Joost van den Vondel (1587–1679)

Vondel could, with some justification, be considered the Shakespeare of the Netherlands because of his output and influence on dramatic art. A contemporary of Shakespeare (see Vol. 1), Vondel was born in Cologne but, as an infant, moved to Amsterdam with his parents where, as soon as he was old toon meer enough, he helped his father run a silk stocking shop. To a large extent, Vondel was a self-made man: he taught himself both classical and modern languages, and several of his 32 plays bear witness to the fact that he had a thorough knowledge of classical culture and the Bible as well. In his best-known historical play, Gijsbrecht van Amstel (1637), he describes the siege and consequent destruction of Amsterdam, but moulds it accurately on Virgil's report on the fall of Troy in Aeneas. In another historical play, Maria Stuart (1646), he launches a fierce attack on Queen Elizabeth. Vondel's parents, being Baptists, had fled from Antwerp to Cologne in order to escape persecution. He adopted the Roman Catholic faith at age 40 and was deeply involved in the religious conflicts between Remonstrants and anti-Remonstrants. It is not surprising, therefore, that his biblical plays far outnumber the historical ones. He regarded his Jeptha (1657) as a model classical play, for it fully complied with all the rules of Aristotle: the play has five acts; the first four are followed by a chorus; the unities of time and place are strictly maintained; the lines are written in perfect alexandrines; and Jeptha is the perfect tragic hero, who falls, not because he is basically bad or sinful, but because of evil conquering good, with Jeptha the innocent victim. The tragic death of Jeptha's daughter, owing to a foolish commitment her father had made, is movingly and convincingly told in a style and language which, in contrast to the themes, is more Baroque than Renaissance in character. On the basis of his sensitive and observant nature, Vondel considered himself called upon to react poetically to a variety of topical occurrences, varying from the beheading of Grand Pensionary van Oldenbarneveld, which Vondel described as a legal murder, to the premature deaths of two of his three children. The phrase 's Landts oudste en grootste poeet (the country's oldest and greatest poet) was coined specially on the occasion of Vondel's funeral in 1679 and has continued undisputed after more than three hundred years. (Bowker Author Biography) toon minder