Dutch Renaissance and Golden Age literature
Encyclopedia
Dutch Renaissance and Golden Age literature is the literature
written in the Dutch language
in the Low Countries
from around 1550 to around 1700. This period saw great political and religious changes as the Reformation
spread across Northern and Western Europe
and the Netherlands fought for independence in the Eighty Years' War.
(see Medieval Dutch literature
) in Brabant
and Flanders attempted to put new life into the stereotype
d forms of the preceding age by introducing in original composition the new-found branches of Latin
and Greek
poetry
. The leader of these men was Johan Baptista Houwaert (1533–1599), a personage of considerable political influence in his generation. Houwaert held the title of Counsellor and Master in Ordinary of the Exchequer
to the Duchy of Brabant. He considered himself a devout disciple of Matthijs de Casteleyn, but his great characteristic was his unbounded love of classical and mythological
fancy. His didactic poems are composed in a rococo
style; of all his writings, Pegasides Pleyn ("The Palace of Maidens"), a didactic poem in sixteen books dedicated to a discussion of the variety of earthly love, is the most remarkable. Houwaert's contemporaries nicknamed him the "Homer
of Brabant"; later criticism has preferred to see in him an important link in the chain of didactic Dutch which ends in Cats
.
found its first expression in the composition of Psalms. The earliest printed collection appeared at Antwerp in 1540, under the title of Souter-Liedekens ("Psalter
Songs") and was dedicated to a Dutch nobleman, Willem van Zuylen van Nieuvelt, by whose name it is usually known. This collection, however, was made before the Reformation in the Low Countries really set in. For the Protestant congregations, Jan Utenhove
printed a volume of Psalms in London
in 1566; Lucas de Heere and Petrus Datheen translated hymn
s of Clement Marot
. Datheen was not a rhetorician, but a person of humble origin who wrote in unadorned language, and his hymns spread far and wide among the people.
and triumph
sung a generation later by the victorious Reformers, the Gueux songs. The famous songbook of 1588, Een Geusen Lied Boecxken ("A Gueux Songbook"), was full of ardent and heroic sentiment. In this collection appeared for the first time such classical snatches of Dutch song as "The Ballad of Heiligerlee
" and "The Ballad of Egmont
and Horne
". The political ballads, with their ridicule
of the Spanish
leaders, form a section of the Boecxken which has proved of inestimable value to historians. All these lyrics, however, whether of victory or of martyrdom, are still very rough in form and language.
In Philips van Marnix, lord of Sint-Aldegonde (1538–1598), a personage came forward in the ranks of liberty and reform. He was born at Brussels in 1538, and began life as a disciple of Calvin
and Beza
in the schools of Geneva
. It was as a defender of the Dutch iconoclasts that he first appeared in print in August 1566. He soon became one of the leading spirits in the war of Dutch independence and the intimate friend of the Prince of Orange. The lyrics to Wilhelmus, the Dutch national anthem, an apology
of the actions of the Prince of Orange composed around 1568, are ascribed to Marnix. In 1569 Marnix completed Biëncorf der Heilige Roomsche Kercke ("Beehive of the Roman Catholic Church"). In this satire
he was inspired by François Rabelais
, of whom he was a disciple. It is written in prose that is considered to mark an epoch in the language and literature of the Low Countries. Overwhelmed with the press of public business
, Marnix wrote little more until in 1580 he published Het boeck der psalmen Davids ("The Book of the Psalms of David
"), newly translated out of the Hebrew
. He occupied the last years of his life in preparing a Dutch version of the Bible
, translated directly from the original. At his death, only Genesis was found completely revised; but in 1619 the Synod of Dort
placed the unfinished work in the hands of four theologians.
This translation by Marnix proved the starting point for a new complete translation of the Bible into Dutch. The Synod had been convened to settle a number of politico-theological issues, but also decided to appoint a committee to translate the Bible. Representatives of nearly all provinces participated in the project, which sought to use a language intermediate between the main Dutch dialects to be intelligible to all Dutchmen. With the resulting translation, called Statenvertaling
or "States' Translation", an important cornerstone was laid for the standard Dutch language as it appears today.
, equally interested in the progress of national emancipation and in the development of national literature. He was a native of Amsterdam, but he did not take part in the labours of the old chamber of the Eglantine. Quite early in life he proceeded to Haarlem
, becoming pensionary
of the town. In 1566 Coornhert was imprisoned for his support of the Reformers, and in 1572 he became secretary to the States of Holland. He practised the art of etching
and spent all his spare time in the pursuit of classical learning
. In 1585 he translated Boethius
, and then gave his full attention to his original masterpiece, the Zedekunst ("Art of Ethics
", 1586), a philosophical treatise
in prose in which he tried to adapt the Dutch tongue to the grace and simplicity of Michel de Montaigne
's French
. His humanism
unites the Bible, Plutarch
and Marcus Aurelius in one grand system of ethics and is expressed in a bright style. Coornhert died at Gouda
on October 29, 1590; his works were first collected in 1630.
By this time, the religious and political upheaval in the Low Countries had resulted in 1581 in an Act of Abjuration of Philip II of Spain
, a key moment in the and the subsequent eighty years' struggle 1568-1648. As a result, the southern provinces
, some of which had supported the declaration, were separated from the northern provinces
as they remained under Habsburg rule. Ultimately, this would result in the present-day states of Belgium
and Luxembourg
(south) and The Netherlands (north). The rise of the northern provinces to independent statehood was accompanied by a cultural renaissance. The north received a cultural and intellectual boost whereas in the south, Dutch was to some extent replaced by French and Latin as the languages of culture.
prevented him perhaps from exercising as much public influence as he exercised privately among his younger friends. The same may be said of the man who in 1614 first collected Spieghel's writings and published them in a volume together with his own verse. Roemer Visscher
(1547–1620) proceeded a step further than Spieghel in the cultivation of polite letters. He was deeply tinged with a spirit of classical learning. His own disciples called him the Dutch Martial
, but he was at best little more than an amateur in poetry, although an amateur whose function it was to perceive and encourage the genius of professional writers. Roemer Visscher stands at the threshold of the new Renaissance
literature, himself practising the faded arts of the rhetoricians, but pointing by his counsel and his conversation to the naturalism of the great period.
