be one of the foremost figures in Dutch literature
.
in the Netherlands
. He was the eleventh and youngest child of John Ricus Couperus (1816–1902) and Catharina Geertruida Reynst (1829–1893). Four of his ten siblings had passed away before Louis was born. He was baptised on 19 July 1863 in the Église wallone
in The Hague.
Couperus grew up in a wealthy patrician family. He was the great-grandson of Abraham Couperus, a Governor General of Dutch Malacca
and many of his relatives were employed in the local government. The Dutch literary historian Rob Nieuwenhuys
has observed that Couperus "must have known that his family was of mixed (Indo i.e Dutch-Javanese) descent".
Couperus spent part of his youth (1871–1877) in the Dutch East Indies
and going to school in Batavia (now Jakarta
, Indonesia
).
After returning to The Hague in 1878, he published his first work of poetry. He was a journalist for Het Vaderland and De Haagse Post. He became only an established author after the publication of his first novel, Eline Vere, in 1888.
In 1891, Couperus married his niece Elisabeth Baud (1867–1960), who in 1893 translated Oscar Wilde
's The Picture of Dorian Gray
into Dutch. They had no children.
The famous author and his wife lived most of their life in boarding houses and rented villas in France and Italy. Settling in Florence
and Nice
until 1910, they then began travelling more broadly throughout Italy. All their worldly goods and his library were moved about in huge trunks and crates. When the First World War started they moved back to The Hague. During all of his life, Couperus travelled around the world, such as to Japan.
A renowned wit, raconteur and commentator, Couperus continued to publish critically and commercially successful work until his death of sepsis
in 1923.
work influenced by French novelists like Emile Zola
and Gustave Flaubert
. Couperus' 1891 novel Noodlot ('Footsteps of Fate') was much admired by Oscar Wilde
, and many have noted stylistic similarities between Noodlot and Wilde's 1890 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray
.
Couperus attained popularity with his novels Majesteit ('Majesty', 1893) and Wereldvrede ('World Peace', 1895), both set among royals in modern Europe, threatened with anarchism. Also his fairy tale Psyche (1898) has often been reprinted. A veiled autobiography, Metamorfoze (1897), despite its Art Nouveau
bookbinding design by Jan Toorop
, did not sell well.
Couperus's later works include De Stille Kracht ('The Hidden Force', 1900) and De Berg van Licht ('The Mountain of Light', 1906), a decadent
novel set at the height of the Roman Empire
. His psychological novels, such as De Boeken der Kleine Zielen (1901–1902; translated as 'The Books of the Small Souls') and Van Oude Menschen, de Dingen, die Voorbij gaan... (1906: translated as 'Of old people and the Things that Pass') enjoyed much success in the English speaking countries after the First World War. His historical novels were popular in Germany. His books have been translated in many other languages, like French and Italian, Scandinavian languages, Hungarian, Czech, Esperanto
and in recent years even in Urdu
. Couperus's books received as much attention abroad as in the Calvinistic Netherlands of his days.
Fifty novels and volumes of collected stories by Couperus have been published.
Other links
Several books have been recently published in translation, including Ecstasy ISBN 1-901285-02-2, Psyche ISBN 1-901285-21-9.
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
novelist and poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
during the Belle Époque
Belle Époque
The Belle Époque or La Belle Époque was a period in European social history that began during the late 19th century and lasted until World War I. Occurring during the era of the French Third Republic and the German Empire, it was a period characterised by optimism and new technological and medical...
. There is a wide variety of genres in his oeuvre, which contains poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
s, psychological novel
Psychological novel
A psychological novel, also called psychological realism, is a work of prose fiction which places more than the usual amount of emphasis on interior characterization, and on the motives, circumstances, and internal action which springs from, and develops, external action...
s, and historical novel
Historical novel
According to Encyclopædia Britannica, a historical novel is-Development:An early example of historical prose fiction is Luó Guànzhōng's 14th century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which covers one of the most important periods of Chinese history and left a lasting impact on Chinese culture.The...
s. Couperus is considered to be one of the foremost figures in Dutch literature
Dutch literature
Dutch literature comprises all writings of literary merit written through the ages in the Dutch language, a language which currently has around 23 million native speakers...
.
Biography
Louis Marie-Anne Couperus was born on 10 June 1863 in The HagueThe Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
. He was the eleventh and youngest child of John Ricus Couperus (1816–1902) and Catharina Geertruida Reynst (1829–1893). Four of his ten siblings had passed away before Louis was born. He was baptised on 19 July 1863 in the Église wallone
Walloon church
A Walloon church describes any Calvinist church building in the Netherlands and its former colonies whose members originally came from the Southern Netherlands and France and whose native language is French...
in The Hague.
Dutch Malacca
Dutch Malacca was the longest period of Malacca under foreign control. The Dutch ruled for almost 183 years with intermittent British occupation during the Napoleonic Wars . This era saw relative peace with little serious interruption from the Malay kingdoms due to the understanding earlier on...
and many of his relatives were employed in the local government. The Dutch literary historian Rob Nieuwenhuys
Rob Nieuwenhuys
Rob Nieuwenhuys was a Dutch writer of Indo descent. The son of a 'Totok' Dutchman and an Indo-European mother, he and his younger brother Roelof, grew up in Batavia, where his father was the managing director of the renowned Hotel des Indes .His Indies childhood profoundly influenced his life...
has observed that Couperus "must have known that his family was of mixed (Indo i.e Dutch-Javanese) descent".
