Joost van den Vondel (1587–1679)
Drama and heatre in Early
Modern Europe
Editor-in-Chief
Jan Bloemendal
Editorial Board
Cora Dietl (Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen)
Jelle Koopman (University of Amsterdam)
Peter G.F. Eversmann (University of Amsterdam)
VOLUME 1
Michiel van Musscher (1645–1705), Portrait of Joost van den Vondel (1671)
(private collection)
Joost van den Vondel (1587–1679)
Dutch Playwright in the Golden Age
Edited by
Jan Bloemendal
Frans-Willem Korsten
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2012
Cover illustration: R.N. Roland Holst, poster for Lucifer by Joost van den Vondel, 1918.
his book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Joost van den Vondel (1587–1679) : Dutch playwright in the golden age / edited by Jan
Bloemendal, Frans-Willem Korsten.
p. cm. -- (Drama and theatre in early modern Europe ; 1)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-21753-9 (hardback : acid-free paper) 1. Vondel, Joost van den,
1587-1679--Criticism and interpretation. I. Bloemendal, Jan. II. Korsten, Frans-Willem.
PT5732.J66 2012
839.31’23--dc23
2011034804
ISSN 2211-341X
ISBN 978 90 04 21753 9 (hardback)
ISBN 978 90 04 21883 3 (e-book)
Copyright 2012 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, he Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing,
IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhof Publishers and VSP.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in
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Fees are subject to change.
CONTENTS
Preface .......................................................................................................... xi
1. Vondel’s Dramas: A Chronological Survey ...................................... 1
Eddy Grootes and Riet Schenkeveld-van der Dussen
2. Vondel’s Works for the Stage Read and Studied Over the
Centuries .......................................................................................... 7
Riet Schenkeveld-van der Dussen
3. Vondel’s Dramas: Ways of Relating Present and Past.................... 23
Frans-Willem Korsten
PART I
VONDEL’S LIFE, WORKS AND TIMES
4. Vondel’s Life ........................................................................................ 51
Mieke B. Smits-Veldt and Marijke Spies
5. Vondel’s Religion ................................................................................ 85
Judith Pollmann
6. Vondel and Amsterdam ..................................................................101
Eddy Grootes
7. Vondel as a Dramatist: he Representation of Language
and Body .......................................................................................115
Bettina Noak
8. Vondel’s heatre and Music ............................................................139
Louis Peter Grijp and Jan Bloemendal
9. Vondel’s Dramas: heir Aterlife in Performance ........................157
Mieke B. Smits-Veldt
10. Between Disregard and Political Mobilization – Vondel as a
Playwright in Contemporary European Context: England,
France and the German Lands ..................................................171
Guillaume van Gemert
vi
contents
PART II
APPROACHES AND DRAMAS
11. New Historicism – Hierusalem verwoest (1620) and the
Jewish Question ...........................................................................201
Jürgen Pieters
12. Politics and Aesthetics – Decoding Allegory in Palamedes
(1625) ............................................................................................225
Nina Geerdink
13. Translation Studies – Vondel’s Appropriation of Grotius’s
Sophompaneas (1635) .................................................................249
Madeleine Kasten
14. Intertextuality – Gysbreght van Aemstel (1637)............................271
Marco Prandoni
15. Dramaturgy – Staging Problems in Vondel’s
Gysbreght van Aemstel ................................................................285
Peter G.F. Eversmann
16. Cultural Analysis – Joseph Plays ....................................................317
Mieke Bal, Maaike Bleeker, Bennett Carpenter and
Frans-Willem Korsten
17. he Humanist Tradition – Maria Stuart (1646) ..........................341
James A. Parente, Jr. and Jan Bloemendal
18. Deconstruction – Unsettling Peace in Leeuwendalers
(1647) ............................................................................................359
Stefan van der Lecq
19. Religion and Politics – Lucifer (1654) and Milton’s Paradise
Lost (1674) ....................................................................................377
Jan Frans van Dijkhuizen and Helmer Helmers
20. Gender Studies – Emotions in Jeptha (1659) ...............................407
Kristine Steenbergh
21. Close Reading and heory – he David Plays .............................427
Frans-Willem Korsten
22. Psychoanalysis – Law, heatre and Violence in Samson
(1660) ............................................................................................445
Yasco Horsman
contents
vii
23. Law and Literature – Batavische gebroeders (1663) .....................459
Jeanne Gaakeer
24. New Philology – Variants in Adam in ballingschap (1664) ........489
Jan Bloemendal
25. Philosophy – Noah (1667) on God and Nature ...........................509
Wiep van Bunge
26. Bibliography of Vondel’s Dramas (1850–2010)............................529
Jan Bloemendal
Works Cited..............................................................................................579
About the Authors ...................................................................................611
Index of Names, Including Characters ................................................619
Index of Names of Scholars ....................................................................629
Index of Concepts, Subjects, hemes, Geographical Names .............635
PREFACE
Some early modern poets never lose their attraction. One of them is
Shakespeare. Another one is the Dutch poet and playwright Joost van
den Vondel (1587–1679), whose lifetime roughly coincides with the
Dutch Golden Age. However, to the same degree to which the igure of
Shakespeare is an elusive one, the life and work of Vondel are clear and
well-documented. He was a famous and well-known igure in political
and artistic circles of Amsterdam, a contemporary and acquaintance of
Rembrandt (1606–1669). He was familiar with Latin humanists, Dutch
scholars and authors and Amsterdam burgomasters. He interfered in
literary, religious and political debates. His writings include over thirty
plays, epics, epigrams, rhymed treatises, hundreds of poems and occasion poems, songs, eulogies and elegies. His tragedy Gysbreght van
Aemstel was played on the occasion of the opening of a new town theatre hall in 1638, was to become the most famous play in Dutch history,
and can probably boast holding the record for the longest tradition of
annual performance in Europe. In general, Vondel’s texts are literary
works in the full sense of the word, attracting attention throughout the
centuries because of their use of language and the multi-layered ambiguities that are hidden within them.
his volume is dedicated to the playwright Vondel, and therefore to
his plays. Its aim is to present scholars, students and lay readers of
Vondel’s plays with a series of well-documented and readily intelligible
essays that were made for the occasion and that will enhance the reader’s ability to deal with the plays by bringing in a store of knowledge on
a wide range of relevant topics. Secondly, our aim is to increase the
knowledge of Vondel’s work internationally. In this context, the volume
its in with a growing attempt to disclose Dutch literature to an international audience, witness the increasing number of Dutch literary histories in English, the latest ones being A Literary History of the Low
Countries, edited by heo Hermans (2009) and the two volumes
Women’s Writing from the Low Countries, edited by Lia van Gemert
et al. (2010). A third aim of this volume is to fuel scholarly discussion
on Vondel’s plays, nationally and internationally, not only because they
are deserving of it, but because they are of relevance to both his and
our times.
x
preface
First, Vondel’s place in history is dealt with, in terms of his own
times, of the centuries that followed these, and our own times. his is
to say that the ‘actual potential’ of his work is taken into account
throughout history. Part I of the volume ofers a survey of Vondel’s life
and works, of his literary, historical and social contexts, and of the
reception of his plays in other countries of Europe. Part II discusses
most of Vondel’s plays, each considered from a speciic point of view,
approached from a diferent methodological or scholarly angle. Finally
a bibliography with regard to Vondel’s life and dramatic oeuvre is presented. he volume is designed so that individual contributions can be
read either on their own or in conjunction with other ones. he essays
in the third part, for instance, all discuss a play in relation to a speciic
approach. his does not imply, however, that other approaches are not
equally applicable to that work. Readers are encouraged to make their
own connections between the theories or methods employed, and
between Vondel’s plays.
he idea to compile this volume arose when the editors were having a cup of cofee waiting for their plane at Newcastle Airport ater
having been to a conference in Durham in September 2007. It should
not have come as a surprise, but the road from idea to realization was
longer than we thought or wished for. Nevertheless, considering that
we sent out our irst invitation in February 2008, we are happy to be
concluding a three-year collaboration with such an impressive collection of essays, provided by such a rich diversity of scholars, from emeritus professors to young scholars at the beginning of their career,
and from those within the walls of Dutch studies and Dutch literary
scholarship to those in other ields and disciplines and both intra and
extra muros.
We wish to thank in the irst place all contributors for taking
the efort to write, rewrite, revise and correct all the texts and then wait
for the inal result. he translations of the chapters by Schenkeveldvan der Dussen, Grootes, Smits-Veldt and Spies were inanced by the
Translation Fund of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and
Sciences and Stichting Reprorecht. he translations were made by Liz
Waters. he inal English correction, carried out by Will J. Kelly
(Minerva Professional Language Services; http://www.minerva-pls.
com), was inancially supported by the Dr. C. Louise hijssen-Schoute
Stichting. We wish to thank Becky Stamps who helped us with proofreading the text for the last mistakes and errors.
preface
xi
Special thanks are due to Stefan van der Lecq, who not only contributed one essay, but also co-edited a number of essays in his characteristically thoroughgoing and precise way, before deciding that there
were other paths to be explored than just scholarly ones.
Finally we thank the publisher, Brill, who was so kind as to turn this
volume into the one that opens the series Drama and heatre in Early
Modern Europe.
his book is published with the inancial support of the Translation
Fund of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, the
Dr. C. Louise hijssen-Schoute Stichting, the Netherlands Organization
for Scientiic Research (NWO), the Huygens Institute for the History
of the Netherlands and the Institute for History and Culture (UvA).
Frans-Willem Korsten
Jan Bloemendal
CHAPTER ONE
VONDEL’S DRAMAS: A CHRONOLOGICAL SURVEY1
Eddy Grootes and Riet Schenkeveld-van der Dussen
Vondel’s dramatic work is marked by a series of paradoxes. He produced a remarkably extensive theatrical oeuvre of thirty-three plays2 –
many original, others translated from Latin or Greek – even though he
only really started writing his major works for the theatre when he was
around ity. He was without doubt the most important Dutch playwright of the seventeenth century, deeply respected and with wellconsidered ideas on the theatre, but only just over half his plays were
performed during his lifetime. He was a great propagandist for Latin
and later also classical Greek drama, but he used their formal structures almost exclusively for the purpose of conveying content that was
biblical and Christian. To later generations he was the preeminent
writer of the fatherland and in his own time he served as Amsterdam’s
unoicial city poet, yet he was not actually born in the Low Countries
but in Cologne. His parents had been forced to lee Antwerp because
of their Mennonite faith. In about 1597 the Vondel family settled in
Holland.
As an immigrant from the Southern Netherlands living in Amsterdam, the young Vondel joined the Brabant chamber of rhetoric ‘Het
Wit Lavendel’ (‘he White Lavender’), and it was for this theatrical
company that he wrote his irst play, Het Pascha (Passover, irst printed
in 1612). his drama about the exodus from Egypt features an epilogue
comparing the liberation of the Dutch Republic from Spain with the
liberation of the Jews from Egypt. Eight years would pass before his
second play was completed, Hierusalem verwoest (Jerusalem Destroyed,
1620), a tragedy about the destruction of Jerusalem. Meanwhile he had
taught himself Latin, and formal aspects of the play are strongly inluenced by Seneca’s Troades. In the 1620s, as part of the process of
1
Parts of this chapter have been published previously in Hermans, A Literary
History of the Low Countries, pp. 212–20. For an earlier survey of Vondel’s dramas see
Meijer, Literature of the Low Countries, pp. 127–42.
2
Including the fragment of Rozemont, but excluding the unpublished Messalina.
2
eddy grootes and riet schenkeveld-van der dussen
improving his Latin, he translated Troades as De Amsteldamsche
Hecuba (1626) and Seneca’s Phaedra, also known as Hippolytus, as
Hippolytus (1628). Another translation, this time of a Neo-Latin play
by Hugo Grotius, Sophompaneas, on the biblical theme of the reconciliation of Joseph and his brothers, and on just government, was published in 1635.
Vondel had by this point developed into an ardent polemicist, and
an advocate of the Arminian position in the religious and political conlicts of that time. His Palamedes (1625) treats the political process of
the Grand Pensionary Oldenbarnevelt, disguised as the classical story
of Palamedes and Ulysses. Vondel was heavily ined as a result, but
Palamedes went through seven editions of the 1625 imprint.