It was in the salon at Amsterdam which Visscher's daughters formed around their father and themselves that the new school began to take form. The republic of the United Provinces
, with Amsterdam at its head, had suddenly risen to first rank among the nations of Europe and it was under the influence of so much new ambition that the country asserted itself in a great school of painting and poetry.
The intellectual life of the Low Countries was concentrated in the provinces of Holland and Zeeland
, while the universities
of Leiden, Groningen, Utrecht
, Amsterdam, Harderwijk
and Franeker
were enriched by a flock of learned exiles from Flanders and Brabant. Visscher realised that the path of literary honour lay not along the utilitarian road cut out by Maerlant and his followers, but in the study of beauty and antiquity
. In this he was aided by the school of ripe and enthusiastic scholars who began to flourish at Leiden, such as Drusius
, Vossius
and Hugo Grotius
, who themselves wrote little in Dutch but chastened the style of the rising generation by insisting on a pure and liberal Latinity.
Out of that generation arose the classic names in Dutch literature: Vondel
, Hooft
, Cats
, and Huijgens
. In their hands the language took at once its highest finish and melody. By the side of this serious and aesthetic growth there is to be noticed a quickening of the broad farcical humour which had been characteristic of the Dutch nation from its commencement. For fifty years, and these the most glorious in the annals of the Dutch republic, these two streams of influence, one towards beauty and melody, the other towards lively comedy, ran side by side, often in the same channel, and producing a rich harvest of great works. It was in the house of the daughters of Visscher that the tragedies
of Vondel, the comedies of Bredero
and the ode
s of Huygens alike found their first admirers and their best critic
s. Of the daughters of Roemer Visscher, Tesselschade
(1594–1649) wrote some well-received lyrics; she also translated Tasso
. Visscher's daughters were women of universal accomplishment and their company attracted to his house all the most gifted youths of the time, several of whom were suitors, but in vain, for the hand of Anna or of Tesselschade.
Of this Amsterdam school, the first to emerge into public notice was Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft (1581–1647). His Achilles and Polyxena (1598) displayed ease in the use of rhetorical artifices of style. In his pastoral drama of Granida (1605) he proved himself a pupil of Guarini
. In tragedy he produced Baeto and Geraard van Velsen; in history he published in 1626 his Life of Henry the Great, while from 1628 to 1642 he wrote his masterpiece, the Nederduytsche Historiën ("History of the Netherlands"). Hooft was a purist in style. In his poetry, especially in the lyrical and pastoral verse of his youth, he is full of Italian
reminiscences both of style and matter; in his noble prose work he has set himself to be a disciple of Tacitus. Hooft is considered one of the greatest historians, not merely of the Low Countries, but of Europe. His influence in standardising the language of his country can hardly be overrated. The literary circle founded by Roemer Visscher later centered around Hooft, in whose castle at Muiden
they regularly convened, and after which they were later called Muiderkring
or "Circle of Muiden".
Very different from the long and prosperous career of Hooft was the brief life of the greatest comic dramatist that the Low Countries have produced. Gerbrand Adriaensz Bredero (1585–1618), the son of an Amsterdam shoemaker, knew no Latin and had no taste for humanism; he came out of the rich humour of the people. Bredero entered the workshop of the painter Francisco Badens, but accomplished little in art. His life was embittered by a hopeless love for Tesselschade, to whom he dedicated his plays, and whose beauty he celebrated in a whole cycle of love songs.
His ideas on the subject of drama were at first a development of the medieval
abele spelen
(see Medieval Dutch literature
), but in 1612 he struck out a new and more characteristic path in his Klucht van de Koe ("Farce of the Cow"). From this time until his death he continued to pour out comedies, farces and romantic dramas, in all of which he displayed a rough genius not unlike that of Ben Jonson
, his immediate contemporary. Bredero's last and best piece was De Spaansche Brabanber Jerolimo ("Jerolimo, the Spanish Brabanter"), a satire upon the exiles from the south who filled the halls of the Amsterdam chambers of rhetoric
with their pompous speeches and preposterous Burgundian phraseology
. Bredero was closely allied in genius to the dramatists of the Shakespearian age
, but he founded no school and stands as a solitary figure in Dutch literature. He died on August 23, 1618 of complications caused by pneumonia
.
The first work of one of the best-known of all Dutch writers, Joost van den Vondel (1587–1679), was Het Pascha ("The Passover", 1612), a tragedy on the Exodus
of the people of Israel
. It was written in alexandrine
s, in five acts, and with choral interludes between the acts. He would go on to write all of his plays in this fashion, but for a number of years after his debut wrote no original material at all, instead opting to translate du Bartas
. The short and brilliant life of Bredero, his immediate contemporary and greatest rival, burned itself out in a succession of dramatic victories, and it was not until two years after the death of that great poet that Vondel appeared before the public with a second tragedy. Another five years later, in 1625, he published what seemed an innocent study from the antique, his tragedy of Palamedes, or Murdered Innocence, but which was a thinly-veiled tribute to Johan van Oldebarnevelt, the Republic's Grand Pensionary
who had been executed in 1618 by order of stadtholder
Maurice of Nassau
. Vondel became in a week the most famous writer in Holland and for the next twelve years, until the accession of stadtholder Frederick Henry
, Vondel had to maintain a hand-to-hand combat with the Calvinists of Dordrecht. This was the period of his most stinging satires; Cats
took up weapons on behalf of the Counter-Remonstrants and a war of pamphlets in verse raged.
