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Abstract

This study investigates the differences between literary reviewing in the Dutch newspapers before and after the literary magazine Merlyn. The reason to do so is the claim of many scholars that Merlyn influenced literary reviewing in the Netherlands, more specifically the kind of value judgments literary critics make. To find out whether this specific influence on the judgments is a myth or not, the reviews in the newspapers before and after Merlyn have been examined. The value judgments in prose and poetry reviews that appeared in Het Parool, de Volkskrant and Trouw in two reference years (1955 and 1975) were collected and categorized in order to make a comparison. The analysis shows several differences between 1955 and 1975 that may be interrelated with Merlyn. Although, of course, the differences found cannot be attributed to Merlyn solely, this study seems to confirm the idea that Merlyn influenced literary reviewing in the newspapers.

Keywords: literary criticism,  reviewing,  literary evaluation,  Merlyn