Gysbreght van Aemstel (1637), his most frequently performed play
right up to the present day, was written for a special occasion. It was
intended to have its premiere in 1637, at Christmas, on the occasion of
the opening of the new municipal theater, the Amsterdam Schouwburg,
which was built by Jacob van Campen. In a typically paradoxical twist,
Vondel chose to write a play for this festive occasion that describes the
downfall of Amsterdam – although a prophecy by the angel Raphael
right at the end does hold out the prospect of a radiant future. he
planned festive performance was not to be. It became known that
Vondel had included a celebration of the Catholic Mass in his play. his
made perfect sense in the context of the time in which the play was set,
the late thirteenth century, but it was unthinkable to show a Mass on
stage in the current religious and political climate, especially on an oicial occasion. he Republic was a tolerant place, but this was going too
far for the Protestant magistrate of Amsterdam. An expurgated version
had its premiere on 3 January 1638. he play’s success lasted for well
over three centuries. It was traditionally performed around New Year’s
Day, right up until 1969 when the children of the revolutionary sixties
abandoned the centuries-old custom. In recent times, however, directors have responded to the challenge of inding new forms for the play,
some discovering ways to give it direct contemporary relevance, others
looking back to the manner in which it was originally staged.
A translation of Sophocles’s Elektra (1639) marked the start of a new
period. Vondel used Latin translations, but sought advice from learned
friends as well. It indicates his growing fascination with Greek tragedy,
which would acquire prominence in his later work. About the same
time he converted to Catholicism and one result was his tragedy
vondel’s dramas: a chronological survey
3
Maeghden (Maidens, 1639), dramatizing the legend of Saint Ursula and
her eleven thousand virgins. In this period Vondel was using innocent
victims as protagonists. In his play Maria Stuart (1646), for instance,
Vondel presented Mary Queen of Scots, whom he regarded as a
Catholic martyr, as the innocent victim of a heretical and vengeful
Elizabeth I. his was simply unacceptable, even in tolerant Amsterdam.
he Dutch government had no wish to become involved, even in such
an indirect manner, in the ongoing power struggle between Charles I
and Cromwell. he poet was brought before the courts and ordered to
pay a substantial ine of one hundred and eighty guilders.
he play also presented a theoretical problem. In this period Vondel
was engaged in a deeper examination of the practice and theory of
Greek drama, which brought him new insights into the essence of tragedy, such as an awareness of the Aristotelian injunction that a hero
should be somewhere between good and evil, that he should not be
entirely blameless but rather brought down by his own shortcomings.
he most brilliant result of this new insight was his Lucifer (1654).
Already in his Gebroeders (Brothers), published in 1640 and performed almost annually from 1641 to 1659, Vondel had been inspired
by the example of Sophocles. he play, based on the story of 2 Samuel
21, portrays the moral struggle of King David who is forced by God’s
command to execute seven descendants of Saul. In the same year, 1640,
Vondel wrote two plays about Joseph: Joseph in Dothan and Joseph in
Egypten. Moulded into a trilogy with his earlier Sofompaneas (a translation of Grotius’ tragedy), they were staged throughout the second
half of the century. With his Gysbreght and these plays from the 1640s
Vondel attained the peak of his success in the Amsterdam Schouwburg.
His next play, however, was never performed. Peter en Pauwels (1641)
is a rather static Roman Catholic drama about the martyrdom of St.
Peter and St. Paul in Rome. Reason enough to assume that Amsterdam
audiences would not have liked it.
In 1647, when the negotiations to end the Eighty Years’ War with
Spain were expected to produce the desired result very soon, Vondel
wrote an occasional play to glorify the peace. Leeuwendalers has a rural
setting in which peasants and hunters from North and South inally
end their longstanding conlict. It constitutes an exception in Vondel’s
predominantly tragic dramatic oeuvre. he play was staged ive times
in 1648, the year of the Peace of Westphalia. hat same year Salomon
was published, the next play in Vondel’s series of biblical tragedies.
4
eddy grootes and riet schenkeveld-van der dussen
It shows King Solomon as a weakling. Carried away by sensuality, he
causes his own downfall. Passionate arguments between two opposing groups of courtiers make good theatre. With more than thirty
performances between 1650 and 1659, Salomon became one of Vondel’s
more successful productions.
Given its outstanding qualities, a modern reader would think that
Lucifer (1654), regarded by many as Vondel’s masterpiece, should have
met with even greater success. But the subject – the Fall of the Angels
and the Fall of Man – and the setting ‘in Heaven’, made staging the play
unacceptable to inluential circles in Amsterdam, especially the
Reformed consistory. Lucifer was banned from the stage ater two performances and the publisher’s stock was coniscated. his did not prevent the rapid publication of seven new editions, but the inancial
damage was considerable, the theatre having invested a great deal of
money in the heavenly scenery. Vondel wrote a new play with a mythological subject, Salmoneus, for which the same decor could be used, but
it was not printed and performed until 1657. In Greek mythology, as
well as in the play, Salmoneus is king of the Greek island of Elis who
aspires to be worshipped as if he were Zeus.
here is every reason to think that with his Lucifer Vondel was not
only exploring the heavenly matters of Fall and Redemption but staking out his ground in the political arena on earth. He believed the
authority of the monarch to be divinely ordained and inviolable, and it
is in these terms that he composed his dedication of the play to the
highest authority on earth, Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III. Even
the Dutch Revolt against Spain comes in for criticism on matters of
principle, although of course this did not mean Vondel would ever be
disloyal to the Republic as it now stood. Many of his Catholic contemporaries, and indeed later generations of Catholics, adopted the same
stance.
In 1659 one of his most important and interesting tragedies appeared:
Jeptha. Vondel presents it as a model tragedy or, as he put it in his introductory essay, as a ‘theatrical compass’. he introduction demonstrates
his vast knowledge of classical drama theory and its interpretation by
contemporary Dutch scholars like Hugo Grotius, Daniel Heinsius and
Gerardus Johannes Vossius. he story of the play is from chapter 11 of
the Book of Judges. Ater a military victory Jephthah promises to sacriice to God the irst thing he lays eyes on when he arrives home. To
his horror the irst thing he sees is his daughter, whom Vondel calls Iis.
he play has everything an Aristotelian drama requires: a noble and
vondel’s dramas: a chronological survey
5
courageous protagonist who brings down sufering upon himself
through a fatal mistake (hamartia), thereby evoking fear and empathy;
a sudden peripeteia from joy at victory to pain at Iis’s death; and the
accompanying anagnorisis or insight into the situation. In his introduction Vondel expounds upon these and other theatrical matters in
detail, pointing out with some pride that he has managed to achieve a
double sequence of reversal and insight, in both Jeptha and his wife
Filopaie. Jeptha represents a pinnacle of Vondel’s dramatic art, but it
did not fulil its intended purpose as a model for other playwrights to
follow. Only a limited number of performances took place. It was not at
all what the Schouwburg audience was looking for, and the literary
elite, especially the younger adherents of the French classicist theories,
based their critical assessments on quite diferent criteria.
Even so, in the eight years between 1659 and 1667 Vondel published
no fewer than ten tragedies, aside from complete verse translations
ater Sophocles (Koning Edipus, 1660) and Euripides (Iigenie in Tauren,
1666). 1660 also saw the publication of Koning David in ballingschap
(King David Exiled), Koning David herstelt (King David Restored) and
Samson. he David plays deal with the conlict between King David
and his son Absalom (2 Samuel 15 f.), while Samson is based on the
well-known story of Samson’s humiliation and revenge. Inspired by the
use of peripeteia in Oedipus Rex, Vondel chose characters from the Old
Testament who go through a drastic reversal of fortune. he same
applies to his Adonias of the following year, which tells of the failed
attempt by Adonijah to depose his younger brother Solomon. In 1663
Vondel interrupted this long series of biblical plays with a tragedy on a
secular subject, using an episode from the revolt of the Batavians
against Rome as told by Tacitus. In Batavische gebroeders (Batavian
Brothers) Claudius Civilis and his brother, regarded as heroic ancestors
of the Hollanders, are portrayed as victims of Roman tyranny. he
mythological content of his next play, Faëton (also from 1663), looks
like another digression from Vondel’s normal practice, but as W.A.P.
Smit has argued, it corresponds with Adonias and Batavische gebroeders in its concentration on the complex relationship between guilt, justice and punishment.3
In the ith act of Lucifer, the Archangel Gabriel reports the fall of
Adam and Eve. Ten years later, in 1664, Vondel devoted a complete
3
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 3, p. 319.
6
eddy grootes and riet schenkeveld-van der dussen
tragedy to this subject, Adam in ballingschap (Adam Exiled), nowadays
valued as a literary highpoint of Vondel’s oeuvre, although it was not
staged in Holland until 1910. A free adaptation by Jan Frans Cammaert,
however, was rather popular in Flanders between 1756 and 1796. Along
with Lucifer and Noah (his last biblical tragedy), it belongs to a trilogy
of sorts about the fall and punishment of man and the prospect of salvation. Vondel was eighty years old when the last of his dramas were
published. he subject matter of Noah, of Ondergang der eerste weerelt
(Noah, or Downfall of the First World, 1667) its the pattern of his
earlier works, but Zungchin, of Ondergang der Sineesche heerschappye
(Chongzhen, or the Downfall of the Chinese Dominion), probably conceived before Noah but published in the same year, comes as a surprise
with its exotic subject: the end of the Ming dynasty in 1644, when the
defeated emperor Zungchin (Chongzhen) took his own life. he Jesuit
missionary Adam Schall plays an important part in Vondel’s plot, and
this ofers some explanation as to how a Catholic like Vondel could be
fascinated by such a story. Moreover, by the mid-seventeenth century a
lively interest in Chinese matters existed in Holland, demonstrated by
important publications such as Johan Nieuhof ’s report on his embassy
to China (1665), which was quickly translated into English, French and
German. And, of course, the downfall of this emperor and his realm
ofered Vondel another opportunity to construct a moving peripeteia.
Two translations, one of Euripides’s Phoenissae and the other of
Sophocles’s Trachinian Women, conclude an impressive career of more
than ity years as a dramatist. Vondel’s versions, Feniciaensche and
Herkules in Trachin, both came into print in 1668 and can be seen as a
inal tribute to his great classical precursors, both admired by Vondel
for speciic qualities of their own.
CHAPTER TWO
VONDEL’S WORKS FOR THE STAGE READ AND
STUDIED OVER THE CENTURIES
Riet Schenkeveld-van der Dussen
Vondel and Shakespeare
In the Netherlands Joost van den Vondel (1587–1679) is traditionally
regarded as the ‘prince of our poets’. he Dutch are proud of Vondel.
here is a statue of him in the internationally famous (or infamous)
Amsterdam Vondelpark, many streets are named ater him, and he
used to feature on our postage stamps as well as our pre-euro banknotes. In recommending him abroad we sometimes compare him to
Shakespeare (1564–1616). hey were ater all contemporaries.
Shakespeare died in 1616, by which time Vondel had seen his irst tragedy performed (Het Pascha, Passover, 1612). hey both produced a
large number of plays, as well as much other writing. Shakespeare let
more than forty works for the stage while Vondel wrote thirty-three.
An important diference between the two men is that Shakespeare’s
oeuvre is more diverse, including both comedies and tragedies, some
in the form of history plays, others with a fairytale character, while the
majority of Vondel’s work consists of biblical tragedies. In his political
and historical dramas too, with a few exceptions, Christian thought is
central. As a relatively young playwright and actor Shakespeare presented dramatic works on the stage with great regularity from 1590
onwards, whereas Vondel, ater a hesitant start in 1610, did not begin
producing his main body of work until 1637, when he was ity. An
important twentieth-century Dutch critic, Menno ter Braak, made the
rather harsh observation that, as a result, ‘senex’ Vondel contrasted
with the youthfully vibrant Shakespeare.
he reputations of both authors have had their highs and lows, but
on the whole Shakespeare lives on in the theatre and in countless publications while Vondel, despite surges in attention occurring with persistent regularity, languishes. Rightly or wrongly? Either way, there is
no disputing the facts.
