Die werking van die musiekmotief in De koperen tuin van Simon Vestdijk

Abstract

Simon Vestdijk is one of the most prominent figures in the literary awareness of the Netherlands. From an intertextual study between De toekomst der religie (The Future of Religion) and De koperen tuin (The Copper Garden) it emerges that the postulated view of reality is transposed in narrative form in the text-internal vision of reality in the novel. This transformation is concretized and manifested in visible terms in the character portrayal, especially with regard to music as the passion to which the main character dedicates himself. The many references to music in the novel gradually gain importance as a motif that becomes a symbol of different kinds of love. In the course of the narrative, and especially towards the end of it, there is a substitution of religious value contents in the main character who is led to humanistic love through music, so that this process of transvaluation of religion (in the wider sense of the word) becomes the main emphasis of the discourse of the novel, albeit in veiled form.