De fonograaf en de grammofoon in de Nederlandstalige literatuur (1877-1935). Een media-archeologisch onderzoek

This doctoral dissertation investigates the reception of the first sound recording media, the phonograph and the gramophone, in Dutch-language literature (from Flanders and the Netherlands) between 1877 and ca. 1935. More specifically, the thesis tests the double hypothesis that writers had an important part in the social construction of the gramophone and the phonograph, and that these media innovations in turn stimulated authors to reflect intensively on the nature and possibilities of the ‘medium’ they themselves produced: literature. As follows from Dutch writer Multatuli’s emotional response to a public demonstration of a phonograph in 1878, the first sound recording media were from the onset considered as fundamentally different or strange. This ‘otherness’ put in motion a dialectical process in which writers on the one hand construed new forms and uses for the first sound recording media, while on the other conducting a thorough investigation of literature’s very nature and exploring new literary forms and possibilities. The thesis is primarily based on a large corpus of literary writings (both prose and poetry) as well as journalistic texts by Dutch-speaking writers, canonical or otherwise, that bear witness to the impact of the phonograph and gramophone. In total, the corpus consists of about 500 texts that were collected through archival research at the Ghent Poetry Centre, the Antwerp-based Museum of Flemish Culture (AMVC), various university libraries and digital resource platforms such as the Digital Library of Dutch Literature (DBNL). An initial survey of the assembled corpus materials soon revealed that the period between 1877 (the year in which Thomas Edison invented the phonograph) and ca. 1935 was most suitable to test the research hypothesis, since, from the mid-1930s onwards, the initial shock that was caused by the first sound recording media seems to have waned. It is important to note that this thesis does not set out from the conventional distinctions between different poetical schools or registers within the period. Thus, this dissertation does not emphasize how, for example, first the generation of ‘Tachtig’, the ‘Van Nu en Straksers’ and later the historical avant-gardes dealt with these new media. The thesis rather takes the writings of individual authors as its guideline. Similarly, the dissertation does not foreground the traditional distinction between the registers of the so-called ‘high’, ‘low’ or ‘middlebrow’ literature. Nor does it make much of the differences between the literature from Flanders and the Netherlands. If anything, corpus research soon made it clear that during the entire period 1877-1935 a number of tendencies can be discerned that transcend the periodization, regions and registers that take centre stage in previous literary histories. Specifically, four dynamics can be identified within the literary construction of the phonograph and gramophone whereby writers also explored the nature and possibilities of literature. Firstly, writers were inspired by the idea of sound recording media to devise a series of intriguing imaginary media that in turn emphasized the advanced capacities of the ‘medium’ of literature. Secondly, authors contributed to the historical evolution of the record industry by consuming and even advertising phonographs, gramophones and records. In this way, alternative interpretations of authorship and a new literary form started to emerge: recorded or so-called ‘canned’ literature. Thirdly, authors thematically created and consolidated a range of connotations and applications for the first talking machines. This allowed them to negotiate in an alternative fashion an array of conflicting views of subjectivity. Finally, Dutch literature from the period saw a rich imagination surrounding the linguistic characteristics of phonographic inscriptions on records and cylinders. This in turn inspired a number of radically new literary writing systems. These four dynamics not only determine the structure of this dissertation. They also show that in some cases authors from different schools, regions and within various registers have more in common than previous literary criticism might suggest. By mapping the impact of the phonograph and the gramophone in the period as a whole, this thesis aspires to make a modest contribution to our understanding of Dutch literature from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. On a methodological level, this doctoral dissertation is informed by the model of the ‘social construction of technology’ (SCOT). According to this model, which was developed by sociologists Tervor Pinch and Wiebe Bijker, new media initially lack clearly-defined functions, leaving it to their users to construct and consolidate their final forms and roles. From this perspective, the eventual success or failure of a new medium does not hinge on some inherent material quality or flaw, but rather on how certain social groups interact with them. This social-constructivist approach opposes the type of mediadeterminism promoted by Friedrich Kittler, who states that media determine the situation of man rather than the other way around. This dissertation, however, refrains from developing a determinist narrative about how writers between 1877 and 1935 were ‘determined’ by the phonograph and gramophone. Its double hypothesis is that authors were indeed inspired or intrigued by these new media, but only to such a degree that they actively used and shaped these media, and in doing so also reflected upon the capacities