8
riet schenkeveld-van der dussen
Despite temporary dips in his reputation, Shakespeare is alive today
in the English collective memory, as demonstrated by the fact that so
many lines from his work remain familiar. Innumerable book titles are
quotations from the bard, from Brave New World to Pale Fire. As a
result his language does not seem so old-fashioned; indeed it actually
becomes richer with time as later generations add further content to it.1
Although an occasional citation of ‘Waar werd oprechter trouw’
(‘Where was Fidelity More True’) can be heard at weddings, Vondel is
hardly ever quoted and so his language has missed its chance at the
revitalization that Shakespeare enjoys. Still, Vondel too was a language
virtuoso; more than that, he was a builder of language. Until well into
the nineteenth century Dutch poetry was coloured by Vondel, even
though what he wrote, certainly in his works for the stage, was almost
always serious, biblical. His subject matter was serious: mankind full of
guilt and shame in the presence of God. Even his lovers love each other
before God’s eyes: Adam and Eve in their nascent and deeply earnest
happiness, or a sexually charged Urania as the ultimate sinner in the
inal play, Noah.
here is some truth in Ter Braak’s remark. he playwright Vondel
was a mature man who had let the passions of youth behind to concern himself with the great questions of human history, of state and
law, good and evil, guilt and reconciliation, parent and child, fate and
providence, mankind and God. What he wrote was topical at the time
and indeed still is, for anyone willing to take a little trouble in reading
it. In Shakespeare people act, play, joke and (also) think. With Vondel
they always end up thinking. In his dramas he is never light-hearted.
he Seventeenth Century
Vondel (1587–1679) lived for almost a century and in the course of
his life he increasingly became a leading igure in the Amsterdam theatrical world. It is true that his late tragedies, such as Adam in ballingschap (Adam Exiled, 1664) and Noah (1667), were not performed
during his lifetime – fashions had changed – but the issuing of regular
reprints of his tragedies proves they were read, admired, and indeed
became the subject of dispute over many years. Controversy is surely
1
For a far from complete list see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_titles_of
_works_based_on_Shakespearean_phrases
vondel’s works for the stage read and studied
9
one of the more crucial signs of life. In his own long life he built up
an impressive and extensive oeuvre of thirty-three plays, some of
them translations from Seneca or Euripides but the vast majority his
own work. Several of his plays were extremely successful, including
Gysbreght van Aemstel (1637), specially written for the opening of the
new Schouwburg, which was traditionally performed on New Year’s
Day and the days that followed, even well into the twentieth century,
or the Joseph trilogy about the son of a shepherd who becomes viceroy
of Egypt (1638–1641). he Joseph trilogy was performed, either as
separate plays or as a series, a great many times until 1665. Other tragedies quickly disappeared from the stage, but Vondel’s work oten
sparked disputes for one reason or another. Palamedes (published in
1625) was actually intended not as a play but as an allegorical indictment couched as a play, attacking Prince Maurits of Nassau and his
followers for the conviction and execution of Oldenbarnevelt in 1619.
It had no chance of being performed at the time; on the contrary, the
published script was banned. Vondel was in danger and he escaped
harsh punishment only with the help of highly placed friends in
Amsterdam. He got away with a ine. Yet the play that had caused such
outrage provoked responses in pamphlet form and sold extremely well
for many years. On this occasion it was his political stance that had
displeased those in power.
More oten, his religious insights aroused opposition. To some extent
this also applies to Palamedes, which Counter-Remonstrants i.e. orthodox Calvinists in particular campaigned against. It was clearly the case
with the historical drama Gysbreght van Aemstel. he original intention
was that one of the characters, Bishop Gozewijn, would celebrate a
Mass on stage as part of the performance. hat was going far too far for
the Amsterdam church council and the play could not be staged until
the ofending passage had been scrapped. he instincts of members
of the church council had in fact been rather incisive, since a short time
later Vondel became a Catholic and one of the fruits of his conversion
was Maria Stuart (1646), a tragedy about Mary Stuart who, as a pious
Catholic in Vondel’s eyes, had been executed as a martyr for the faith.
It appeared in a highly volatile period. In England the Civil War had
begun, ending in 1649 with the beheading of Charles I, grandson of
Mary Stuart. Sympathy for the Scottish Catholic queen did not sit well
in the Republic, where the Catholic Church was tolerated only as long
as believers kept quiet. Exaltation of a Catholic martyr was beyond the
pale. Even though he had published the play anonymously and with a
10
riet schenkeveld-van der dussen
ictional publishing house, Vondel was once again convicted and ined.
he controversy led to ive printings being issued in a single year.2
A few years later there were problems with Lucifer (1654), the famous
drama about the rebellion and fall of the angels. Again the Calvinist
clergy moved against Vondel; from the pulpit came a campaign of
opposition to the portrayal of heaven and its angels in the theatre. Ater
just two performances, pressure from the church caused Lucifer to be
taken of the stage. A major part was played in all this by the Reverend
Petrus Wittewrongel. In 1661 he summarized his objections to the
theatre and more speciically the theatrical work of Vondel in a long
passage in his Oeconomia Christiana ote Christelicke huys-houdinghe
(Oeconomia Christiana or Christian Housekeeping), in which he allies
himself closely with William Prynne’s celebrated and exhaustive critique of the stage Histriomastix: he Player’s Scourge, or Actor’s Tragedy
(1632). Vondel defended himself that same year with his Tooneelschilt
(Shield of the Stage). he fact that in it he presents Jesuit school drama
as an example worth emulating will not have done anything to soten
the clergyman’s attitude.
It was not only strict Calvinists who opposed him. he Remonstrant
clergyman Geeraardt Brandt, who wrote the irst biography of the poet
in 1682, makes it fairly plain that he held the explicitly Roman Catholic
Vondel in less than high regard. Even some liberal Protestants, Andries
Pels for instance, objected to religion on stage, whether because the
kind of religion being propagated was ‘wrong’ for the Republic or
because debates on stage, however well-intentioned, would only confuse simple listeners.3
In all these disputes it is noticeable that people tended simply to
assert their own standpoints rather than entering into serious debates
about the content of the plays. No analyses were published that set out
with clarity and precision the sincere objections people had. It was
more a matter of principle. In reality the church council was opposed
to the theatre in general, and certainly to theatrical works by a Catholic,
let alone a Catholic who put biblical subject matter on stage, thereby
competing, as it were, with the only true exegetes, the Protestant clergy.
Any pretext would do: a Catholic central character, a Mass, a world
2
Schuytvlot, Catalogus Vondel, nos. 282–83 (pamphlets) and 433–481(editions);
Maria Stuart nos. 369–71 (pamphlets) and 633–39 (editions from 1646–1647).
3
Brandt, Leven van Vondel, pp. 35–36, 38–40, 45–47; Pels, Gebruik én misbruik des
tooneels, ed. Schenkeveld-van der Dussen, ll. 550–630.
vondel’s works for the stage read and studied
11
populated by angels. No further debate was needed. A debate would
have shown, for example, that in his biblical plays Vondel was in fact
presenting not an explicitly Catholic vision but rather one that was
Christian in a general sense, and ‘ordinary Christians’ – which is what
most readers and audiences in the seventeenth century were – had little
diiculty with it.
he only person to make a proper analysis of a Vondel drama in
order to prove an ideological point was an otherwise completely
unknown woman called Meynarda Verboom. Immediately ater it was
published she put Adam in ballingschap under a textual microscope to
demonstrate that in his tragedy Vondel had set down an unbiblical and
anti-feminist vision of women. In her Pleyt voor onse eerste Moeder Eva
(Plea on Behalf of Our First Mother Eve, 1664), a poem of 296 lines in
pamphlet form, she contended in an astute close reading that Vondel
had used a distorted, incomplete, and above all fanciful interpretation
of biblical evidence to place the blame for the Fall on Eve and as far as
possible to exonerate Adam.
Why, then, does Vondel feel for women such contempt?
Or does he think, perhaps, his pen will strike them dumb?
But no, the man is getting old and quarrelsome;
Whatever any woman says he’ll contradict.
Since women lack both power and the kind of wit
To write a strong defence and rescue their good name,
It’s perfectly all right to give them all the blame.
Make them the cause of sin, of every crime and curse;
hen man is master still, for better or for worse.
No need for Adam then to feel the least unease
Or ever blush with shame, since all the guilt is Eve’s.
If that’s what Moses wrote, then that’s how it should be.
But he did not; it’s just a poet’s fantasy.
(Translation: Myra Scholz)
She explains at length why it was indeed a poet’s fantasy, one for which
there is no basis in the Bible.4
Aside from all these ideological objections there was in general great
admiration for Vondel’s artistic qualities, though towards the end of his
life criticism began to be heard in this regard too, if only ater initial
expressions of admiration.
4
Meynarda Verboom, ‘Pleyt voor onse moeder Eva’, Schenkeveld-van der Dussen,
Met en zonder lauwerkrans pp. 305–12. See also Schenkeveld-van der Dussen in Van
Gemert et al., Women’s Writing from the Low Countries 1200–1875, pp. 48–49.
12
riet schenkeveld-van der dussen
Andries Pels, an advocate of French classicism, began by praising
Vondel as one of the ‘greatest and brightest lights of the Dutch language’ – later he would call him, with heartfelt admiration, an important theoretician of drama, as demonstrated in particular by Vondel’s
Preface to the play Jeptha (1659) – but he went on to formulate objections to the structure of Vondel’s tragedies, pointing out that they oten
went on for a full act ater the dénouement, winding up events. He also
found the circumlocutory language unsuitable for the stage. As a
telling example of Vondel’s dramatic poetry he quotes the irst two
lines of Salomon:
hus you come far from the South, where the Cancer
paints the Moors, the tree casts so little shade.5
A few decades later, attitudes to Vondel became an important matter
of contention in the so-called Poets’ War. Admirers rejected Frenchoriented classicism and advocated Vondel’s dramatic art and poetic
language as a product of their native soil and worthy of imitation.
he authoritative critic Balthasar Huydecoper, himself a playwright,
declared in 1730 that ‘all poets nowadays have their eyes on Vondel’.
Vondel’s language became the prevailing ‘language of Parnassus’.
he irst explicatory studies to look at Vondel’s political, religious,
and ideological opinions, and at the stylistic structure of his work,
which was gradually coming to be seen as old-fashioned, set the tone
for later readers and researchers. he points made in them were
returned to over many years.
Eighteenth Century
By the eighteenth century little remained of the admiration for Vondel
as a writer for the theatre. he use of the word ‘God’ on stage was seen
as objectionable and to the extent that Vondel’s work was still performed at all, the scripts were expurgated. In 1729 an edition of
Gysbreght van Aemstel appeared that was ‘printed word for word as it is
played in the Amsterdam Schouwburg’, with the words God and Christ
and all references to Catholic services of worship excised. It remained
the standard text for years. People also criticized the structure of the
5
‘Gij kwaamt dus verre van het Zuiden, daar de Kreet / de Mooren vert, de boom
zo weinig schaduw geet.’
vondel’s works for the stage read and studied
13
plays. Vondel did not, for example, stick to the absolute unity of time,
a requirement whereby the time taken by the action represented
must coincide with the time taken by its representation, while others
believed that his lengthy monologues led to one-sidedness because
the character in question could not be contradicted for so long. His
language was seen as uneven, with ‘base’ expressions occurring in
elevated passages. When it came to the content, people complained
that the ‘love interest’ was accorded too little attention. His plays were
hardly ever staged, with the exception of Gysbreght van Aemstel and
occasionally Faëton and Palamedes, both of which were made more
attractive by the addition of spectacular ‘shows’.
Although biblical tragedies were regarded as unsuitable for performance, there was a general belief that it was acceptable for them to be
read.6 Yet Vondel’s work rarely was. In 1720 the complete plays were
issued in two volumes by the publisher Joannes van Oosterwyk as Alle
de treurspelen (All the Tragedies). Ater that, with occasional exceptions
(the Joseph trilogy, Maeghden), no new editions were published. he
work nowadays seen as one of his most important, Lucifer, was not
reprinted at all between 1661 and 1826. Only Gysbreght remained in
print throughout the century.
Not everyone was happy about this failure to appreciate the
Netherlands’ most famous poet. In 1770 Le Francq van Berkhey, a
poet and cultural historian, complained that ‘the excellent plays of the
great Vondel, Hoot […] gems in their language, distinguished in style,
are now […] being supplanted by bastard hordes’. But such voices had
little inluence. One authoritative literary theorist, Hieronymus van
Alphen, did value Vondel’s ‘genius’ and credited him as a representative
of the seventeenth century, a time when literary reinement and ‘good
taste’ had lourished in the land. He also admired his powerful and
expressively emotional language. Nevertheless, in his view Vondel
lacked the proper insight into aesthetic principles and as a result took
liberties that detracted from ‘the truly beautiful’.7 In any case, as a pious
6
See De Haas, De wetten van het treurspel. For the text expurgated on religious
grounds see pp. 204, 224; for playing time p. 98; monologues p. 144; linguistic usage
pp. 18–182; love interest p. 44; biblical subject matter onstage p. 228.
