ABSTRACT
This introduction discusses modifications in the field of ‘philology’ in the nineteenth century and the discipline’s previous history since the late sixteenth century. Save in classical philology, the methods of this domain were also applied to other languages and periods. In the nineteenth century, the practice of philology passed through a crucial phase. In both the subject of study as the methods, fundamental changes occurred. Texts in the vernacular and national philologies attracted attention, and ‘neo-philology’ succeeded to take over the central position traditionally held by classical philology. Subfields such as ‘linguistics’, ‘edition technique’ and ‘historiography’ grew into new, more or less independent (sub)disciplines, whereas scientific methods such as stemmatology and comparative approaches were introduced in the humanities. The studies collected in this volume are devoted to a diversity of developments related to this fascinating process of professionalization and the search for new frontiers in Dutch philology of the nineteenth century.