Vondel, as the greatest playwright of the day, was asked in 1637 to write the first-night piece for the opening of a new and soon leading public theatre in Amsterdam. On the January 3, 1638 the theatre was opened with the performance of a new tragedy out of early Dutch history and to this day one of Vondel's best-known works, Gysbreght van Aemstel. The next ten years Vondel supplied the theatre with heroic Scriptural pieces, of which the general reader will obtain the best idea if we point to Jean Racine
. In 1654 Vondel brought out what most consider the best of all his works, the tragedy of Lucifer, from which it is said Milton
drew inspiration. Vondel is the typical example of Dutch intelligence and imagination at their highest development.
were the most important, started to produce writers as well, the first of which was Abraham Alewijn
(b. 1664), a comedy playwright who lived in Java and whose plays were produced in Batavia. Another writer from the colonies was Willem Godschalk van Focquenbroch (1640–1670), who lived and worked from 1668 in the Dutch possession of Elmina
in present-day Ghana
. His comedy
Min in het Lazarus-huys ("Love in the Madhouse
", 1672) was very popular in the 17th and 18th centuries.
, the capital of Zeeland. The ruling spirit of this school was Jacob Cats
(1577–1660). In this voluminous writer the genuine Dutch habit of thought, the utilitarian and didactic spirit reached its zenith
of fluency and popularity. During early middle life he produced the most important of his writings, his didactic poems, the Maechdenplicht ("Duty of Maidens") and the Sinne- en Minnebeelden ("Images of Allegory and Love"). In 1624 he moved from Middelburg to Dordrecht, where he soon after published his ethical work called Houwelick ("Marriage"); and this was followed by an entire series of moral pieces. Cats is considered somewhat dull and prosaic by some, yet his popularity with the middle classes in Holland has always been immense.
Sir Constantijn Huygens (1596–1687), perhaps best known for his witty epigram
s. He threw in his lot with the school of Amsterdam and became the intimate friend and companion of Vondel, Hooft and the daughters of Roemer Visscher. Huygens had little of the sweetness of Hooft or of the sublimity of Vondel, but his genius was bright and vivacious, and he was a consummate artist in metrical form. The Dutch language has never proved so light and supple in any hands as in his, and, he attempted no class of writing, whether in prose or verse, that he did not adorn by his delicate taste and sound judgment.
, but the names of Hugo Grotius
(1583–1645) and Baruch Spinoza
(1632–1677) belong more to philosophy and politics than literature.
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
written in the Dutch language
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
in the Low Countries
Low Countries
The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....
from around 1550 to around 1700. This period saw great political and religious changes as the Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
spread across Northern and Western Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and the Netherlands fought for independence in the Eighty Years' War.
Rhetoricians
In the middle of the 16th century, a group of rhetoriciansChamber of rhetoric
Chambers of rhetoric were dramatic societies in the Low Countries. Their members are called Rederijkers , from the french word 'rhétoricien', and during the 15th and 16th centuries were mainly interested in dramas and lyrics...
(see Medieval Dutch literature
Medieval Dutch literature
Medieval Dutch literature is the Dutch literature produced in the Low Countries from the earliest stages of the language up to the sixteenth century.-Early stages:...
) in Brabant
Duchy of Brabant
The Duchy of Brabant was a historical region in the Low Countries. Its territory consisted essentially of the three modern-day Belgian provinces of Flemish Brabant, Walloon Brabant and Antwerp, the Brussels-Capital Region and most of the present-day Dutch province of North Brabant.The Flag of...
and Flanders attempted to put new life into the stereotype
Stereotype
A stereotype is a popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings...
d forms of the preceding age by introducing in original composition the new-found branches of Latin
Classical Latin
Classical Latin in simplest terms is the socio-linguistic register of the Latin language regarded by the enfranchised and empowered populations of the late Roman republic and the Roman empire as good Latin. Most writers during this time made use of it...
and Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
. The leader of these men was Johan Baptista Houwaert (1533–1599), a personage of considerable political influence in his generation. Houwaert held the title of Counsellor and Master in Ordinary of the Exchequer
Exchequer
The Exchequer is a government department of the United Kingdom responsible for the management and collection of taxation and other government revenues. The historical Exchequer developed judicial roles...
to the Duchy of Brabant. He considered himself a devout disciple of Matthijs de Casteleyn, but his great characteristic was his unbounded love of classical and mythological
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
fancy. His didactic poems are composed in a rococo
Rococo
Rococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...
style; of all his writings, Pegasides Pleyn ("The Palace of Maidens"), a didactic poem in sixteen books dedicated to a discussion of the variety of earthly love, is the most remarkable. Houwaert's contemporaries nicknamed him the "Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
of Brabant"; later criticism has preferred to see in him an important link in the chain of didactic Dutch which ends in Cats
Jacob Cats
Jacob Cats was a Dutch poet, humorist, jurist and politician. He is most famous for his emblem books.-Early years:...
.
Metrical Psalms
The stir and revival of intellectual life that arrived with the ReformationProtestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
found its first expression in the composition of Psalms. The earliest printed collection appeared at Antwerp in 1540, under the title of Souter-Liedekens ("Psalter
Psalter
A psalter is a volume containing the Book of Psalms, often with other devotional material bound in as well, such as a liturgical calendar and litany of the Saints. Until the later medieval emergence of the book of hours, psalters were the books most widely owned by wealthy lay persons and were...
