Science and poetry: in Utrecht, they go hand in hand

Recently, our Emeritus Professor of Dendrochronology Esther Jansma (1958-2025) passed away. Among the public, she was better known as a poet. It seems an unusual relationship: academia and poetry. However, you do not even have to dig very deep to see the university is full of poems.

Poetry as the theme tune of the university

Actually, the university was already born to the sounds of poetry. At the festive opening in 1636, the beadle shared a collection entitled ‘Carmina ende gedichten uit ter eeren van de inauguratie van de Universiteyt, in verscheyden talen gemaakt’ (‘Carmina and poems for the honour of the inauguration of the University, made in various languages’). This included the well-known Latin poem by Anna Maria van Schurman, in which she complained about the exclusion of women.

Writing poetry in Latin was kind of a trend. It was a part of the classic-humanist culture, which dominated the university up to the nineteenth century. The professors participated in it too. And when student life slowly but surely became somewhat more civilised over the course of the eighteenth century, too, they joined in as well.

Poems about 18th-century night life

In 1759, students founded the society Dulces, which also published a magazine with articles about the Dutch language. But it also had ‘Dichtöefeningen’ (‘Poetry Exercises’) in it. An example of what I found in this magazine is a beautiful atmospheric piece on a night on the town in eighteenth-century Utrecht by the law student Jacob van Haeften. The poem is called ‘The Utrecht eventide’: “…and sits there playing with card or checker/ Or on the backgammon board, while the Eel Man/Peddles his greasy eel, as the jug tilts/ he calls, ‘hot periwinkle,’ and ‘warm shrimp!’/And knows to present those as delicious with Utrecht brown.” Does anyone by any chance still know the recipe of that brown Utrecht beer?

Besides the hundreds of poems full of warm kisses, hearts and smooches dedicated to female Utrecht residents named Molly, Laura, Melinde or Maria, there is also more serious work by students.

The well-known and beloved student Jacobus Bellamy, who died young in 1786, was a member of Dulces, too. He was so beloved by his fellow students that when he died at the age of 28 years, they erected a grave monument to him in the Nicolaï Church. The Netherlands are still filled with Bellamy streets and Bellamy squares.

Bellamy was a member of the revolutionary Patriot Movement and his nationalism can be heard in his poetry: “Thou painters, paint the beauty/Of great, beautiful creation!/Thou need not seek/in distant countries for that beauty:/Our fatherland, my friends/has, for a true painter/An unparalleled beauty!”

Everybody in Utrecht seemed to write poetry

In the nineteenth century, everyone seems to have started writing poetry. From 1825 onwards, the Utrechtsche Studenten-Almanak is published. Besides all kinds of study information, it also has a ‘Mengelwerken’ (‘Mixed Works’) section with literary pieces or pieces meant to be literature. Besides the hundreds of poems full of warm kisses, hearts and smooches dedicated to female Utrecht residents named Molly, Laura, Melinde or Maria, there is also more serious work by these students.

They take inspiration from foreign romantic poets. Themes appealing to them are the strange East, distant Medieval times and... death. The poem De Troubadour from 1838 by the theology student Barend Glasius is about a mysterious troubadour who travels from Jerusalem to attend a wedding party. He turns out to be the former and never forgotten lover to Lady Oda, the bride, who was away for three years. In the end, the troubadour and Oda both drop dead: “…the same grave enclosed both in its lap”.

Reverend poets and poetry-writing professors

But the nineteenth century is also called the century of the reverend poets for a reason and that is exactly right for Utrecht. J.J.L. ten Kate studied theology here, too. The infamous Tachtiger-dichters made a fool out of him as a symbol for this poetry: “Sing to, sing to Ten Kate/thou cannot resist anyway…” But they sold well. The ethicist and church historian Bernhard ter Haar even made it into Gerrit Komrij's poetry collections.

Utrecht University has always been more than just the house of scholarship. And it still is.

I was surprised to discover that the founder of modern Medieval studies in the Netherlands – the strict source critic Otto Oppermann, who originated from Germany – wrote sensitive poems. Eight years before he came to Utrecht in 1909, he published his Neue Gedichte (New Poems).

The tension between love and academia captured in a poem

In it, the always single Oppermann wrote about a distant beloved and you feel the tension between love and academia in there. For this, he thinks about a summer full of love as he returns to his books: “To my books, I will quietly turn/Tire myself further to know the truth”. And while he worries about academic truth, will she actually miss him?

It may make sense that most poets at the university of Utrecht can be found in the Humanities. For language is, as they say, 'their thing'. Sometimes, you think they should not have bothered. In 1945, the already very well-known historian Pieter Geyl published a collection of sonnets entitled 'Oh Freedom!', some of which were about his stay in the concentration camp Buchenwald as a hostage.

In 1941 he wrote a poem full of homesickness for his wife and for Utrecht: “At green ditch side, we dawdle for long/ Faintly rises the tower which I sought at the horizon/‘See, dear’! – a fish darts through the glass hydration/ A lamb stares at us. The apple blossoms flaunt.” Well intended, but already hopelessly outdated in terms of style back then.

To the marrow

The work of the art historian Jan Emmens, who took his own life in 1971, sometimes chills to the bone. In Meesterwerk (Master Piece), art history and personal suffering meet: “As for the Saul of Rembrandt/I sometimes lack a turban and someone/playing harp or harpsichord to me/a sceptre and a modest curtain/with which I can dry tears”. And for Dutch language and Dutch literature scientist Redbad Fokkema, who I still remember walking by the canal, life was not an unmixed blessing either: “The opening of the sandbox is spending each morning/entering the chaos and starting to order”.

Songs are sometimes poems to music

So the university of Utrecht has always been more than just the house of academia. And it still is. I already recalled Esther Jansma at the start of this blog, but we still have Wiljan van den Akker (whom Esther published with), Geert Buelens and Mia You. And I am probably forgetting someone else.

But I would like to end this blog with a former student of mathematics and science history: Jan Beuving. Some call his work songs and not poetry. But there can sometimes really be poetry hidden in a simple song: “Algebra!/With the x I see/Gone is the friction from me/Algebra, Algebra/And a y/Makes me so happy/Algebra/For you and me.”