Een ondraaglijk juk:Nederlandse beeldvorming van Spanje en de Spanjaarden ten tijde van de Opstand (1566-1609)

This book deals with the Dutch creation of an image of Spain and the Spanish people in the days of the Dutch Revolt. It examines the perception of the country and its inhabitants in primarily pamphlets from the period of the Iconoclastic Fury (1566) until the Twelve Years’ Truce (1609). The phrasing and the unremitting repetition of national stereotypes, resulted in a number of predominantly negative images of a collective nature about the country and its inhabitants, which have endured for a prolonged period of time and have continued to make themselves felt. For a description and interpretation of this aggregate of depictions, methods and insights from imagology, that discipline of comparative literature which focuses on examining images of countries and nations, were used in this book. The Dutch pamphleteers used different items to stir up the hatred of the Spaniards, as the reference to the dreaded Spanish Inquisition, the description of war crimes by the tercios or the warning for the alleged Spanish plans to conquer the world and tyrannize it. This book argues overall that the Dutch pamphlet literature made an important contribution to the international image of the early modern Spain and that the Netherlands should occupy a prominent place within the group of nations that aroused anti-Hispanic sentiment in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries