Young Agents: Jonge auteurs op de vroegmoderne boekenmarkt

Young Agents: the Young Author’s Role on the Dutch Republic’s Book Market１
In this article, we investigate the role of young authors on the upcoming and
flourishing book market of the Dutch Republic (1550-1800), focusing in
particular on their ‘agency’. By investigating the specific contribution of
young authors to this market and by discriminating between roles of young
adults and adults, we introduce a new approach to early modern authorship.
Combining quantitative digital experiments and qualitative textual analyses,
we seek to tease out the dynamic relationship between the young authors’
independence, competences, and behaviour on the one hand, and representations,
self-images and production figures on the other. The first results of
our research reveal that young authors frequently showed themselves
indebted to their masters, but also created their own voice, often selfconfident
and engaged, by appropriating specific genres and topics in new
ways. Contrary to what contemporary poetics and well-known forms of (self)
reflection suggest, young authors appear to have had a clear, outspoken
presence in the Dutch book market which became ever more prominent in
both the consumption and production of Dutch books.