Saturnus (poetry collection)
Saturnus is a volume of poetry by Dutch poet J. Slauerhoff. First published in 1930, the collection gathers the poems earlier published in Clair-Obscur, published by Slauerhoff in 1927 without his editorial oversight, with some additional poems.
Content
The content of the poems in the collection falls mostly in three categories: historical characters, locations set in a specific time period, and French symbolist poetry.The first four poems are a cycle centered on the Merovingian king Chlothar II. Beginning with a sketch of the aging king now withdrawn in a monastery, in the next two poems the boy's childhood and adolescence are treated. The last poem shows Clothar's affection for his cruel mother Fredegund and describes her grave; he caresses, in "secret sin", a miniature of her. Literary scholar and historian Jan van der Vegt sees Slauerhoff in Chlothar. In that same cycle, Chlothar is aroused at night by the image of a woman, a singular dreamed figure set apart from the other women at the court. Her ephemeral presence makes him break through a window, the glass cutting him and blood dripping down the wall. Literary critic H. A. Gomperts cites this as one example of the treatment of women in Slauerhoff's poetry: an unapproachable or unattainable woman is simultaneously desired and rejected, and even despised for her lack of chastity, a reproach made to Fredegund as well. Gomperts notes that one other poem in Saturnus, "Le passé vivant", also features the image of a lover breaking through glass—in that case, a mirror.