Primary Contributors:
Aron Ouwerkerk
Detail of letter of 20 May 1695 from Elisabeth Hoofman-Koolaart to Theodorus Janssonius Van Almeloveen. (Universiteitsbibliotheek Utrecht, Ms. 995IV (= 6k13), fol. 130r; image courtesy of Universiteitsbibliotheek Utrecht.)
Elisabeth Hoofman-Koolaart (1664–1736)
Elisabeth Hoofman-Koolaart was a poet and intellectual who was celebrated locally in the city of Haarlem in the Dutch Republic. Born into a wealthy Mennonite merchant family, she proved her talent for learning and composing verse (allegedly from the early age of six) and received private tutoring from a teacher named Jacob Storm, who worked at the local Latin school. Her education focused primarily on the literae humaniores, that is on learning the language and culture of Ancient Rome and Greece. Over a period of five years under Storm’s guidance, she read ‘all the usual Latin poets and historians, but simultaneously also […] the ground text of the New Testament, Aelianus, Anacreon, and Pindar’. The quality of her youthful poems confirms the sound classical education she enjoyed.
In 1693, Hoofman married Pieter Koolaart (1656–1732), a successful merchant with a deep interest in literature and the liberal arts. Koolaart had one daughter, Hester (c. 1684–1737), from a previous marriage and, shortly after their wedding, Hoofman gave birth to her only biological child, Petronella Elisabeth Harmes (née Koolaart; born before May 1695). The young family remained in Haarlem and became integrated within the city’s elite society. During her marriage, in contrast with many other female Dutch authors of the early modern period, Hoofman continued to write (mainly occasional) poetry in Dutch and in Latin for her family and friends. In 1774, a selection of her poems was published posthumously by Willem Kops (1724–1776), a relative of friends of Hoofman’s parents.
Most biographers agree that until 1717 Hoofman and her family led a comfortable life in Haarlem. During that year, their alleged extravagant lifestyle may have caused them to suffer financial hardship. However, no primary source has been found to indicate when, how, or even whether such a crisis befell the family. Nevertheless, Pieter Koolaart sought a fresh source of income around that time and, in 1721, he was offered a new position as a director of trade by Charles I, landgrave of Hesse-Kassel. The family moved to Kassel in May of the following year.
Beyond what is found in her poems, little is known of the final period of Hoofman’s life. She wrote a remarkable number of celebratory poems for her husband’s new employer, most probably to secure or increase the family’s income. Koolaart died in 1732 and Hoofman was left to support the family. Proof of their successful integration into Hesse-Kassel society is that, in 1734, Petronella married the son of the court printer. Hoofman died at the age of 72, just two years after her daughter’s marriage.
Partners and Additional Contributors
Special thanks are due to Dirk van Miert and Nina Geerdink (Utrecht University) for their invaluable assistance in the editor’s inquiry into the life and work of Hoofman-Koolaart, and to Ineke Huysman for the suggestion that these letters be added to the EMLO union catalogue, where they make up part of the collection of Women’s Early Modern Letters Online.
Key Bibliographic Source(s)
A substantial part of the metadata was collected as part of the editor’s MA thesis ‘‘Decus reipublicae litterariae’ Elisabeth Koolaart-Hoofman and Her Engagement in the Republic of Letters (1695–1705). With an Edition of Her Correspondence’ (unpublished Master’s thesis, Utrecht University, 2022). A complete inventory of Theodorus Janssonius van Almeloveen’s letters, including his correspondence with Hoofman, can be found in Saskia Stegeman, ‘Patronage and Services in the Republic of Letters: The Network of Theodorus Janssonius van Almeloveen (1657–1712)’ (Amsterdam, 2005). For a description of Hoofman’s correspondence with Willem Sewel (1653–1720), see William I. Hull, ‘Willem Sewel of Amsterdam, 1653–1720: the first Quaker historian of Quakerism’ (Swarthmore, 1933).
Contents
The Latin correspondence between Hoofman and Theodorus Janssonius Van Almeloveen (1657–1712) has been preserved as part of the latter’s manuscript collection, which is to be found today in the Special Collections of Utrecht University. Hoofman’s letters to Van Almeloveen exist in autograph, whereas his letters to her survive only in draft (other evidence suggests strongly that his draft versions normally closely resembled the letters that he actually sent). Their exchange comprises a total of fifty-one sent letters, twenty-seven from his hand, and twenty-four from hers, excluding a handful of poems that she attached to her correspondence. The epistolary exchange started in May 1695 and lasted at least until September 1705. Text-internal evidence suggests that a number of letters written between 1695 and 1705 are missing. This is most certainly the case for the year 1700, for which only Van Almeloveen’s side of the correspondence is preserved. After September 1705, no letters are extant. Their last letter, however, does not imply a conclusion and it is possible that the correspondence continued subsequently.
Besides Hoofman’s correspondence with Van Almeloveen, there exists a correspondence in Latin between her and the Dutch Quaker historian and linguist William Sewel (1653–1720), sent between November 1692 and October 1697. From this correspondence, however, only the latter’s letters, twelve in number, have survived in manuscript copy. These were analyzed for the first time by William Hull in his 1933 biography of Sewel and are in the care of The Library of the Society of Friends in London.
A publication containing a critical edition of Hoofman’s complete surviving correspondence, including an accessory translation into English, is in preparation.
Further resources
Bibliography
Nina Geerdink, ‘Possibilities of Patronage: The Dutch Poet Elisabeth Hoofman and Her German Patrons’, in Economic Imperatives for Women’s Writing in Early Modern Europe, ed. C. F. Paz and N. Geerdink (Leiden, 2018), pp. 124–46.
William. I. Hull, Willem Sewel of Amsterdam, 1653–1720. The First Quaker Historian of Quakerism (Swarthmore, 1933).
W. R. D. van Oostrum, ‘Hoofman, Elisabeth (1664–1736)‘, ‘Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland’ (online: 2014).
Aron Ouwerkerk, ‘Kom terug, mon chou! Een Neolatijnse heldinnenbrief van Elisabeth Hoofman ontdekt’, Hermeneus, 93, 3 (2021), pp. 26–33.
Aron Ouwerkerk, ‘”Decus reipublicae litterariae”. Elisabeth Koolaart-Hoofman and Her Engagement in the Republic of Letters (1695–1705). With an Edition of Her Correspondence’ (unpublished Master’s thesis, Utrecht University, 2022).
Saskia Stegeman, ‘Geleerde vrouwen als verzamelobject. De voorgenomen uitgave over geleerde vrouwen van Theodorus Janssonius van Almeloveen (1657–1712)’, De Zeventiende Eeuw, 13 (1997), pp. 447–55.
Saskia Stegeman, Patronage and Services in the Republic of Letters: The Network of Theodorus Janssonius van Almeloveen (1657–1712) (Amsterdam, 2005).
Jane Stevenson, Women Latin Poets. Language, Gender, and Authority, from Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 2005), pp. 353 and 480–1.
Ton van Strien, ‘Elisabeth Hoofman’, in Met en zonder lauwerkrans. Schrijvende vrouwen uit de vroegmoderne tijd 1550–1850: van Anna Bijns tot Elise van Calcar, ed. M. A Schenkeveld-van der Dussen and K. Porteman (Amsterdam, 1997), pp. 441–4.