Elsschots kaaswonde

Samenvatting

In this article I want to show how author intentions can cautiously be used in text interpretation and can link the text with its context. By reconstructing different kinds of intentions I want to catch the author in his textual and extratextual form and confront both with each other. In doing so, I do depart from the text, out of which I try to extract different contexts (an autobiographical, a social-political and a literary one). These contexts can be connected to different sorts of intentions as these can be found in and outside the text. My case study deals with Kaas (1933) by Willem Elsschot. The purport of the allegorical 'Introduction' for the novel itself is made clear. By reconstructing an autobiographical, a social-political and a literary context out of the whole text, it is shown how the allegorical nature of Kaas constantly changes for the reader. Now the novel becomes an allegory for life, then an allegory of social resignation or an allegory of the tragic as stilistic form.