7
For eighteenth- and nineteenth-century attitudes to Vondel see Molkenboer,
Rhythme van de Vondelwaardeering; Smit ‘De waardering van Vondel’; Wiskerke, De
waardering voor de zeventiende-eeuwse literatuur tussen 1780 en 1813; Wiskerke, ‘Wat
zal ik U van onzen Vondel zeggen’; Spies, ‘Nederlands vele Vondels’.
14
riet schenkeveld-van der dussen
Protestant Van Alphen will no doubt have had little respect for the
Catholic Vondel.
Nineteenth Century
At the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth
various diferent notes were sounded. In reaction to the French classicism that had been dominant throughout the eighteenth century, more
value was now attached to poetic originality. At the same time there
was increasing admiration for the great Greek authors who had laid the
foundations of European theatre, and in this context fresh admiration
arose for Vondel as a representative of classical Greek theatre.
Of even greater importance than these diverse literary-theoretical
opinions was a nationalistically tinted notion of progress. he seventeenth century had been a Golden Age; never had the Netherlands
been so prosperous, so powerful, and so culturally rich as it was then.
Of course the concept of progress brought with it the insight that even
at that time perfection had not been achieved. A few years into the
nineteenth century, national decline became painfully obvious: the
‘Kingdom of Holland’ was governed by a brother of Napoleon and
thereater became merely a part of the Napoleonic Empire, from
which low point it was possible to look back for inspiration to the
seventeenth century when the nation had lourished, and to express
the expectation that, building upon what had been achieved in those
years, a fresh start could be made, with renewed zest. Anyone who
imagined progress as a spiral could combine a view of Vondel as a
model with the hope of attaining a higher level. here was no need to
overlook the shortcomings of his work, since they could be attributed
to the more primitive cultural level of Vondel’s time, but appreciation
of his imaginative power, his vivid language, and especially his patriotism ought to be an inspiration – even if some dissenting voices claimed
that Vondel, as a Catholic, was clearly in some respects the opposite of
a useful national model.
Only a person who saw progress as purely linear rather than spiral in
form would place emphasis on Vondel’s shortcomings. One such person was the literary critic P.G. Witsen Geysbeek, whose views were
expressed in a biographical dictionary of Dutch literary igures. He discussed the bourgeois dialogues between Sir Gijsbreght and Lady
Badeloch in derisive tones and denounced the base sensuality of the
vondel’s works for the stage read and studied
15
language used by the angel in Lucifer, who falls in love with Eve.
Furthermore Witsen Geysbeek views Vondel with contempt as a
Catholic perpetuator of the ‘Medieval Dark Ages’.
Another important factor was the emancipation of the Catholic
segment of the population, which had been achieved in full at the time
of the Batavian Republic (1795–1806). To this sizeable slice of the
Dutch nation Vondel had now become a great hero. In their eyes
Vondel’s Catholicism was not something to be glossed over wherever possible. On the contrary, his conversion was an event of central
importance. Only then had he found his true calling, only ater he
became a Catholic had his series of biblical tragedies grown to its full
stature, only then had he written those wonderful apologetic didactic
poems about the Eucharist, Altaergeheimenissen (Secrets of the Altar,
1645) and Bespiegelingen van Godt en Godtsdienst (Relections upon
God and Religion, 1662). It was the Catholics who introduced Vondel
as a champion of the Counter-Reformation and a great baroque poet,
presenting him as the literary counterpart to Rubens.8
Such debates and diferences of opinion prompted responses from
the academic world. he irst professorships of national history and
literature had been established, and their occupants pointed out that
poets from the past could not be talked about as if they were contemporaries. he necessary knowledge of seventeenth-century language
and culture was lacking, so it was not possible simply to praise or condemn Vondel’s linguistic usage and representation of things. Professor
B. Lulofs (among others) argued that much study would have to be
done irst. Commentaries on Vondel’s work were needed and in 1831
he set an example by publishing an anthology that included notes and
an introduction providing the historical background.
Catholics were particularly industrious in producing editions of the
texts with accompanying commentary. hey felt a need to make
Vondel’s work accessible to fellow Catholics. A lawyer called
Hoppenbrouwers, for example, produced an edition of Altaergeheimenissen (Secrets of the Altar, 1822–1825) and the Catholic professor
J.M. Schrant, who lectured on Vondel in Ghent and Leiden, was responsible for new editions of plays including Gysbreght van Aemstel
(in 1851) and Lucifer (1856).
8
Anton van Duinkerken, ‘De Roomse Vondelschool’.
16
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It was not a Catholic, however, but a liberal who, as an admirer of
the great seventeenth-century poet, was the irst to set in train a
weighty chronologically arranged multivolume edition of Vondel’s
complete works, editing and partly inancing it himself. His name was
Jacob van Lennep and he had been a devotee of Vondel since childhood; he knew Gysbreght by heart by the time he was six, having been
mesmerized by a New Year’s Eve performance of the play. Between 1855
and 1869 twelve volumes appeared, dedicated to King William III. It
irmly established Vondel as a national poet for all Dutch people. To
make it more attractive Van Lennep had his edition illustrated by contemporary artists. Events in Vondel’s life were depicted, and illustrations were included in the works themselves. Seventeenth-century
plates were replaced with nineteenth-century versions, for which Van
Lennep was later much criticized.
But Van Lennep wanted above all to produce a scholarly edition. He
put a great deal of work into elucidating the text, dating the poetry,
unearthing biographical details, and exploring the political and religious context of the poems. he resulting scholarship was made accessible by means of extensive indexes that have retained their usefulness
to this day.
Van Lennep’s work gave an impetus to further editions of Vondel’s
texts, which appeared relatively soon aterwards. he freethinker
Johannes van Vloten produced an edition in modern Dutch spelling in
1864–1866 that was intended to make Vondel accessible to a broader
readership, and the leading Catholic J.A. Alberdingk hijm initiated an
edition with Catholic commentary that was completed by others ater
his death and published in 1887. Vondel was truly a poet for everyone.
It was also the time of the great Vondel festivals. In 1867 a statue of him
by Royer was erected in Amsterdam. he Catholic architect Pierre
Cuypers designed the plinth for the statue as well as the loats that
paraded through the city as part of the festivities surrounding its
unveiling. 1879 saw the celebration of the two hundredth anniversary
of the poet’s death.
he Roman Catholic Vondel School
Vondel editor Alberdingk hijm is regarded as the founder of the
‘Roman Catholic Vondel school’. He was the editor of a new edition of
Vondel’s work and he had published a generally well-received series of
vondel’s works for the stage read and studied
17
‘portraits’ of Vondel. Moreover, he regularly produced critical reviews
in response to the work of Van Lennep. In putting together his own
edition he was supported by J.F.M. Sterck, who in turn became a leading Vondelian and in 1901 the founder of the Vondel Society, which
published a periodical called Vondel-Museum to which Sterck made
frequent contributions of an archival or bibliographical nature. he
irst Catholic Vondelians produced their theses in about 1910: Moller,
Brom, Molkenboer – they would all write about Vondel and edit editions of his work for decades to come. In 1933 a Chair in Vondel Studies
was established at Nijmegen Catholic University and Molkenboer was
the irst to occupy it. To mark the occasion he gave an inaugural oration called Het rhythme van de Vondelwaardeering (he Rhythm of
Vondel Appreciation), which was written mainly from a Catholic perspective. 1930 had seen the irst issue of the Vondelkroniek, again at the
instigation of Sterck, with Molkenboer as editor-in-chief. he journal
remained in existence until 1941.
he veneration of Vondel reached one inal highpoint in this period,
the Commemoration of 1937, celebrated at a solemn meeting in
Amsterdam, with a Gedenkboek (Commemorative Book) as a permanent contribution. hat year also saw the publication of the inal volume of an edition begun in 1927, De werken van Vondel. Volledige en
geïllustreerde tekstuitgave in tien deelen (he Works of Vondel. Complete
and Illustrated Edition of the Texts in Ten Volumes). he series editor
was J.F.M. Sterck and it was largely the work of Catholic scholars,
including Molkenboer and the philologist L.C. Michels, but since this
was ater all a national publication, scholars from other denominations
worked on it as well. It remains to this day the most recent scholarly
edition of the complete works. In the same year, 1937, Albert Verwey,
man of letters and a professor at Leiden University, issued an edition of
Vondel in modern spelling, this time as a single volume and aimed at a
wide, culturally engaged readership.
Vondel in Modern Research
Ater the Second World War, interest in Vondel among a broad
audience became, frankly, a thing of the past. Even the annual tradition of performing Gysbreght van Aemstel to see in the New Year was
abandoned in 1968. here is no longer a place for Vondel in Dutch
secondary schools.
18
riet schenkeveld-van der dussen
he debate about his work that began in the seventeenth century
belongs to the past as well. he issues that dominated discussion of
Vondel for several centuries seem to have lost all relevance. Vondel’s
ideology leaves readers and audiences cold. he question as to whether
and to what extent his work should be interpreted as Catholic excites
no one any longer. His language is perceived as alienating, even curious, and hardly anyone nowadays can detect the supposed contrast
between elevated and earthy tones in his work. he long speeches in his
plays no longer cause irritation for their alleged one-sidedness, they
merely put audiences to sleep. In short, none of the things that once
angered people and led to ierce debates arouse any interest today, even
in a negative sense.
Vondelian academic research quickly revived, however, and for a
time it lourished once more. he customary philological method
remained in vogue, as evidenced by innumerable studies and editions
of the works. It would be impossible to discuss or even to name all
these modern studies in this very short essay, even were we to limit
ourselves to theatrical research.9 here is space only for a few examples
of books that make innovative contributions. he 1950 dissertation by
philosopher and literary theorist J.G. Bomhof, for instance, inluenced
by the then prevalent philosophy of existentialism, attempts to understand Vondel through the prism of ‘the tragic’ as a universal and eternally valid category. Taking a rather diferent approach, Norwegian
expert on German and Dutch literature Kåre Langvik-Johannessen
tried in several studies between 1963 and 1987 to ofer what he called a
‘psychosymbolic’ interpretation of Vondel’s tragedy as expressing the
antinomy between heaven and earth, spirit and matter, and thereby to
present him as a typical baroque poet. He oten interprets the characters in the tragedies as symbols for inner conlicts in the protagonist,
between for example his objective-earthly and subjective-earthly
selves. American professor of German studies James A. Parente studied
neoclassical tragedy, including works by Vondel, in terms of its relationship to older, Christian-Humanist drama (1987). Peter King compiled word indexes and frequency lists for several works by Vondel,
including Lucifer, and based on his interesting semantic investigations concluded that, from a dogmatic point of view, Lucifer is ‘a failed
9
For a thorough discussion of works on Vondel from 1945 to 1987 see Spies, ‘Vondel
in veelvoud’.
vondel’s works for the stage read and studied
19
theological play’. Incidentally, these studies indicate that Vondel had
his enthusiasts and admirers, some with critical comments to make as
well, even beyond the Dutch-language area. Several of his plays have
appeared in translation in various European languages.10 Lieven Rens,
whose doctoral thesis took the form of a study on the narrowly focussed
theme of the priest-king conlict in Vondel’s tragedies, took the irst
step towards a psychoanalytical interpretation of Vondel’s dramas in
1979. None of these approaches has as yet been taken further to any
great degree.
Particularly inluential, on the other hand, has been the approach of
Utrecht professor of Dutch language and literature W.A.P. Smit.
Between 1955 and 1962 he published a three-volume work called Van
Pascha tot Noah (From Pascha to Noah) in which he treats the tragedies
in chronological order, tracing the development of Vondel’s poetics.
Having started out as a member of a chamber of rhetoric, Vondel later
encountered Seneca and translated works including Troades and
Phaedra. hen he got to know Sophocles and translated Elektra.