Songs") and was dedicated to a Dutch nobleman, Willem van Zuylen van Nieuvelt, by whose name it is usually known. This collection, however, was made before the Reformation in the Low Countries really set in. For the Protestant congregations, Jan Utenhove
Jan Utenhove
Jan Utenhove was a writer from the Low Countries best known for his translations into the Dutch language of the Psalms and the New Testament.-Life:...
printed a volume of Psalms in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1566; Lucas de Heere and Petrus Datheen translated hymn
Hymn
A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification...
s of Clement Marot
Clément Marot
Clément Marot was a French poet of the Renaissance period.-Youth:Marot was born at Cahors, the capital of the province of Quercy, some time during the winter of 1496-1497. His father, Jean Marot , whose more correct name appears to have been des Mares, Marais or Marets, was a Norman from the Caen...
. Datheen was not a rhetorician, but a person of humble origin who wrote in unadorned language, and his hymns spread far and wide among the people.
Battle hymns
Very different in tone were the battle songs of libertyLiberty
Liberty is a moral and political principle, or Right, that identifies the condition in which human beings are able to govern themselves, to behave according to their own free will, and take responsibility for their actions...
and triumph
Trionfo
Trionfo is an Italian word meaning "triumph", also "triumphal procession", and a car or float in such a procession. It may derive from a call of triumph during antique triumphal processions: "Io triumpe"...
sung a generation later by the victorious Reformers, the Gueux songs. The famous songbook of 1588, Een Geusen Lied Boecxken ("A Gueux Songbook"), was full of ardent and heroic sentiment. In this collection appeared for the first time such classical snatches of Dutch song as "The Ballad of Heiligerlee
Battle of Heiligerlee
The Battle of Heiligerlee was fought between Dutch rebels and the Spanish army of Friesland. This was the first Dutch victory during the Eighty Years' War....
" and "The Ballad of Egmont
Lamoral, Count of Egmont
Lamoral, Count of Egmont, Prince of Gavere was a general and statesman in the Habsburg Netherlands just before the start of the Eighty Years' War, whose execution helped spark the national uprising that eventually led to the independence of the Netherlands.The Count of Egmont headed one of the...
and Horne
Philip de Montmorency, Count of Hoorn
Philip de Montmorency was also known as Count of Horn or Hoorne or Hoorn.-Biography:De Montmorency was born, between 1518 and 1526, possibly at the Ooidonk Castle, as the son of Jozef van Montmorency, Count of Nevele and Anna van Egmont...
". The political ballads, with their ridicule
Ridicule
Ridicule is a 1996 French film set in the 18th century at the decadent court of Versailles, where social status can rise and fall based on one's ability to mete out witty insults and avoid ridicule oneself...
of the Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
leaders, form a section of the Boecxken which has proved of inestimable value to historians. All these lyrics, however, whether of victory or of martyrdom, are still very rough in form and language.
Marnix of St-Aldegonde
John Calvin
John Calvin was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530...
and Beza
Theodore Beza
Theodore Beza was a French Protestant Christian theologian and scholar who played an important role in the Reformation...
in the schools of Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
. It was as a defender of the Dutch iconoclasts that he first appeared in print in August 1566. He soon became one of the leading spirits in the war of Dutch independence and the intimate friend of the Prince of Orange. The lyrics to Wilhelmus, the Dutch national anthem, an apology
Apologetics
Apologetics is the discipline of defending a position through the systematic use of reason. Early Christian writers Apologetics (from Greek ἀπολογία, "speaking in defense") is the discipline of defending a position (often religious) through the systematic use of reason. Early Christian writers...
of the actions of the Prince of Orange composed around 1568, are ascribed to Marnix. In 1569 Marnix completed Biëncorf der Heilige Roomsche Kercke ("Beehive of the Roman Catholic Church"). In this satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
he was inspired by François Rabelais
François Rabelais
François Rabelais was a major French Renaissance writer, doctor, Renaissance humanist, monk and Greek scholar. He has historically been regarded as a writer of fantasy, satire, the grotesque, bawdy jokes and songs...
, of whom he was a disciple. It is written in prose that is considered to mark an epoch in the language and literature of the Low Countries. Overwhelmed with the press of public business
Public administration
Public Administration houses the implementation of government policy and an academic discipline that studies this implementation and that prepares civil servants for this work. As a "field of inquiry with a diverse scope" its "fundamental goal.....
, Marnix wrote little more until in 1580 he published Het boeck der psalmen Davids ("The Book of the Psalms of David
David
David was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible and, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Saint Joseph and Mary...
"), newly translated out of the Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
. He occupied the last years of his life in preparing a Dutch version of the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
, translated directly from the original. At his death, only Genesis was found completely revised; but in 1619 the Synod of Dort
Synod of Dort
The Synod of Dort was a National Synod held in Dordrecht in 1618-1619, by the Dutch Reformed Church, to settle a divisive controversy initiated by the rise of Arminianism. The first meeting was on November 13, 1618, and the final meeting, the 154th, was on May 9, 1619...
placed the unfinished work in the hands of four theologians.
This translation by Marnix proved the starting point for a new complete translation of the Bible into Dutch. The Synod had been convened to settle a number of politico-theological issues, but also decided to appoint a committee to translate the Bible. Representatives of nearly all provinces participated in the project, which sought to use a language intermediate between the main Dutch dialects to be intelligible to all Dutchmen. With the resulting translation, called Statenvertaling
Statenvertaling
The Statenvertaling or Statenbijbel is the first Bible translation from the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek languages to the Dutch language, ordered by the government of the Protestant Dutch Republic first published in 1637.The first complete Dutch Bible was printed in Antwerp in 1526 by Jacob...
or "States' Translation", an important cornerstone was laid for the standard Dutch language as it appears today.