Couperus spent part of his youth (1871–1877) in the Dutch East Indies
Dutch East Indies
The Dutch East Indies was a Dutch colony that became modern Indonesia following World War II. It was formed from the nationalised colonies of the Dutch East India Company, which came under the administration of the Netherlands government in 1800....
and going to school in Batavia (now Jakarta
Jakarta
Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...
, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
).
After returning to The Hague in 1878, he published his first work of poetry. He was a journalist for Het Vaderland and De Haagse Post. He became only an established author after the publication of his first novel, Eline Vere, in 1888.
In 1891, Couperus married his niece Elisabeth Baud (1867–1960), who in 1893 translated Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
's The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only published novel by Oscar Wilde, appearing as the lead story in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine on 20 June 1890, printed as the July 1890 issue of this magazine...
into Dutch. They had no children.
The famous author and his wife lived most of their life in boarding houses and rented villas in France and Italy. Settling in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
and Nice
Nice
Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...
until 1910, they then began travelling more broadly throughout Italy. All their worldly goods and his library were moved about in huge trunks and crates. When the First World War started they moved back to The Hague. During all of his life, Couperus travelled around the world, such as to Japan.
A renowned wit, raconteur and commentator, Couperus continued to publish critically and commercially successful work until his death of sepsis
Sepsis
Sepsis is a potentially deadly medical condition that is characterized by a whole-body inflammatory state and the presence of a known or suspected infection. The body may develop this inflammatory response by the immune system to microbes in the blood, urine, lungs, skin, or other tissues...
in 1923.
Writing
Couperus published some early volumes of poetry after 1878, which garnered little success or critical attention. Couperus came to fame with the publication of his first novel Eline Vere (1888), a naturalistNaturalism (literature)
Naturalism was a literary movement taking place from the 1880s to 1940s that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character...
work influenced by French novelists like Emile Zola
Émile Zola
Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
and Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary , and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style.-Early life and education:Flaubert was born on December 12, 1821, in Rouen,...
. Couperus' 1891 novel Noodlot ('Footsteps of Fate') was much admired by Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
, and many have noted stylistic similarities between Noodlot and Wilde's 1890 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only published novel by Oscar Wilde, appearing as the lead story in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine on 20 June 1890, printed as the July 1890 issue of this magazine...
.
Couperus attained popularity with his novels Majesteit ('Majesty', 1893) and Wereldvrede ('World Peace', 1895), both set among royals in modern Europe, threatened with anarchism. Also his fairy tale Psyche (1898) has often been reprinted. A veiled autobiography, Metamorfoze (1897), despite its Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...
bookbinding design by Jan Toorop
Jan Toorop
Jean Theodoor Toorop , better known as Jan Toorop, was an Indo painter, whose works straddle the space between the Symbolist painters and Art Nouveau.-Biography:...
, did not sell well.
Couperus's later works include De Stille Kracht ('The Hidden Force', 1900) and De Berg van Licht ('The Mountain of Light', 1906), a decadent
Decadentism
Decadentism was an Italian artistic style based mainly on the Decadent movement in the arts in France and England around the end of the 19th century. The main authors associated with decadentism were Antonio Fogazzaro, Italo Svevo, Giovanni Pascoli and Gabriele D'Annunzio...
novel set at the height of the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
. His psychological novels, such as De Boeken der Kleine Zielen (1901–1902; translated as 'The Books of the Small Souls') and Van Oude Menschen, de Dingen, die Voorbij gaan... (1906: translated as 'Of old people and the Things that Pass') enjoyed much success in the English speaking countries after the First World War. His historical novels were popular in Germany. His books have been translated in many other languages, like French and Italian, Scandinavian languages, Hungarian, Czech, Esperanto
Esperanto
is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto , the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887...
and in recent years even in Urdu
Urdu
Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...
. Couperus's books received as much attention abroad as in the Calvinistic Netherlands of his days.
Fifty novels and volumes of collected stories by Couperus have been published.
External links
Works by Couperus- Works by Louis Couperus at Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
Works by Louis Couperus at the Digital Library for Dutch LiteratureDigital library for Dutch literatureThe Digital Library for Dutch Literature is a website about Dutch language and Dutch literature. The website contains thousands of literary texts, secondary literature and additional information, like biographies, portrayals etcetera, and hyperlinks...
Other links
- PushkinPress.com English editions of works by the author Website of the Louis Couperus Society
- Multimedia Study-pack on Louis Couperus' Eline Vere (University College London)
- Van Oude Menschen --Wiki Translation Project (Dutch -> English)
- Blauwbaards dochter --Wiki Translation Project (Dutch -> English)
Several books have been recently published in translation, including Ecstasy ISBN 1-901285-02-2, Psyche ISBN 1-901285-21-9.