He also seems to have followed closely the literary theories of his
contemporaries Hugo Grotius and Daniel Heinsius. All this led him
to new Aristotelian insights: the character of the protagonist lies in
the tension between good and evil, and key moments in the tragedy are
the agnitio, or sudden insight into the true situation, and the accompanying reversal of events, the peripeteia. At this point something develops that Smit calls the duality drama, in which the central character
himself is at stake. Smit believes Vondel’s work is lent its signiicance
by the idea of ‘the meaningfulness of God’s rule’. his is strongly reminiscent of Milton’s ‘to justify the ways of God to men’, the stated purpose of Paradise Lost (1667) (I, 26). Yet the diference in emphasis
should not be overlooked. In Vondel’s view God does not need to be
‘justiied’ to men; his intention is to demonstrate God’s just and merciful rule.
Each volume of the study closes with an ‘overview’ in which the
deining characteristics of the tragedy under discussion are set out
schematically, a didactic aid that made the book signiicantly more
persuasive.
10
For example, English versions of Gysbrecht van Aemstel (1991) and Mary Stuart,
or Tortured Majesty (1996) by Kristiaan Aercke and of Lucifer by Charles van Noppen
(1898 repr. 1942) and Noel Clark (1990).
20
riet schenkeveld-van der dussen
Smit’s book, with its strongly historicizing approach, combined
with ‘close reading’ as he himself remarks, was in a positive sense a
milestone and in a negative sense almost a terminus. here seemed to
be hardly any room let for alternative readings, all the more so since
Smit, from his principles based on contemporary insights, also seriously and powerfully contested the studies produced before and ater
his own. Bomhof ’s opinions were in his view ‘typically modern’ and
took no account of Vondel’s beliefs or his sources. J. Poulssen suggested
in 1963 that the all-pervasive inluence of seventeenth-century literary
theory which Smit describes may have amounted to an obstacle to
Vondel, perhaps adversely afecting his ‘poetic identity’. Smit claimed
that this argument had largely remained stuck at the hypothetical
stage.11
Smit’s approach its neatly into the literary-historical paradigm in
force in his own day, with its focus on seventeenth-century rhetoric
and the literary theory of the author’s time. he same foundations were
built upon for many years. Other interesting and innovative studies on
Vondel’s dramas appeared, theoretically following in Smit’s footsteps,
along with editions of the works that continued to build upon his
insights. he chorus was studied by Lia van Gemert (1990). Jan Konst
wrote his 1993 dissertation on the passions in seventeenth-century
tragedy, paying much attention to Vondel, and in his Fortuna, fatum en
providentia Dei in de Nederlandse tragedie (Fortuna, Fatum, and
Providentia Dei in Dutch Tragedy, 2003) he devotes the entire second
volume of some 125 pages to Vondel. Points of departure are formed by
the ideas of Vondel’s day about the passions and about the broad issue
of fatum (fate) and divine dispensation.
To get out from under the shadow of Smit’s book a paradigm shit
was required, a switching of attention from the literary historian to the
reader, the self-determining reader, the deconstructing reader. In his
detailed responses to positions taken by others, Smit noted that their
interpretations were too modern or too hypothetical, but such arguments were no longer regarded as valid. Readers refused to be governed by seventeenth-century literary theories. Poulssen had already
put forward the hypothesis that Vondel had perhaps allowed himself to
be overly browbeaten by the demands of the literary theory of his day,
and others went a step further and read Vondel on the basis of their
own ideas.
11
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, II, p. 176; Smit, ‘Nieuwe Vondel-literatuur’.
vondel’s works for the stage read and studied
21
In one sense in particular this was certainly no loss. As Smit saw it,
the modern reader needed to step out of his own world. He ought to be
interested in Vondel in the light of the poet’s own time, and if that speciic interest was lacking then unfortunately there was nothing to be
done. hat it was lacking became all too clear. Vondel had hardly any
readers and his plays were performed only rarely. Even when they
were, the directors who took them on were not about to let Smit lay
down the law. Far from it. In 1979, for instance, Hans Croiset produced
a Lucifer that omitted the inal chorus, in which insight is ofered into
the salvation of mankind by Christ. Dramatist Guus Rekers made
Lucifer into a character corresponding to ‘l’homme révolté’ as described
by Camus. It was an impressive and much praised production, but
Vondel would have rejected any such interpretation.12
In academic discourse this kind of modern approach to Vondel
was irst advocated by Ernst van Alphen in a chapter in his book Bang
voor schennis (Fearful of Desecration, 1987) in which he uses Vondel’s
Lucifer to demonstrate how the convention of dramatic unity causes
the reader to smooth away contradictions and problems in a text. One
such contradiction in his view is the clash between the social code
according to which the angels are entirely right to stage a revolt and the
theological code according to which they should submit to God’s commands as a matter of course. he fall of the angels is therefore both
justiied and unjustiied, and it is up to the reader to choose which code
to follow. He should do so irrespective of what Vondel himself thought.
Van Alphen assumes the poet favours the theological reading, so there
is a suggestion here that the reader can stand in opposition to what an
author explicitly lays before him. Such opposition was manifested in
the feminist reading of Vondel’s theatrical works, for example, in which
criticism was made of his one-sided view of women as martyrs, temptresses, and obedient wives – criticism that, as we have seen, arose even
in the seventeenth century.13
Frans-Willem Korsten, in his study Vondel belicht: Voorstellingen van
soevereiniteit (2006, translated in 2009 as Sovereignty as Inviolability:
Vondel’s heatrical Explorations in the Dutch Republic), went a step further. He investigates the concept of sovereignty in Vondel’s theatrical
works and argues that according to Vondel the political system of law
12
See Guus Rekers, ‘Vondel in het perspectief van “L’homme révolté”; of Hoe kun je
de onspeelbare Lucifer laten werken?’ (1981).
13
Schenkeveld-van der Dussen, Vondel en het vrouwelijk dier.
22
riet schenkeveld-van der dussen
cannot be founded on the almighty God, who imposes a system of law
of his own, but that we should instead look to the value of the natural
order. Smit’s ‘meaningfulness of God’s rule’ is in Korsten’s view not the
statement of a conclusion but on the contrary a position that comes up
for debate and is ultimately rejected. he historical igure of Vondel, a
convinced Christian who bowed down before the authority of God as
revealed to him in the Bible, is thereby sidelined altogether. Whatever
Vondel may assert in the various prefaces to his tragedies about the way
in which he has read the Bible and what his characters are intended to
represent, Korsten dismisses it all as a series of rhetorical constructs to
which he pays no further heed. In his book he rightly objects to a onesided reading of Vondel as an author who does not ask questions but
instead ofers certainties, but he himself gives a no less one-sided reading, based on what he as a modern reader wishes to see. His book
expresses no opposition to the author; as a person he is simply put to
one side. here is no further debate with him. he reader has taken
command.
In my position as a philologist of the old school I have every respect
for deconstructionist innovation as a fascinating, indeed perhaps necessary heuristic method. Nevertheless, readings that arise from a concentration on detail, never addressing the fact that the work as a whole
contains signals that clearly point in a diferent direction, I regard as an
incorrect way of dealing with the past.
With Korsten the new paradigm, in which the reader is the central
igure, is taken all the way to its logical conclusion. he many reviews
ranged from admiring to negative. It remains to be seen how the study
of Vondel will develop from this point on.
CHAPTER THREE
VONDEL’S DRAMAS: WAYS OF RELATING PRESENT
AND PAST
Frans-Willem Korsten
Interest and Anachronism
It is a question that can be asked for any writer, but still: why read
Vondel? Of course, one possible answer could be that a igure such as
Vondel – more famous than Rembrandt in his own times – should not
be forgotten. History, however, is not fair. Lots of historical igures who
were famous in their own times are now forgotten. Vondel is not. he
question why we should still read him or, by extension, Dutch
Renaissance literature in general, was central to Eddy Grootes, one of
the towering igures in the study of seventeenth-century Dutch literature, when he said his farewells to the Academy in 1997.1 Tellingly, the
work of Vondel sparked controversial comments. But the very controversy was a sure sign that Vondel (metonymy for his work) was not
dead. His texts are very much ‘present’, for instance on the much-visited website of DBNL, the Dutch on-line wealth of literature from the
recent and distant past. His texts are evidently with us, there, among
many texts from diferent times: they exist simultaneously, now.2
When we address the question as to what the relevance may be of
this historical work for our present, one question is already answered,
then. To the question ‘how can the work still be with us?’, the straightforward answer is that, apparently, there is something in the work that
has kept it alive throughout the centuries as a point of interest. It survived the literary market that is in perpetual development over time, as
George Orwell formulated it.3 Vondel survived the test of time.4 his is
1
Van den Berg and Pleij, Mooi meegenomen?
http://www.dbnl.org/. On the presence of historical texts on the web, see McGann,
Radiant Textuality.
3
George Orwell in his essay ‘Lear, Tolstoy, and the Fool’, in which he dealt with the
arguments concerning this issue by Samuel Johnson and David Hume.
4
Savile, he Test of Time; note that Savile is the irst to contend that in the ield of art
mere survival is not the most relevant issue.
2
24
frans-willem korsten
not all that self-evident, nor does it need to be something special. More
artefacts are lost than there are artefacts preserved, for a host of reasons, and lots of artefacts survived that might as well have been lost.
We can only salvage and safeguard so much. Anyone who has ever had
to decide what to do with all the goods accumulated by deceased parents during their lifetime knows that more is thrown away than kept.
So, in a rather simple sense, relevance is proven when the work is still
preserved, studied or performed.
Talking about the dead, one could argue that they speak to us, and
we speak with them. In the Low Countries, this has been one of the
major points of concern in the work of Jürgen Pieters.5 His work,
inspired by scholars such as Stephen Greenblatt, Lisa Jardine, Catherine
Belsey and Jerome McGann,6 can be seen as an ongoing exploration of
the relation between past and present. It is within that context that the
conversation between the living and the dead is a recurring topos. he
dead are not gone. hey are still here, in a diferent form, addressing us
by way of their manifold manifestations. Attractive as this notion may
be, however, it does not explain why we choose to speak to this speciic
deceased person and not to any of the others. Many more of the dead
are forgotten than the marginal number we care to remember. his riddle can be solved by pointing to the aesthetic power of the text, which
is why Pieters especially focuses on the work Jerome McGann. Both,
however, tend to ignore the inescapable issue of interest. Why would
we study texts if we are simply not interested in them?
he matter of interest directs the questions as to how the historical
work is actualized, how it acquires meaning, and how it is able to show
its force as a work in the present or, somehow, of the present. Such
questions are distinctly diferent from what has been called by
Greenblatt (for instance) ‘Old Historicism’. his approach would be
dealing with the work of art as a piece of history, in which case its force
and content is unequivocally determined by its historical appearance
and context. In contrast, Greenblatt proposed his New Historicism
5
Pieters’s thoroughly revised studies on this issue can be found in his Historische
letterkunde vandaag en morgen. For earlier studies on New Historicism, see his
Moments of Negation.
6
Notably Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-fashioning from More to Shakespeare, Jardine,
Reading Shakespeare Historically, Belsey, he Subject of Tragedy, and Shakespeare and
the Loss of Eden, and McGann, Radiant Textuality and he Beauty of Inlection.
vondel’s dramas: ways of relating present and past
25
(although, perhaps, we had better stick to his idea of ‘cultural poetics’).
he major diference between the Old and the New was that New
Historicism would shun any totality in the description of an historical
situation. Still, both are forms of historicism. he alternative would be
to consider the historical work as an actual thing of the present. To this
end, it can best be studied in semiotic terms – or in material terms, as
Paul de Man would describe it, with language and textuality as forms of
acting matter.7
In relation to the materiality of language, one could argue that
the very idea of ‘history in the present’ is only the result of the rhetorical or linguistic turn in the twentieth century. he point would be
that there is no thought or meaning without manipulated – and manipulating – language, or any other sign-system. here is not one
untarnished meaning deep within language; neither is there thought
without language; and nor is there history without mediation. hrough
language, thought, meaning and history are made, which is why
Michel de Certeau called the writing of history a matter of ‘making
history’.8 Philosophy as well as historiography, in their search for truth,
are not simply using language: they are made by language itself, time
and again, in a speciic present. Within that context, principally, the
‘present past-ness’ of historical works may be called a form of
anachronism.9
he term ‘anachronism’ has its advantages, because it is a technical
term and a necessary concept to indicate a mismatch between two
times. To be sure, this term has been used pejoratively to indicate, for
instance, how awkward it is when, in a movie that purports to be historically accurate, we meet a Jesus wearing rubber shoes. But this awkwardness, the unease or strangeness produced by anachronism, is
functional, as Mieke Bal argued in a study that was tellingly titled
Loving Yusuf: Conceptual Travels from Present to Past. Anachronism
opens up another potential of ‘interest’, as that which is in-between
and can never be contained in one domain alone. When, for instance,
7
See the volume edited by Tom Cohen, Material Events.
