Ida Gerhardt

Dutch classicist, poet in the post-symbolist tradition and translator of Latin and Hebrew poetry. Ida Gerhardt was the second of the three surviving children of the Dutch Reformed school director Dirk Reinier Gerhardt (24 december 1871, Tarnow -2 July 1953, Voorschoten) and Ida "Grietje" Blankenvoort (22 December 1873, Monnikendam - 23 December 1934), a housewife. They married 12 May 1898 at Heemstede and got three daughters and and an on his birthday dying son: Truus, a poet (1899-1960), the early dying lost son Everardus (1901), Ida (1912-1997) and Mia "Marie"(1918-1988). Before Ida (called "Zus", sister) was born, there had been a brother Everardus (1901), who only lived for one day. His death traumatised her mother, who raised Ida with a rigid and hard hand. Ida got feelings of inferiority, as she felt that her mother idealised her five years elder sister and she could not compete with her mothers idealised lost son. Ida on the other hand idealised her mild and kind father, who like her was a scholar. Ida and her sister Truus liked to read in silence, but were often disturbed in it by their anxious mother. In 1916, Ida visited the Erasmus Gymnasium at Rotterdam, where she met the poet and classicist J.H. Leopold (Dbnl), who was her teacher Greek from 1920 till 1923. She idealised Leopold and was also mirrored by him, as he recognised her extreme intellectual giftedness. Here she also met her later female partner for life Marie van der Zeyde. Though Ida was very intelligent, she sacked in the fist class (1917), most likely because of emotional problems related to her not at all supporting, maybe even envying her, anxious mother. In 1923 her family moved from Rotterdam to Wassenaar. Inspired by Leopold, she studied classical languages at Leiden University in 1924. She had a room for her self in the Hogewoerd at Leiden and became a member of the "Vereeniging van Vrouwelijke Studenten" (VVSL) at Rapenburg 65, Leiden. Here she felt at home and today one can still find a text from her via the art work of Jaqueline Ravelli: "Hier was het: ons huis onze tuin onze staat/ En ons werk. Dat onvervaard verder gaat." (Here it was: our house, our garden, our state / And our work. That steadily moves on). Time steadily going on, developing its own ways, like a slow streaming Lowlands river, would become the major theme in her metrical classical work. In 1924 her mother went suicidal and had to be admitted into a psychiatric hospital. Ida loved Leiden, but after a quarrel with her family, she was denied the access to her parental house and was forced to go to Utrecht University, this time not supported by her parents, but by her brother-in-law via Truus Sidney van den Bergh. she preferred to stay in Leiden, where the study Classical languages was more literate, but in Utrecht she met her life of school friend Marie Helene van der Zeyde again, who studied there Dutch letters. On 6 July 1933 she got her exam, but because there was an economical crisis she could not get a paid job as a classical teacher. Because of poverty, she nearly starved to death and got a double pleurisy. In august 1934 she was hospitalised in her parental house, that once rejected her. On 23 December 1934 her mother died. She felt somehow liberated by it. In 1935 her sister Truus published the poetry bundle "De engel met de zonnewijzer." (The angle with the sundial). Ida debuted on 27 June 1936 with the poem "Kinderspel" (A piece of cake, Child play) in the Magazine "Tijd Read less