Gerrit Besselaar
Gerrit Besselaar (1874-1947)[1] was an academic and literary historian.
Contents
Biography
Born Gerrit Besselaar on 12 June 1874 in Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
On 3 October 1903 he arrived in Cape Town to take up a post as teacher at Grey Kollege in Bloemfontein, follwoed by a lectureship at the Transvaalse Universiteitskollege (becoming one of the founders of the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns in 1909. In 1910 he was appointed professor of Dutch at the Natal University College in Pietermaritzburg, a post he held till 1932.
He completed a doctorate at the Unversity of Gent in 1914, with an analysis of the of the entire body of literature from and about South Africa since the 17th century.
In 1932 he returned to Europe and eventually he became a professor of Afrikaans Literature en History at the University of Amsterdam. When he retired in 1938, he was followed up by Elizabeth Conradie. He passed away on 15 Januarie 1947.
Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance
His thesis on Zuid-Afrika in de Letterkunde ("South Africa in literature", written in Gent, November 1913 and published by J.H. de Bussy, Amsterdam / J. Dusseau, Cape Town in 1914)[2] is considered to be the first real history of Spouth African literature and is an important resource on early theatre, as are some of his other publications, including De Kaapse Samenleving vóór Honderd Jaar (approx. "society in the Cape of the past hundred years"), Literature in Bi-lingual Countries, Mutual Influence of English and Dutch Literatures and South African Literature.
Sources
https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/bess001zuid01_01/
D.C. Boonzaier, 1923. "My playgoing days – 30 years in the history of the Cape Town stage", in SA Review, 9 March and 24 August 1923. (Reprinted in Bosman 1980: pp. 374-439.)
F.C.L. Bosman, 1928. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel I: 1652-1855. Pretoria: J.H. de Bussy. [3]: pp.
F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1916. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: pp. 5, 22, 36-42.
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