A Modernist in a Homburg hat

Despite producing the majority of his works during the heyday of the literary phenomenon of Modernism, rarely are Willem Elsschot's writings considered within the specific context of this literary movement. The reception of Elsschot's writings during the early twentieth Century in Flanders reveals how his literary Innovation failed to be recognised by his contemporaries. Consequently Elsschot found himself chronologically grouped with writers of the generation labouring under the influence of literary magazines such as ‘Van Nu en Straks’, yet aesthetically he was far closer to the later Modernist writers of the 1930s literary magazine ‘Forum’. Indeed, Elsschot's theoretical writings clearly provide a form of literary manifesto in which key Modernist concerns—such as the manipulation of structure, form, language, character and identity—are substantially reflected. Elsschot's aesthetic is thus in many ways closer to other recognised Modernists, such as Theo van Doesburg and Ferdinand Bordewijk. Elsschot produced a unique brand of non-spectacular Modernism, which allows him to be placed within the wider context of the Modernist movement

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