Coornhert
Dirck Volckertszoon Coornhert (1522–1590), was the Low Countries' first truly humanist writer. Coornhert was a typical burgher of North HollandNorth Holland
North Holland |West Frisian]]: Noard-Holland) is a province situated on the North Sea in the northwest part of the Netherlands. The provincial capital is Haarlem and its largest city is Amsterdam.-Geography:...
, equally interested in the progress of national emancipation and in the development of national literature. He was a native of Amsterdam, but he did not take part in the labours of the old chamber of the Eglantine. Quite early in life he proceeded to Haarlem
Haarlem
Haarlem is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland, the northern half of Holland, which at one time was the most powerful of the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic...
, becoming pensionary
Pensionary
A pensionary was a name given to the leading functionary and legal adviser of the principal town corporations in the Netherlands because they received a salary, or pension.-Historical development:...
of the town. In 1566 Coornhert was imprisoned for his support of the Reformers, and in 1572 he became secretary to the States of Holland. He practised the art of etching
Etching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...
and spent all his spare time in the pursuit of classical learning
Classics
Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...
. In 1585 he translated Boethius
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boëthius, commonly called Boethius was a philosopher of the early 6th century. He was born in Rome to an ancient and important family which included emperors Petronius Maximus and Olybrius and many consuls. His father, Flavius Manlius Boethius, was consul in 487 after...
, and then gave his full attention to his original masterpiece, the Zedekunst ("Art of Ethics
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
", 1586), a philosophical treatise
Treatise
A treatise is a formal and systematic written discourse on some subject, generally longer and treating it in greater depth than an essay, and more concerned with investigating or exposing the principles of the subject.-Noteworthy treatises:...
in prose in which he tried to adapt the Dutch tongue to the grace and simplicity of Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne , February 28, 1533 – September 13, 1592, was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance, known for popularising the essay as a literary genre and is popularly thought of as the father of Modern Skepticism...
's French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
. His humanism
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
unites the Bible, Plutarch
Plutarch
Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
and Marcus Aurelius in one grand system of ethics and is expressed in a bright style. Coornhert died at Gouda
Gouda
Gouda is a city and municipality in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. Gouda, which was granted city rights in 1272, is famous for its Gouda cheese, smoking pipes, and 15th-century city hall....
on October 29, 1590; his works were first collected in 1630.
By this time, the religious and political upheaval in the Low Countries had resulted in 1581 in an Act of Abjuration of Philip II of Spain
Philip II of Spain
Philip II was King of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily, and, while married to Mary I, King of England and Ireland. He was lord of the Seventeen Provinces from 1556 until 1581, holding various titles for the individual territories such as duke or count....
, a key moment in the and the subsequent eighty years' struggle 1568-1648. As a result, the southern provinces
Southern Netherlands
Southern Netherlands were a part of the Low Countries controlled by Spain , Austria and annexed by France...
, some of which had supported the declaration, were separated from the northern provinces
Dutch Republic
The Dutch Republic — officially known as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands , the Republic of the United Netherlands, or the Republic of the Seven United Provinces — was a republic in Europe existing from 1581 to 1795, preceding the Batavian Republic and ultimately...
as they remained under Habsburg rule. Ultimately, this would result in the present-day states of Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
and Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...
(south) and The Netherlands (north). The rise of the northern provinces to independent statehood was accompanied by a cultural renaissance. The north received a cultural and intellectual boost whereas in the south, Dutch was to some extent replaced by French and Latin as the languages of culture.
Literature of the Dutch Golden Age
At Amsterdam two men took a very prominent place thanks to their intelligence and modern spirit. The first, Hendrick Laurensz. Spieghel (1549–1612) was a humanist, less polemical than Coornhert. His chief contribution to literature was his Twe-spraack van de Nederduytsche Letterkunst ("Dialogue on Dutch Literature"), a philological exhortation urging the Dutch nation to purify and enrich its tongue at the fountains of antiquity. That Spieghel was a CatholicCatholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
prevented him perhaps from exercising as much public influence as he exercised privately among his younger friends. The same may be said of the man who in 1614 first collected Spieghel's writings and published them in a volume together with his own verse. Roemer Visscher
Roemer Visscher
Roemer Pieterszoon Visscher was a successful Dutch merchant and writer in the period often called the Dutch Golden Age.-Life:...
(1547–1620) proceeded a step further than Spieghel in the cultivation of polite letters. He was deeply tinged with a spirit of classical learning. His own disciples called him the Dutch Martial
Martial
Marcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...
, but he was at best little more than an amateur in poetry, although an amateur whose function it was to perceive and encourage the genius of professional writers. Roemer Visscher stands at the threshold of the new Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
literature, himself practising the faded arts of the rhetoricians, but pointing by his counsel and his conversation to the naturalism of the great period.
It was in the salon at Amsterdam which Visscher's daughters formed around their father and themselves that the new school began to take form. The republic of the United Provinces
Dutch Republic
The Dutch Republic — officially known as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands , the Republic of the United Netherlands, or the Republic of the Seven United Provinces — was a republic in Europe existing from 1581 to 1795, preceding the Batavian Republic and ultimately...
, with Amsterdam at its head, had suddenly risen to first rank among the nations of Europe and it was under the influence of so much new ambition that the country asserted itself in a great school of painting and poetry.
The intellectual life of the Low Countries was concentrated in the provinces of Holland and Zeeland
Zeeland
Zeeland , also called Zealand in English, is the westernmost province of the Netherlands. The province, located in the south-west of the country, consists of a number of islands and a strip bordering Belgium. Its capital is Middelburg. With a population of about 380,000, its area is about...
, while the universities
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
of Leiden, Groningen, Utrecht
Utrecht University
Utrecht University is a university in Utrecht, Netherlands. It is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands and one of the largest in Europe. Established March 26, 1636, it had an enrollment of 29,082 students in 2008, and employed 8,614 faculty and staff, 570 of which are full professors....
