SOURCE: Weevers, Theodoor. “The Netherlands in Medieval Literature.” In Poetry of the Netherlands in its European Context 1170-1930, pp. 7-45. London: The Athlone Press, 1960.

In the following excerpt, Weevers concentrates on Hadewijch's style and major poetic influences: Henric van Veldeke, Provençal troubadours, Rhineland Minnesingers, and Latin devotional verse.

[T]he appearance of the lyrical genius Hadewijch in the first half of the thirteenth century well-nigh compels us to assume a continuation of the Dutch courtly lyric in the period after 1180. Such consummate mastery as hers is inexplicable but for the existence of a native tradition of minnesanc. The apparently surprising fact that her work alone survived the anti-courtly reaction of the later thirteenth century is sufficiently explained by its religious content.

Hadewijch ranks with the earlier Dante and the other poets of the dolce stil novo as one of the great masters who, towards the close of...