‘[F]aire de l’histoire’, Michel de Certeau, L’écriture de l’histoire.
9
he dominance of the present in our study of the past has oten been called ‘presentism’ lately. he notion has rather easily turned into a pejorative term that serves to
disqualify those accused of using the past for their own, present, agenda. his is one
reason why I prefer anachronism.
8
26
frans-willem korsten
characters from the Bible wear seventeenth-century clothes in a
Rembrandt painting, this is surely a kind of mismatch. However, one
could also describe it as the coincidence of diferent times, or the new
embodiment of things past in a present – what Hans Blumenberg called
Umbesetzung.10 hings, ideas and texts travel through time and are
taken up diferently in diferent times. In a fundamental sense, any historical artefact that functions in some kind of present can be seen as an
example of anachronism. he complexity here is not so much a matter
of language or representation, but is primarily an issue of how we can
connect to, or experience history, or deal with history in terms of
actuality.
Gilles Deleuze convincingly argued that time as history – chronological time – cannot deal with history on its own terms.11 he radical
cleavage in time between one moment and the next excludes history
from being present. here is simply no getting back to history. his is
why Deleuze postulated another mode of time in which history and the
present are, or can be, brought together. his is the mode in which history is always in, or together with, the present. he two are not reducible to each other, but they are principally connected or related. As a
consequence it is impossible to consider them as two separate positions. Such a separation would allow the present to become a position
from which one can survey a radically diferent past. In fact, bringing
the two together in time causes them to be lited out of the chronological organisation of time called history. his is what produces anachronism, as was put forward by Walter Benjamin, although he did not
explicitly use this term. He deined it as a form of understanding that
consisted in blasting open ‘the continuum of history’.12
Is this a typically postmodernist stance? I think not, as the case of
Benjamin, or Vondel, may indicate, or that of Catherine Belsey, who
is rightly quoted at the end of the aforementioned study by Pieters:
‘To read the past, to read a text from the past, is always to make an
interpretation which is in a sense an anachronism’.13 If anything, Belsey
10
Hans Blumenberg, Die Legitimität der Neuzeit.
Deleuze, Diférence et répetition.
12
See Benjamin. ‘A Berlin Chronicle’, or ‘On the Concept of History’ and
‘Prolipomena to “On the Concept of History” ’ (especially thesis XVI, Selected Writings
IV, p. 396). For a survey, see Ferris, ‘Introduction: Reading Benjamin’ or Pensky,
‘Method and Time: Benjamin’s Dialectical Images’.
13
Quoted in Pieters, Historische Letterkunde vandaag en morgen, p. 207.
11
vondel’s dramas: ways of relating present and past
27
surely cannot be called a postmodernist. Moreover, even if this is a
characteristically postmodernist position, the qualiication need not be
damaging – as long as it does not amount to the recurring and nonsensical view of postmodernism as the philosophy of ‘anything goes’. In the
case of historiography such a view would come down to saying that, if
history does not exist independently, we can do anything with history
and manipulate it in any way we see it, or appropriate it for our own
needs. here are several forms of postmodernism, or postcolonialism,
in which scholars and writers are highly interested in such manipulation, in relation to notions of truth and representation. By and large
they acknowledge that truth and representation cannot be considered
separately from subjectivity, power and interest. hey also insist on the
fact that, as a result, there can never be such a thing as ‘the’ history.
here are always diferent histories, connected to diferent parties and
interests, which is anything but relativism.
Moreover, the accusation that postmodernism implies an ‘anything
goes’ has its ironies when brought forward from within the ield of history. Generally, history is qualiied as the substance of recorded history.
he very fact that history exists because of records, because of writing
and representation, means that manipulation stands at the heart of history.14 With regard to this manipulation, there are indeed many disturbing traces of an ‘anything goes’ attitude. his attitude would not be
the result of scholarly or philosophical irresponsibility, but of a pivotal
connection between recording and power. To put it simply, having the
power and ability to record implies having the power and ability to
make ‘history’, or to contest it. One famous and relatively recent example is the sudden rise of attention that has lately been paid to the
Chinese admiral Zhengh He (or Cheng Ho, 1371–1435). Anybody
suring the net right now will ind hundreds of sites and a society
entirely devoted to the study of Zheng He’s life and works.15 He travelled to the east coast of Africa, to South and North America and
Australia, before any European did. he story goes that the ith Ming
emperor Yongle (or Xuan Zong) had ordered his admiral to give testimony to other nations that he was now emperor. he records of these
14
his can be seen as one of the dominant themes in the work of Michel Foucault,
throughout its diferent phases, as in Madness and Civilization, he History of Sexuality,
he Order of hings and especially he Archaeology of Knowledge with the inluential
‘Discourse on Language’.
15
See http://www.chengho.org/
28
frans-willem korsten
travels were destroyed, however, on the orders of Xuan Zong’s successor (presumably his son), who would prohibit the building of ships
with three masts, thereby efectively ending China’s imperial expansion
overseas.
his is a clear case of history being made, in diferent ways and
modes, in past and present. It is rather evident that the renewed attention for Zheng He is almost directly linked to the rise of China as a
dominant global power. he fact that Zheng He was a Muslim even
expands the possibilities of claiming him as a heroic ancestor (although
this complicates things as well, in the Chinese context). For those readers who are a little surprised that I use this Chinese example in relation
to Vondel’s historical presence in the present, it may be of interest to
know that Vondel wrote a play in 1667 on the fall of the last emperor of
the Ming dynasty that took place some decades earlier, in 1644:
Zungchin of ondergang der Sineesche heerschappije (Chongzhen or the
Downfall of the Chinese Dominion). In this play about the emperor
Chongzhen, Vondel amply testiies to his ability to handle histories,
bringing together distinctly diferent strands of culturally diverse and
even disparate histories in his text. It will come as no surprise that, in
doing so, he was appropriating the history of others. Still, in doing this,
the play highlights an important distinction.
If we speak about history in the present, this can mean either our
present or the present of the play in its own time. For both, similar
questions are involved. Consequently, we can look at the way in which
Vondel’s plays are part of our present, or at the way in which history
was made present in the plays by Vondel in his own day and age. In
what follows, in order to stress the importance of this distinction I will
devote two sections to the force of history in Vondel’s present and three
sections to history in our present.
Perhaps the most direct way in which history is built into the present
consists of structuring characteristics that lead to the recurrence
through time of unresolved issues and problems within a certain sociocultural body. Consequently there is the possibility of a dialogue
through time, which is always performed within a certain present, with
partners from diferent historical times debating the issue concerned.
he second, rather direct form of history in the present consists in path
dependency, or tradition, as a result of which the contingent and yet
pre-given character of history manifests itself in the present. With the
third form of history in the present, we enter more complex territory. It
concerns the issue of trauma, which keeps human beings ‘caught in
vondel’s dramas: ways of relating present and past
29
history’, as if the past is a cage that holds subjects imprisoned in any
future present, freezing the way in which they can or wish to remember. As a fourth option, history can also be located on the level of representation. he past as such is not what is present, but its active
representation is. Likewise, memory is not a natural given, but an act.16
Finally, with the ith form we will deal with the dynamic between
‘pre’ and ‘post’. his dynamic is commonly considered in terms of precedence – the pre coming before the post. What I will question is not the
issue of precedence, but what, in some context, is the pre and the post.
Historically, for instance, all material from classical antiquity predates
the material from the seventeenth century. he point is that the classical material is taken up the other way around, in the light of seventeenth-century (Christian) society. What came later in time is put up
front in order to read what came earlier as, somehow, the result of what
came later. his once again indicates how, indeed, one can also consider history in Vondel’s present. But allow me to irst continue with
Vondel’s historical presence in our present.
Transcendence in History: Speaking to Each Other hrough Time
Vondel’s works cannot be reduced to the issues and problems they deal
with or the thoughts they express. his, however, has been a dominant
way of dealing with art, as Jean Mary Schaefer has argued. When discussing the work of Hegel, he explains how for the latter, ideal knowledge and real being conlate in philosophy and art but in a markedly
diferent way. With art, they do so in ‘sensuous reality’.17 his will lead,
in the Hegelian frame, to the question of what art is about, thus abstracting an ideal expression from a real object. It is as sensuous objects,
however, that works of art can do many things, both at the same time
and through time. his never occurs in an abstract fashion, but always
in particular ways.
Works of art are part of a history in which it is hard to speak of some
kind of progress. In the ield of art things surely change, but one cannot say that twentieth-century authors write better plays than their
seventeenth-century predecessors. hey simply write diferent plays.
16
On memory as an act, see Huyssen, Present Pasts, the collection of essays edited
by Bal et al., Acts of Memory, or Todorov, Hope and Memory.
17
See Schaefer, Art of the Modern Age, speciically p. 139.
30
frans-willem korsten
Because of this, one can trace formal or technical problems that make
works comparable through the ages, in a relatively horizontal way. hey
exist on a par. In the case of Vondel, for instance, one of his artistic
problems is how to write Christian tragedy. Whereas Christian comedy
could consist of the change of a miserable, desperate situation into a
spiritual and enlightened one, Christian tragedy had a basic problem,
for the end of any history had to be just. here could not be such a
thing as an undeserved fate. Consequently, the issue of the possibility
of Christian tragedy has vexed many authors throughout the centuries,
and they have come up with rather diferent ways of dealing with it.18
One can see this as an ongoing discussion that transcends time. When,
for instance, Dutch author Connie Palmen published her novel Lucifer
in 2007, she was not engaging with Vondel’s play Lucifer as a historical
piece locked in its own time, but rather as a work in the present that
deals with a recurring theme or problem.19 In fact, the notion of intertextuality developed by Kristeva pointed to this possibility of looking at
texts on a strictly horizontal level.
As the example of Christian tragedy may have indicated, there is
more to this particular problem than formal organization. In terms of
content, it is hard to speak in terms of progress in many cases. One can
argue that the present-day juridical organization of the Netherlands is
surely better than the juridical organization prevalent in the seventeenth century. If the possibility of time travel existed, one might have
second thoughts about being transported to the seventeenth century if
one had homosexual or kleptomaniacal tendencies, or if one were disposed towards religious or political radicalism. In this strict context
one can speak of progress. his does not mean, however, that historical
texts cannot deal with issues of content that may contribute directly to
an ongoing discussion in the present. he issue of sovereignty as it is
explored in many (and perhaps all) of Vondel’s plays is a good case in
point. If one approaches it in classical hermeneutical or exegetical
terms, one would have to specify how Vondel’s explorations were
18
For diferent recent attempts, see Cox, Between Earth and Heaven: Shakespeare,
Dostoevsky, and the Meaning of Christian Tragedy, or Hunt, he Paradox of Christian
Tragedy, and Bouchard, Tragic Method and Tragic heology: Evil in Contemporary
Drama and Religious hought. Perhaps the best, but also the most confusing study is
Pranger, ‘he Artiice of Eternity’.
19
To get just one impression of the enormous discussion surrounding the appearance of Palmen’s Lucifer, see http://www.nrcboeken.nl/leesclub/connie-palmen
-lucifer.
vondel’s dramas: ways of relating present and past
31
particular to his times, how they built upon speciic works and thoughts
and were followed by others. In my own work, I decided to take another
approach by placing Vondel’s works within a discussion that transcends
history, as a result of which it is present in an ongoing discussion. his
possibility exists because of two elemental aspects of history.
he irst elemental aspect is that any cultural organization has certain structuring characteristics. he issue of sovereignty, for instance,
presents a fundamental problem that shows a clear development in
European and Western history as a result of the clashes, fusions and
encounters between distinct cultural bodies and coinciding political
organizations. It bears the marks of classical antiquity (Greek and
Roman), of the peoples inhabiting or invading Europe (in relation to
this speciic theme: Germans, Franks), of Judaism, or of Christianity
(in its diferent modalities). It is not coincidental that one of the most
inluential studies on this issue, by Giorgio Agamben had a Roman
concept in its title: homo sacer. Up until this day several problems
posed by the idea of sovereignty have not been resolved, such as the
question as to what grounds sovereignty, or what the relation between
the sovereignty of the ruler and the sovereignty of the ruled may be, or
whether sovereignty requires a centre or not. In relation to these questions it is of interest to see how Vondel dealt with them in his plays, to
see what his explorations contribute to the ongoing discussion. In that
context it is possible and valid to confront his works with the work of
contemporary – both modern and postmodernist – theoreticians.