, Amsterdam, Harderwijk
University of Harderwijk
The University of Harderwijk , also named the Guelders Academy , was located in the town of Harderwijk, in the Republic of the United Provinces...
and Franeker
University of Franeker
The University of Franeker was a university in Franeker, Friesland, presently part of the Netherlands. It was the second oldest university of the Netherlands, founded shortly after Leiden University....
were enriched by a flock of learned exiles from Flanders and Brabant. Visscher realised that the path of literary honour lay not along the utilitarian road cut out by Maerlant and his followers, but in the study of beauty and antiquity
Ancient history
Ancient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of recorded human history to the Early Middle Ages. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, with Cuneiform script, the oldest discovered form of coherent writing, from the protoliterate period around the 30th century BC...
. In this he was aided by the school of ripe and enthusiastic scholars who began to flourish at Leiden, such as Drusius
Johannes van den Driesche
Johannes van den Driesche [or Drusius] was a Flemish Protestant divine, distinguished specially as an Orientalist, Christian Hebraist and exegete.-Life:He was born at Oudenarde, in Flanders...
, Vossius
Gerhard Johann Vossius
thumb|180px|Gerrit Johan VossiusGerrit Janszoon Vos , often known by his Latin name Gerardus Vossius, was a Dutch classical scholar and theologian.-Life:...
and Hugo Grotius
Hugo Grotius
Hugo Grotius , also known as Huig de Groot, Hugo Grocio or Hugo de Groot, was a jurist in the Dutch Republic. With Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili he laid the foundations for international law, based on natural law...
, who themselves wrote little in Dutch but chastened the style of the rising generation by insisting on a pure and liberal Latinity.
Out of that generation arose the classic names in Dutch literature: Vondel
Joost van den Vondel
Joost van den Vondel was a Dutch writer and playwright. He is considered the most prominent Dutch poet and playwright of the 17th century. His plays are the ones from that period that are still most frequently performed, and his epic Joannes de Boetgezant , on the life of John the Baptist, has...
, Hooft
Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft
Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft - Knight in the Order of Saint Michael - was a Dutch historian, poet and playwright from the period known as the Dutch Golden Age.-Life:...
, Cats
Jacob Cats
Jacob Cats was a Dutch poet, humorist, jurist and politician. He is most famous for his emblem books.-Early years:...
, and Huijgens
Constantijn Huygens
Constantijn Huygens , was a Dutch Golden Age poet and composer. He was secretary to two Princes of Orange: Frederick Henry and William II, and the father of the scientist Christiaan Huygens.-Biography:...
. In their hands the language took at once its highest finish and melody. By the side of this serious and aesthetic growth there is to be noticed a quickening of the broad farcical humour which had been characteristic of the Dutch nation from its commencement. For fifty years, and these the most glorious in the annals of the Dutch republic, these two streams of influence, one towards beauty and melody, the other towards lively comedy, ran side by side, often in the same channel, and producing a rich harvest of great works. It was in the house of the daughters of Visscher that the tragedies
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
of Vondel, the comedies of Bredero
Gerbrand Adriaensz Bredero
Gerbrand Adriaensz Bredero was a Dutch poet and playwright in the period known as the Dutch Golden Age.-Life:...
and the ode
Ode
Ode is a type of lyrical verse. A classic ode is structured in three major parts: the strophe, the antistrophe, and the epode. Different forms such as the homostrophic ode and the irregular ode also exist...
s of Huygens alike found their first admirers and their best critic
Critic
A critic is anyone who expresses a value judgement. Informally, criticism is a common aspect of all human expression and need not necessarily imply skilled or accurate expressions of judgement. Critical judgements, good or bad, may be positive , negative , or balanced...
s. Of the daughters of Roemer Visscher, Tesselschade
Maria Tesselschade Visscher
Maria Tesselschade Roemers Visscher, also called Maria Tesselschade Roemersdochter Visscher or Tesselschade was a Dutch poet and engraver.-Life:...
(1594–1649) wrote some well-received lyrics; she also translated Tasso
Torquato Tasso
Torquato Tasso was an Italian poet of the 16th century, best known for his poem La Gerusalemme liberata , in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade, during the siege of Jerusalem...
. Visscher's daughters were women of universal accomplishment and their company attracted to his house all the most gifted youths of the time, several of whom were suitors, but in vain, for the hand of Anna or of Tesselschade.
P. C. Hooft
Giovanni Battista Guarini
Giovanni Battista Guarini was an Italian poet, dramatist, and diplomat.- Life :He was born in Ferrara, and spent his early life both in Padua and Ferrara, entering the service of Alfonso II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, in 1567...
. In tragedy he produced Baeto and Geraard van Velsen; in history he published in 1626 his Life of Henry the Great, while from 1628 to 1642 he wrote his masterpiece, the Nederduytsche Historiën ("History of the Netherlands"). Hooft was a purist in style. In his poetry, especially in the lyrical and pastoral verse of his youth, he is full of Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
reminiscences both of style and matter; in his noble prose work he has set himself to be a disciple of Tacitus. Hooft is considered one of the greatest historians, not merely of the Low Countries, but of Europe. His influence in standardising the language of his country can hardly be overrated. The literary circle founded by Roemer Visscher later centered around Hooft, in whose castle at Muiden
Muiden
Muiden is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It lies at the mouth of the Vecht and is in an area called the Vechtstreek.-Population centres :...
they regularly convened, and after which they were later called Muiderkring
Muiderkring
In the Golden Age of the Dutch Republic, roughly equivalent to the later half of the 17th century, the Muiderkring was the name given to a group of figures in the arts and sciences who regularly met at the castle of Muiden near Amsterdam...
or "Circle of Muiden".
