Golden Mean of Languages

Alisa van de Haar (Ph.D. Groningen 2018) is Assistant Professor of French Literature and Culture at Leiden University.

“Van de Haar's thorough analysis of a variety of texts, ranging from educational writings to psalm translations, and her illustrative excursions to other (northern) language debaters leads to fruitful findings that contribute to our understanding of the literary culture in the sixteenth-century Low Countries.”Cora van de Poppe, Universiteit Utrecht. In: Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 74, No. 2 (Summer 2021), pp. 631–633.

• AcknowledgementsList of IllustrationsNote to the ReaderPrologue1 Introduction: Fascinating Multilingualism1 Introduction2 Scope and Definitions3 Methods and Sources4 Outline2 The Multilingual Low Countries1 Introduction2 Ruling Languages3 The Languages of the Muses4 International Communication5 Conclusions3 Trending Topics in European Language Reflection1 Introduction2 Latin and the Vernacular3 Collecting, Comparing, Competing4 Building the Vernacular5 Purity and Eloquence6 Conclusions4 French Schools1 Introduction2 Defending Language Learning3 Making and Teaching the Rules4 Teaching Purity and Eloquence5 Conclusions5 Calvinist Churches1 Introduction2 Translating Psalms, Building Communities3 Undoing Babel in Marnix’s Psalms4 Dangerous Mixtures5 Conclusions6 Printing Houses1 Introduction2 Printing for the Patria3 Orthography: A Storm in a Teacup?4 Engaging the Public5 Conclusions7 Chambers of Rhetoric1 Introduction2 The Perks of Plurilingualism3 Studying the Vernacular4 The Rules of Dutch Poetry5 Conclusions8 ConclusionsBibliographyIndex