It goes without saying that I still consider Vondel’s works in their
historical speciicity. It is a principally dialogic way of dealing with the
object, although it is a diferent type of dialogism than proposed by
New Historicism. Whereas the latter approach would remain within
the conines of a historical period to show its fundamentally dialogic
structure, here the dialogue transcends time. Historical texts are taken
seriously now whilst their meaning is not exhaustively explained or
framed by their own historical context. his possibility of reaching
through time depends for a considerable part on the fact that we are
dealing with a work of art, the potential of which is not restricted to the
times of its production. As we know, in diferent times and difering
historical circumstances, a work of art can be opened up anew, and its
manifold potential is developed in diferent directions.20 he work
20
For an overview of editions and performances, see the contributions by Mieke B.
Smits-Veldt and Riet Schenkeveld-van der Dussen in this volume.
32
frans-willem korsten
keeps speaking, as a force in the present. If it stops doing that, people
will probably lose interest in it. It may get lost at a certain moment, or
it will become a historical curiosity.
Tradition, or History’s Resilience
Nothing could seem to be more common than saying that we have to
read or understand something within a tradition. In the case of Vondel,
for instance, we would have to read his work in the tradition that was
shaped and deined by the sociocultural organization of the Netherlands.
Although this appears to be quite straightforward, there is ample historical evidence that tradition can be very hard to deine, and appears
to be lexible as well. here is no such thing as a tradition that is solid
and stable through time. Tradition is constantly being made.21
Obviously we cannot reconstruct it from scratch. here are pre-given
elements with which we have to work. Tradition is analogous to history, here, in a fundamental way, since there is no way we can reconstruct history from scratch. In history, there is a principal path
dependency in operation, which causes some possibilities to be opened
up and others to be closed. If, for instance, Europe would not have been
successful in its process of colonization and subsequent colonialism,
we would have lived in a completely diferent world. But as it is Europe
was successful in conquering large parts of the world. In other words,
there is something in the past that determines our current situation,
whereas we have the power to reconstruct history at the same time. We
are able to present our view on it, another view, to pay attention to
something that has been neglected so far, to explore possibilities that
were there but not realized, and so forth.
When studying Vondel’s play Palamedes I was fascinated by a passage that may illustrate the issue. his play is an allegory that was meant
to accuse Maurits, the Stadtholder of the States, of having murdered
Oldenbarnevelt, Grand Pensionary of the States General and the most
powerful political igure in the Dutch Republic. he accusation had to
be an allegory, since a blunt accusation would have brought Vondel
before a court that most surely would have sentenced him to prison or
to death. In order to avoid such a grisly fate, he wrote a play in which
the characters are taken from a classical story about a miserable set-up,
21
On this dynamic, see Bal’s chapter ‘Tradition’ in Travelling Concepts, pp. 213–52.
vondel’s dramas: ways of relating present and past
33
and he presents them as masks for contemporary players. Right in the
middle of that classical, allegorical play, we suddenly encounter another
character, however, from another time and another place. he chorus
ater the second act describes him as follows:
hat the African both cruel and strong
Built a church from people’s heads,
And that his temple priest had
A skull for his censer:
And before he said prayers,
Lit a torch of human fat,
And with pretense of holiness poured
Purple human blood instead of wine:
And sacriiced, as a burnt ofering to the gods
Human entrails half alive:
While a human intestine fastens
Round his body his tough human skin,
His sacriicial robe and festival adornment:
And sang, and screeched without measure,
From parchment full of blood-red script,
Maddened by an inner rage:
And had a chorus of savage
Murderers echo each verse
Whose weapon was neither sword nor cutlass,
But jawbone or thighbone:
hat Tantalus still spattered with ilth
Of fresh murder, dared to serve up
His son’s lesh at Jove’s table:
Has not happened by chance:
But was inescapable fate!22
What we see is a strange mixture of so-called traditional material.
Tantalus its in with the classical tradition from which the allegory has
acquired its material. In this particular case the text is not inspired by
22
Palamedes ll. 697–721: ‘Dat d’Africaen soo wreed als sterck, / Van menschen
hoofden boude een kerck, / En dat sijn tempelpriester had / Een doodshoofd tot sijn
wieroockvat: / En eer hy noch gebeden sprack, / Een menschenongeltoorts ontstack, /
En plengde met een heylgen schyn / Paers menschenbloedt in plaets van wyn: / En
oferde, den Goon tot brand / Hallevend menscheninghewand: / Terwyl een menschendarrem sluyt / Om’t lijf syn taeye menschen huyt, / Syn oferkleed en feestcieraed:
/ En song, en schreeude sonder maet, / Wt parckement vol bloedrood schrit, / Verruckt
door innerlijcke drit: / En deê weergalmen op elck vaers / Een rey van woeste moordenaers / Wier wapen, swaerd noch kortelas, / Maer kakebeen of schinckel was: / Dat
Tantalus noch vuyl bemorscht / Van versche moord, opschafen dorst / Het vleesch
sijns soons op Iovis disch: / Niet by geval gebeurt en is: / Maer onontworstelbaer
bescheer!’
34
frans-willem korsten
the classical tradition, however, although A. Geerts stated that this
African had to be the Egyptian king Busiris, who was well known from
Greek mythology and from Seneca. Geerts has a point. Busiris indeed
sacriiced people, but did so with a reason and limited himself to foreigners. His sacriices were ordained by an oracle, to be sure. But that
oracle told him to fend of famine by sacriicing others. he issue of
sacriicing others is of interest. Still, if Vondel can introduce Tantalus
explicitly, why would he not mention Busiris by name as well? It makes
more sense to consider the description of this African in the Western
tradition of racial stereotyping. In fact we see Vondel working on the
installation of that tradition, whilst complicating it as well.
he igure of the African as depicted here relates to some stories and
reports that were produced due to the rapidly developing contacts
between Dutch traders and their African partners. In the background
there is the history of the slave trade. his trade was, at the time of the
publication of Palamedes, predominantly in the hands of the Portuguese
in Western Africa. Yet their position was looked upon with envy by the
Dutch.23 he history that ensued would cause ‘a rit in the soul’ even as
Africa and the Americas were being ‘stitched together’, as Derek
Walcott described it in Omeros. When Toni Morrison coined the term
‘Africanism’ (a sister concept of Orientalism) she was not immediately
thinking about seventeenth-century Dutch literature.24 Nevertheless,
the characteristic features that she described could hold for that literature as well. When we use her conceptual tools, we are able to get a
sharper view of the construction of a tradition that would prove to be a
persistent one.
When we use modern theory and insights in order to revisit historical texts, this is again a form of anachronism. Because of Morrison’s
work, the presence of Africans or African elements in art and thought
can be described in functional terms in three ways: (1) the African is a
surrogate who is not presented for his own sake, but is taken up in
order to enable white writers to think about themselves; (2) the African
functions as the primitive, who can, as such, be the negative of the positive of white, European or Western modernity; (3) the African functions as a pivot in the construction of history in which the African is
23
In Allison Blakely’s Blacks in the Dutch World: he Evolution of Racial Imagery in
a Modern Society, Blakely presents an overview of the deep-rooted cultural structure of
racial prejudices in the (European) West.
24
Morrison, Playing in the Dark.
vondel’s dramas: ways of relating present and past
35
relatively history-less or context-less whereas the white subject has history and is put ‘in place’. As I stated elsewhere, it is as if Palamedes aims
to substantiate these claims, since ‘the African appears here from
nowhere. And he will disappear just as suddenly and without trace as
well’. At the same time, however, the African can also be read as a igure
pointing to Stadtholder Maurits.25
In relation to the African it is relevant to note that there is a strand in
the European tradition in which ‘black’ is considered positively.
Moriaen is a famous medieval, Arthurian novel in the Netherlands,
with a black protagonist and hero. he igure of Moriaen was probably
inspired by St. Maurice, a medieval saint whose name can still be traced
in city names such as Sankt Moritz. It is this positive hero that is reinscribed negatively here, with the African referring to Maurice. What
makes this example complex, then, is that the white Maurice is not contrasted with the cruel African, but that the positive of St. Maurice is
turned into a negative in order to be able to indicate Stadtholder
Maurits, who is described as cruel himself. his does not lit the racial
stereotyping, but complicates it in fact.
As scholars, we can resist or reshape those elements of a tradition
that we consider to be disadvantageous, but of course we can only go so
far. We may be helped by the fact that there is always more to history
than we think there is, as if history is a magical attic where there is
always one more box to open. his discarded set of boxes was, in fact,
the set that New Historicism was ater. Despite history’s complexity,
however, nobody can reshape history any which way she or he would
like. History resists. he presence of the African in European or
Western literature is both the result of history’s contingency and the
determined path history took, with the coinciding development of certain traditions. Any presence of Africans in art or literature, then, is a
case of history in the present. It carries a charged history with it, and
immediately infuses the present with that history. Again, this does not
mean that we simply have to accept any pre-existing structures, but we
cannot ignore them either.
When I discussed the controversy concerning the status of Zheng
He as a discoverer above, I did not mean to imply that all participants
in a debate have equally sound arguments, or use equally sound methods. With regard to history, however, the principal point is that we all
25
Korsten, Sovereignty as Inviolability, p. 121.
36
frans-willem korsten
have to build our case on some kind of historical records (whether
these consist of writings, artefacts, or any other remnants of the past).
hese records have to be deined as such, their trustworthiness has to
be assessed, they have to be interpreted, and need to be brought into
some kind of (narrative and argumentative) connection. his is surely
cause for much manipulation, and it cannot be otherwise. Although
manipulation may be well known for its negative connotations, originally it means nothing more or less than handling a matter, or the skilful treatment of some matter. Such handling does always take place in
a present.
Caught in History or Opening it Up: Pain and Love
One of the most famous plays written by Vondel is Gysbreght van
Aemstel (1637). In this play, one of the best known dicta in the history
of Christianity is being reshaped. It concerns Tertullian’s dictum ‘semen
est sanguis Christianorum’.26 One might ask what kind of seed (semen),
or whose. his becomes clear if one takes a look at the context in which
Tertullian puts forward this phrase. He is discussing the function martyrs have had for the constitution of the church. As a result his dictum
was better known in later times as ‘sanguis martyrum semen christianorum’, or ‘ecclesiae’: the blood of martyrs is seed for the Christians,
or the church in which they are gathered. hat is to say, it is the blood
of martyrs that stands at the basis of the future growth of the church.
Put like this it seems as if there have to be martyrs, who stand at the
basis of the glorious church that is to be established. hat, however, is
just one way of looking at it. Another option is that if the church wishes
to grow, it will constantly need new seed, new martyrs, and, consequently, new pain.
his second option is explored in Vondel’s play, especially in a chorus that has an opening line that gained a life of its own in Dutch literature, and as such acquired a deeply ironic meaning. he chorus starts
with: ‘O Christmas night, more splendid than the days’ (l. 903).27
Considered on its own, this line describes Christmas as, indeed, the
most splendid of nights, or as the source of all light. But in the continuing lines this is not at all what the chorus elaborates. It describes the
26
27
Tertullian, Apologeticum 50, 13.