Bredero
His ideas on the subject of drama were at first a development of the medieval
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
abele spelen
Abele spelen
The Abele Spelen are a collection of four plays contained in the valuable Hulthemse Handschrift. This manuscript dates from 1410 and is in the collection of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the Royal Library in Brussels, Belgium, hs. 15.589-623....
(see Medieval Dutch literature
Medieval Dutch literature
Medieval Dutch literature is the Dutch literature produced in the Low Countries from the earliest stages of the language up to the sixteenth century.-Early stages:...
), but in 1612 he struck out a new and more characteristic path in his Klucht van de Koe ("Farce of the Cow"). From this time until his death he continued to pour out comedies, farces and romantic dramas, in all of which he displayed a rough genius not unlike that of Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson
Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...
, his immediate contemporary. Bredero's last and best piece was De Spaansche Brabanber Jerolimo ("Jerolimo, the Spanish Brabanter"), a satire upon the exiles from the south who filled the halls of the Amsterdam chambers of rhetoric
Chamber of rhetoric
Chambers of rhetoric were dramatic societies in the Low Countries. Their members are called Rederijkers , from the french word 'rhétoricien', and during the 15th and 16th centuries were mainly interested in dramas and lyrics...
with their pompous speeches and preposterous Burgundian phraseology
Phraseology
In linguistics, phraseology is the study of set or fixed expressions, such as idioms, phrasal verbs, and other types of multi-word lexical units , in which the component parts of the expression take on a meaning more specific than or otherwise not predictable from the sum of their meanings when...
. Bredero was closely allied in genius to the dramatists of the Shakespearian age
Elizabethan era
The Elizabethan era was the epoch in English history of Queen Elizabeth I's reign . Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history...
, but he founded no school and stands as a solitary figure in Dutch literature. He died on August 23, 1618 of complications caused by pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
.
The Prince of Poets
The Exodus
The Exodus is the story of the departure of the Israelites from ancient Egypt described in the Hebrew Bible.Narrowly defined, the term refers only to the departure from Egypt described in the Book of Exodus; more widely, it takes in the subsequent law-givings and wanderings in the wilderness...
of the people of Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
. It was written in alexandrine
Alexandrine
An alexandrine is a line of poetic meter comprising 12 syllables. Alexandrines are common in the German literature of the Baroque period and in French poetry of the early modern and modern periods. Drama in English often used alexandrines before Marlowe and Shakespeare, by whom it was supplanted...
s, in five acts, and with choral interludes between the acts. He would go on to write all of his plays in this fashion, but for a number of years after his debut wrote no original material at all, instead opting to translate du Bartas
Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas
Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas was a French poet. A Huguenot, he served under Henry of Navarre. He is known as an epic poet. La Sepmaine; ou, Creation du monde was a hugely influential hexameral work, relating the creation of the world and the history of man...
. The short and brilliant life of Bredero, his immediate contemporary and greatest rival, burned itself out in a succession of dramatic victories, and it was not until two years after the death of that great poet that Vondel appeared before the public with a second tragedy. Another five years later, in 1625, he published what seemed an innocent study from the antique, his tragedy of Palamedes, or Murdered Innocence, but which was a thinly-veiled tribute to Johan van Oldebarnevelt, the Republic's Grand Pensionary
Grand Pensionary
The Grand Pensionary was the most important Dutch official during the time of the United Provinces. In theory he was only a civil servant of the Estates of the dominant province among the Seven United Provinces: the county of Holland...
who had been executed in 1618 by order of stadtholder
Stadtholder
A Stadtholder A Stadtholder A Stadtholder (Dutch: stadhouder [], "steward" or "lieutenant", literally place holder, holding someones place, possibly a calque of German Statthalter, French lieutenant, or Middle Latin locum tenens...
Maurice of Nassau
Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange
Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange was sovereign Prince of Orange from 1618, on the death of his eldest half brother, Philip William, Prince of Orange,...
. Vondel became in a week the most famous writer in Holland and for the next twelve years, until the accession of stadtholder Frederick Henry
Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange
Frederick Henry, or Frederik Hendrik in Dutch , was the sovereign Prince of Orange and stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel from 1625 to 1647.-Early life:...
, Vondel had to maintain a hand-to-hand combat with the Calvinists of Dordrecht. This was the period of his most stinging satires; Cats
Jacob Cats
Jacob Cats was a Dutch poet, humorist, jurist and politician. He is most famous for his emblem books.-Early years:...
took up weapons on behalf of the Counter-Remonstrants and a war of pamphlets in verse raged.
Vondel, as the greatest playwright of the day, was asked in 1637 to write the first-night piece for the opening of a new and soon leading public theatre in Amsterdam. On the January 3, 1638 the theatre was opened with the performance of a new tragedy out of early Dutch history and to this day one of Vondel's best-known works, Gysbreght van Aemstel. The next ten years Vondel supplied the theatre with heroic Scriptural pieces, of which the general reader will obtain the best idea if we point to Jean Racine
Jean Racine
Jean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...
. In 1654 Vondel brought out what most consider the best of all his works, the tragedy of Lucifer, from which it is said Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
drew inspiration. Vondel is the typical example of Dutch intelligence and imagination at their highest development.
Colonial Literature
The Republic's colonies, of which the Dutch East IndiesDutch East Indies
The Dutch East Indies was a Dutch colony that became modern Indonesia following World War II. It was formed from the nationalised colonies of the Dutch East India Company, which came under the administration of the Netherlands government in 1800....
were the most important, started to produce writers as well, the first of which was Abraham Alewijn
Abraham Alewijn
Abraham Alewijn was a jurist and in his time a well-respected poet, who distinguished himself above his contemporary poets, as evidenced from his Zede- en Harpzangen, which had its third printing in quarto in 1713. But he made himself especially valuable as a writer of comedies...