and possibilities of literature. Dutch-speaking writers facilitated the social embedding of the phononograph and the gramophone by creating a broad spectrum of connotations, user practices, forms and roles for these early sound recording media. To do justice to this variety of constructions, this dissertation wields a broad definition of the term ‘medium’. In this thesis, the term sound recording ‘medium’ thus refers to imaginary machines, material objects, commercial products, information carriers, culturally codified artefacts and complex writing systems. Along the same lines, this dissertation widens the definition of ‘literature’. As a large number of programmatic and poetical texts from the period suggest, writer, characters and literature in general were frequently conceived of in media-related terms. For instance, authors described themselves and others as ‘phonographs’ and their texts as ‘recordings’. In doing so, some of them implicitly indicated that they did not thought of literature as a sovereign, privileged ‘master signifier’, but rather as one medium within the much larger media ecology of the period. Since many of the literary constructions of the phonograph and gramophone are already a century old and often long forgotten, this dissertation borrows insights from media archaeology to ‘unearth’ these arcane forms. Compatible with SCOT, the theoretical framework of media archaeology, of which Erkki Huhtamo and Jussi Parikka are the most vocal representatives, allows for a systematic overview of the heterogeneous historical media constructions and reveals how authors embedded the phonograph and the gramophone in a broader cultural (and literary) fabric. To reveal these constructions, media archaeologists direct their attention towards a number of themes and dynamics that also take centre stage in this thesis, including imaginary media, materiality, user practices and performances, and interference, defects or ‘noise’. Media archaeologists investigate these aspects of media history by borrowing theories and concepts from a range of disciplines and mediatheoretical schools, including film theory (New Film History), software studies, platform studies and sound studies. Even though media archaeology is a quite recent phenomenon, it thus already has a strong institutional foothold. Remarkably, however, media-archaeology has not yet placed literature at the core of its investigation. In that sense, this dissertation methodologically enriches both media archaeology and literary criticism. It uses media archaeological insights to investigate literary phenomena that have hardly been touched upon by previous literary historical inquiry. At the same time, the dissertation operationalizes relevant literary historical concepts to further enhance this media archaeological approach. Specifically, this dissertation consists of four chapters. Testing the double hypothesis outlined earlier, each of these chapters explores a specific dynamic within the reception of the phonograph and gramophone in Dutch literature. Since each chapter covers the entire period 1877-1935, they can in principle be read in any order. We have however opted to arrange them in such a way that on a metalevel they reflect the logic of the social construction of a medium. Chapter I, “Imaginary Media”, investigates how writers thought about the abstract concept of sound recording media and tried to make something of it. More specifically, we investigate how authors were inspired by the phonograph and gramophone to create their own imaginary media. Already by devising these imaginary constructions, writers demonstrated that literature was capable of much more than the new talking machines. The second chapter, “Literature off the page”, investigates what could be the next step in this constructive process, namely how authors in addition to thinking about media, also bought and promoted records and gramophones. In this way they not only supported the record industry, but they were also able to enter the public space in an alternative fashion, namely as collectors, connoisseurs and even salesmen of records. Furthermore, the record industry produced a new literary format, namely ‘canned’ literature or literature on gramophone records. While chapter II focuses on literary forms and activities off the written page, the third chapter, “Subjectivity”, maps how authors thematically incorporated the phonograph and the gramophone in their writings. In the form of codified literary motifs, writers assigned the phonograph and the gramophone with a plethora of connotations and user practices. Thus, authors continued socially embed these new media, but they also stressed the mediating role of literature in the area of tension between conflicting views of subjectivity. Chapter IV, “Language”, finally demonstrates how writers framed the grooves of the gramophone record as a productive writing system and how these authors also explored the possibilities of this system in their own writing. The thesis thus concludes with a description of how authors radically reconsidered their own literary ‘medium’. In a broad sense, this dissertation opens up space within the field of the study of Dutch literature to further research the impact of new media. More specifically, the thesis demonstrates that authors, texts and other phenomena that previously figured in the margins of literary inquiry were nonetheless important sites of literary experimentation and innovation. Additionally, this dissertation documents and comments on some forgotten aspects of the history of the phonograph and the gramophone in Flanders and the Netherlands.status: publishe