Lustige geesten : : rederijkers in de Noordelijke Nederlanden (1480-1650) / / Arjan van Dixhoorn.

• Superior document: Rederijkersserie
• Author: Dixhoorn, Arjan van.
• Year of Publication: 2009
• Language: Dutch
• Series: Rederijkersserie
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (443 pages) :; illustrations; digital file(s).
• Notes: Revision of the author's thesis--Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 2004.
• Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references (p. 373-408) and indexes.
• ISBN: 9789048508716; 9789089641045
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: Arjan van Dixhoorn.

Closely linked, theatre and rhetoric underwent a renaissance in the Latin scholar culture and the vernacular world of urbanized Europe from the fifteenth century onwards. Based on research into ideas, (literary) practices and members, Lustige geesten shows that the rhetoric chambers were the Dutch variant of an early modern culture of public eloquence, with the theatre as quintessence. Rhetoriziens expressed the intellectual and social missions of their chambers in the core concept of rhetoric, which referred to both (utopian) ideals of bourgeoisie and the application of knowledge (conste) in a committed culture. The northern Netherlands (especially Holland and Zeeland) and the southern (especially Flanders and Brabant) formed one rhetoric world of overlapping networks in which international cultural trends were incorporated locally and regionally through an active reading, conversation and discussion culture. The means of public eloquence (writing and staging drama, song, poem) were intended (internally) to shape (in a playful and competitive atmosphere) the minds of young men from wealthy families and middle classes. By organizing (externally) performances in the local party culture and at long-distance rhetorician festivals, rooms functioned as publication centres for their best writers and performers. The rhetoricians thus contributed to the emergence of a vernacular scholar culture and participated in the public debate. Lustige spirits thus shows in which ways the social, institutional and cultural elements of the rhetorician culture determined the social influence of the rhetoricians and their contribution to the emergence of the (northern) Netherlands as a European cultural centre.