(b. 1664), a comedy playwright who lived in Java and whose plays were produced in Batavia. Another writer from the colonies was Willem Godschalk van Focquenbroch (1640–1670), who lived and worked from 1668 in the Dutch possession of Elmina
Elmina
Elmina, is a town in the Central Region, situated on a south-facing bay on the Atlantic Ocean coast of Ghana, about 12 km west of Cape Coast...
in present-day Ghana
Ghana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
. His comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
Min in het Lazarus-huys ("Love in the Madhouse
Psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals, are hospitals specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialise only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients...
", 1672) was very popular in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Jacob Cats
While most of the writers of Holland clustered around the circle of Amsterdam, a similar school arose in MiddelburgMiddelburg
Middelburg is a municipality and a city in the south-western Netherlands and the capital of the province of Zeeland. It is situated in the Midden-Zeeland region. It has a population of about 48,000.- History of Middelburg :...
, the capital of Zeeland. The ruling spirit of this school was Jacob Cats
Jacob Cats
Jacob Cats was a Dutch poet, humorist, jurist and politician. He is most famous for his emblem books.-Early years:...
(1577–1660). In this voluminous writer the genuine Dutch habit of thought, the utilitarian and didactic spirit reached its zenith
Zenith
The zenith is an imaginary point directly "above" a particular location, on the imaginary celestial sphere. "Above" means in the vertical direction opposite to the apparent gravitational force at that location. The opposite direction, i.e...
of fluency and popularity. During early middle life he produced the most important of his writings, his didactic poems, the Maechdenplicht ("Duty of Maidens") and the Sinne- en Minnebeelden ("Images of Allegory and Love"). In 1624 he moved from Middelburg to Dordrecht, where he soon after published his ethical work called Houwelick ("Marriage"); and this was followed by an entire series of moral pieces. Cats is considered somewhat dull and prosaic by some, yet his popularity with the middle classes in Holland has always been immense.
Constantijn Huygens
A versatile poet was the diplomatDiplomat
A diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organization. The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and...
Sir Constantijn Huygens (1596–1687), perhaps best known for his witty epigram
Epigram
An epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising statement. Derived from the epigramma "inscription" from ἐπιγράφειν epigraphein "to write on inscribe", this literary device has been employed for over two millennia....
s. He threw in his lot with the school of Amsterdam and became the intimate friend and companion of Vondel, Hooft and the daughters of Roemer Visscher. Huygens had little of the sweetness of Hooft or of the sublimity of Vondel, but his genius was bright and vivacious, and he was a consummate artist in metrical form. The Dutch language has never proved so light and supple in any hands as in his, and, he attempted no class of writing, whether in prose or verse, that he did not adorn by his delicate taste and sound judgment.
Philosophy
Two Dutchmen of the 17th century distinguished themselves very prominently in the movement of learning and philosophic thoughtPhilosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, but the names of Hugo Grotius
Hugo Grotius
Hugo Grotius , also known as Huig de Groot, Hugo Grocio or Hugo de Groot, was a jurist in the Dutch Republic. With Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili he laid the foundations for international law, based on natural law...
(1583–1645) and Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch de Spinoza and later Benedict de Spinoza was a Dutch Jewish philosopher. Revealing considerable scientific aptitude, the breadth and importance of Spinoza's work was not fully realized until years after his death...
(1632–1677) belong more to philosophy and politics than literature.
Summary
The period from 1600 to 1650 was a blossoming time in Dutch literature. During this period the names of great genius were first made known to the public, and the vigor and grace of literary expression reached their highest development. It happened, however, that three men of particularly commanding talent survived to an extreme old age, and under the shadow of Vondel, Cats and Huygens there sprang up a new generation which sustained the great tradition until about 1680, when decline set in.See also
- Canon of Dutch LiteratureCanon of Dutch LiteratureThe Canon of Dutch Literature comprises a list of 1000 works of Dutch Literature culturally important to Dutch Heritage, and is published on the DBNL. Several of these works are lists themselves; such as early dictionaries, lists of songs, recipes, biographies or encyclopedic compilations of...
- Renaissance in the NetherlandsRenaissance in the NetherlandsThe Renaissance in the Low Countries is the cultural period that roughly corresponds to the 16th century in the Low Countries. In 1500 the Seventeen Provinces were in a personal union under the Burgundian Dukes, and with the Flemish cities as centers of gravity, culturally and economically formed...
- For more background information on the political and cultural background against which Dutch Renaissance and Golden Age literature was composed, see the articles Eighty Years War, Dutch republicDutch RepublicThe Dutch Republic — officially known as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands , the Republic of the United Netherlands, or the Republic of the Seven United Provinces — was a republic in Europe existing from 1581 to 1795, preceding the Batavian Republic and ultimately...
, William I, Prince of Orange, Maurice of Nassau, Frederick Henry, Prince of OrangeFrederick Henry, Prince of OrangeFrederick Henry, or Frederik Hendrik in Dutch , was the sovereign Prince of Orange and stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel from 1625 to 1647.-Early life:...
and Peace of WestphaliaPeace of WestphaliaThe Peace of Westphalia was a series of peace treaties signed between May and October of 1648 in Osnabrück and Münster. These treaties ended the Thirty Years' War in the Holy Roman Empire, and the Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Dutch Republic, with Spain formally recognizing the...
(politics), and Dutch Golden AgeDutch Golden AgeThe Golden Age was a period in Dutch history, roughly spanning the 17th century, in which Dutch trade, science, military and art were among the most acclaimed in the world. The first half is characterised by the Eighty Years' War till 1648...
(culture).