Sara Burgerhart als leeswijzer: literaire socialisatie via lezende personages

This article focuses on the eighteenth-century readers of Wolff and Deken’s Sara Burgerhart (1782), who were guided by many fictional readers in the novel. The fictional readers became their compatriots, who teached them how, what and why to read. In this way, fictional readers functioned as instruments of ‘literary socialization’ for the historical readers of the Sara Burgerhart. The analysis of reading in Sara Burgerhart builds upon the scholarly discussion about the development of a reading culture in the eighteenth century. Research on both the administrations of booksellers and the ownership of books revealed that the so-called eighteenth-century reading revolution was a very slow evolution: a new reading public (the middle class) did not expand rapidly. Instead, new readers gradually acquired the competencies and knowledge needed to participate in the complicating literary culture. This article contributes to our understanding of the instruments readers used to become literary socialized.