Willem de Mérode

Willem de Merode ( born September 2, 1887 in Spijk at Delfzijl in the Netherlands, † 22 May 1939 real name: Willem Eduard Keuning ) was a Dutch poet.

Willem de Merode was established in 1887 in a village near Delfzijl (Groningen ) was born and grew up in a strict Calvinist tradition, which rejected the joy of life as sin. In 1906 he was a village schoolmaster and began to deal with literature, especially with a aestheticized, individualistic literature of " l' art pour l' art". He was a prolific poet and published in his fairly short life, 27 collections of poetry, the first in 1916.

Although he never openly acknowledged his homosexuality, this is clearly evident in his poetry. A certain naivety was the village schoolmaster Keuning not foreign. In 1924 he was sentenced to one year in prison for seducing a minor, after which he definitively broke with serving the church.

He settled on a farm near Arnhem and lived there until his death. His poems reflect the argument contradicts with the church and the conflict between soul and body. De Merode represents in his verses moving away from the religious, Calvinist moral dogmatism. As a poet of " inwardness " he was rediscovered in recent years.

Hans Werkman has published two books about his life: De wereld van Willem de Merode (1993) and Willem de Merode en zijn jongens (1991). A collection of poems by Willem de Merode was published in 1987, Willem de Merode, Verzamelde poems, edited by Hans Werkman.

Other pseudonyms of de Merode were: Joost van Keppel, Henri Hoogland and Jan Bos.