‘O Kersnacht, schooner dan de daegen’, l. 903.
vondel’s dramas: ways of relating present and past
37
slaughter of the children of Bethlehem ordered by Herod, who was
afraid that the prophecy about a Hebrew infant usurping his throne
would come true. In this context the splendour of Christmas Eve is
intrinsically connected to the slaughter of innocent children. he chorus then invokes the biblical igure of Rachel, Jacob’s second wife, who
begot Joseph. Her tomb lies next to the road to Bethlehem. Upon being
summoned, her ghost starts to roam the ields in order to witness the
pain that is being inlicted. Seeing all this pain, Rachel starts to cry.
hen the chorus asks her to stop crying, since:
Your children die as martyrs
And irstlings of the seed
hat starts to grow from your blood
And gloriously will lower to God’s honour
And that will not perish by whatever cruelty.28
he passage ofers an obvious allusion to Tertullian’s dictum, but it is
indeed an allusion rather than a citation. Here the seed will grow out of
Rachel’s blood – and Rachel is emphatically not a martyr (the comment
in the Collected Works makes Rachel out to be a personiication of the
Jewish people here, but this is highly ironical since Rachel is a non-Jew,
bought from Laban by Jacob).29 Most important, however, is the fact
that the seed is not human semen, but the seed of lowers. hese lowers
not only seem to form a marked contrast with cruelty, they are able to
resist it. In no case is there any cruelty needed to let them grow. What
causes this particular twist?
he answer is that the play explores diferent ways of making history.
he irst way of making history entails that subjects remain somehow
caught in history. As has become clear in the broadly developed ield of
trauma studies in the last decades, the inliction of pain may lead to
traumatisation, which in its turn leads to a certain stasis.30 Traumatized
subjects remain ‘caught in history’, as the title of one important study
has it.31 hat is to say that the moment of trauma stretches out over
28
Gysbreght, ll. 946–50: ‘Uw kinders sterven martelaeren, / En eerstelingen van het
zaed, / Dat uit uw bloed begint te groeien, / En heerlijck tot Gods eer zal bloeien, / En
door geen wreedheid en vergaet.’
29
Bringing in Rachel, the text alludes directly to Matthew 2:18, which in turn is a
direct allusion to Jeremiah 31:15.
30
Some important studies in the ield were Cathy Caruth’s Trauma: Explorations in
Memory, Dori Laub’s Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis and
History, and Kali Tal’s Worlds of Hurt: Reading the Literatures of Trauma.
31
Van Alphen, Caught in History.
38
frans-willem korsten
future developments, as a result of which traumatized subjects are not
able to live relatively independently in the present, but have to live in a
present that is the recurring present of the moment of traumatization.
hey are somehow robbed of their relatively autonomous power to
actively use memory. Instead of being the subject of memory, then,
they are the objects of some kind of memory. History is not something
of the past, but remains painfully present, enforcing its presence. So, in
the Christian context, painful inliction serves to propel history towards
the glorious future of the Church, but at the same time painful inliction serves to keep that history the same, as a history that has frozen
active memory in order to remain closed, or at least in order to preserve the shape and status of the church.
his is one option, both shown by the play and consequently rejected.
At the end of the play, it seems as if Gijsbreght wants to become a martyr. His city had been beleaguered, has been taken by means of a ruse,
and has, by then, been conquered almost in its entirety, in an atrocious
way, with people being raped and slaughtered. Gijsbreght, however,
refuses to surrender, pledging to ight to the end, ofering his own
blood for – indeed, what for? His wife Badeloch, aided by an angel who
suddenly appears and tells Gijsbreght to listen to her, asks her husband
to save his life, and to save the lives of those who have survived. hey
have to lee elsewhere, in order to start a new life. History can be opened
up, a new start can be made.
Interestingly enough, there is the possibility of a history in the present here as well. Hannah Arendt, in her reading of Augustine, developed the notion of natality in relation to politics, which, in contrast
with pain, emphasises love as a driving force.32 In relation to Christmas
Eve the notions of love and natality surely have their distinct thematic
connotations, but the implications are pivotal. In relation to the Roman
Empire, Christianity ofered a new kind of history, an opening up of
history, a new community. For Augustine, that new opening was immediately meant to be the very last one. For Hannah Arendt, however,
natality is the constant potential present in politics. It can be seen as the
opposite of traumatization. History, with its many roads and possibilities, constantly keeps alive the recurrence of an opening up. In the case
of Gysbreght that opening up is revealed when in the end the love
32
Arendt, Love and Saint Augustine. he concept of natality is explored further in
Markell, ‘he Rule of the People: Arendt, Archê, and Democracy’.
vondel’s dramas: ways of relating present and past
39
between man and wife fuels the possibility of life. Instead of choosing
to become martyrs, a band of survivors escapes through the one opening let to them: the harbour and the sea, at the other side of which
there lies a new land, and a new history.
Narrativism and Nomadic hought
When Frank Ankersmit developed his controversial notion of narrativism in the early nineties of the twentieth century, his idea was to
present an alternative to what he called historism. He was not alone in
this endeavour. One of his major sources of inspiration was the
American scholar Hayden White.33 Both argued against the option that
it would somehow be possible to approach history by assuming that it
is possible (a) to have access to a history that exists independently and
(b) to represent that access in such a way to historians and other readers that this access is ‘transferred’. White and Ankersmit rightly pointed
to the fact that the element of representation is not just operative in
relation to the way in which transference to others takes place. Instead,
history comes into being on the level of representation. Confronted
with a number of oten disparate sources and facts, any historian has to
start by connecting them. She has to produce a coherent whole of
chronological, causal connections. With respect to these, Ankersmit
came up with his notion of narrativism, which was a confusing notion
in the sense that it also had to capture argumentative elements in the
text. Each sentence being a proposition, the narrativism consisted in
the fact that all these propositions were eventually caught in a narrative
frame.
Ankersmit’s notion was discussed at length because it seemed to
imply that history did not exist as an independent entity that could be
studied and represented, as Leopold von Ranke argued, in order to
‘simply show how it actually had been’. However, as became clear in the
course of the discussion, Ankersmit did consider history as an independent entity, be it as an entity of disparate elements. here is no
coherence in history, the writing of history produces coherence – on
33
Ater White’s Metahistory, Tropics of Discourse, or he Content of the Form and
Ankersmit’s Narrative Logic, or he Reality Efect in the Writing of History in the early
seventies and eighties of the twentieth century respectively, a debate ensued on the
issue that lasted for at least two decades. An overview and response was Ankersmit and
Kellner’s A New Philosophy of History.
40
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the level of representation. In this way it is possible that an ever-increasing number of such productions, in being combined, increasingly
approximates what one could call history as that which had taken
place. It is fairly safe to say that Ankersmit’s way of saving the independent status of history distinguishes him as a historian from more
radical positions taken up elsewhere in the humanities. hese would
hold that even the choice of sources, or the qualiication of a source as
a historical one, is an act framed by representation. Nonetheless,
Ankersmit’s option was distinctly anti-hermeneutical, something that
was emphasized once more when he published his study on historical
sensation, and intrinsically linked up that sensation to the notion of the
sublime.34
he more radical positions taken up in the humanities can be
described shorthand as nomadic, or as schizo-analysis, and the major
source of inluence is Gilles Deleuze.35 he central tenet of this type of
analysis is that there is no pre-given or pre-ordained theory or method
that one can use in order to deal with any historical artefact. A good
example here may be the play Adonias. In this play, Solomon is the
newly appointed king. He is appointed by David, who preferred the
younger Solomon over the older son who was irst in the line of succession: Adonijah. his distribution of power goes against what in the
preface Vondel calls natural law (according to which the eldest born is
entitled to succeed to the throne) and deines the power struggle that
the play explores. his power struggle develops in relation to two
female characters: Bathsheba, the mother of Solomon, and Abishag,
the latest wife of David and a beautiful young woman who is now widowed (and perhaps the reader needs to be reminded that David, like
Solomon, had many wives). At the beginning of the play Adonijah sets
out to ask Abishag to marry him, in order to underpin his claim to the
throne. his act throws Abishag into the midst of a political battle that
damages her so much that in the end, when Adonijah seeks refuge with
her, she rejects him, although she does direct him to a hiding place in
the woods and promises to send people to pick him up in the night.
Any classical reading of this play would have to stick to the fact that
Solomon’s reign is seen as a pre-iguration of Jesus. Solomon is the one
who establishes an empire of peace and who builds the temple – just as
34
Ankersmit, Sublime Historical Experience.
he essay volumes called Critique et clinique and Labécédaire de Gilles Deleuze can
be considered paradigmatic.
35
vondel’s dramas: ways of relating present and past
41
Jesus will install an empire of peace and stands at the basis of the
Church. Such a reading has much that it must reinterpret, but it also
has much that it must ignore, or it has to state recurrently that we have
to see things ‘in the light of ’. It considers Solomon and Adonijah as the
natural protagonists of the play and considers Bathsheba and Abishag
as, at most, sidekicks.
A nomadic reading of the play must in the irst instance pay attention to the nomadic elements in the text of the Tanakh itself and the
Christian Bible. All its inconsistencies, the stories that are told in diferent versions, the traces of other religions, the signs of internal controversies and discussions are not reinterpreted in order to get to a inal
meaning (as Jewish and Christian allegoresis aimed to do, in order to
get to a inal meaning), but they are seen for what they are: elements
that turn the text into a collection of travelling thoughts and issues.
hat collection of nomadic elements is not restricted to the text itself,
for the text links itself to many diferent users through time, and in the
present. In my case, for instance, I was puzzled by the qualiication of
this play – not just in its subtitle but also in its reception – as a tragedy.
hat led me to the question of whose tragedy this is.
here is no room here to pay closer attention to the complex issue of
Christian tragedy. For now, I would like to make clear that a tragedy
needs a character that is the subject of that tragedy. In the case of
Adonias, the supposed protagonist, Solomon, can hardly be deined as
a tragic character. He inds himself in a power struggle with his brother
and he solves that struggle as he should, in both the Jewish and
Christian frame of history. He has to build the temple, the preiguration of the Church. At the end of the play, his power is airmed and
prosperous times are to begin. he court priest ends the play by saying:
‘It pleases me to meet in Solomon the king of peace / who at the altar of
his feet sees all archenemies / lying in the dust, and sees them bow
before God’s throne. / I expect in Solomon another son of David’
(ll. 1884–87).36 his is hardly tragic – quite the contrary. Since Adonijah
ends up dead, he might seem to be a more likely candidate for the tragic
role. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the play Adonijah sets out on his
endeavour knowing that it may cost him his life. He gets the punishment he already expected, which also is hardly tragic. If there is one
36
‘Het lustme in Salomon den vredevorst t’ontmoeten, / Die alle erfvyanden, aen ’t
outer van zijn voeten, / In stof ziet leggen, en zich buigen voor Godts troon. / ’K verwacht in Salomon een’ andren Davidszoon.’ ll. 1184–87.
42
frans-willem korsten
tragic igure in this play it is Abishag, who starts out as a grieving
widow, is then used in the power games of others and ends up with a
tarnished reputation as a result of which, for centuries to come, as she
puts it, people will put the blame on her.
To see Abishag as the subject of this tragedy would be impossible in
any classical, hermeneutical approach to this text. In fact I could be
accused of anachronism since Vondel, framed by the Christian patriarchal world-view, would not have been able to think of a woman as an
autonomous subject, let alone as a tragic or somehow heroic subject.
Even if I would agree with this, I would be able to point to the fact that
the text does not coincide with Vondel’s thoughts, that the text is itself
is a collection of travelling elements, and that it started to travel through
time aterwards. Puzzled, I followed some of its traces, and came to the
conclusion that Abishag is the only character that can be called tragic.
Is this a wilfully anachronistic interpretation? It is, but not in the form
of a deliberate mismatch. he anachronism resides in the sense of an
unavoidable misreading – which is not meant to indicate a wrong reading, but the principal inability to ascertain the right one.
Preposterous History, Allegory and Appropriation
History seems to be deined chronologically by the prepositions pre
and post. Yet this seemingly natural order of things is not that solid. he
point was put forward convincingly by Mieke Bal, who coined the term
preposterous history in order to indicate how past and present are
caught in an embrace that confuses chronological order.37 In the case of
Bal, in her Quoting Caravaggio, she considered the way in which many
postmodernist artists reworked material from the Baroque. Usually
this would be seen as a matter of inluence, or of chronologically hierarchized intertextuality. Bal’s point was that it works the other way
around. We now read baroque works of art through the pre-position of
postmodernist art. In the case of literature I could say, for instance, that
we now read the Iliad as much through Derek Walcott’s Omeros as we
read Omeros through the Iliad. But, as the term ‘preposterous’ suggests,
there is more to it than this simple reversal. Taking her cue from
anthropologist Johannes Fabian, Bal is talking about ‘shared time’, of a
coevality between scholar and historical subject.38
37
38
Bal, Quoting Caravaggio.
Bal, Quoting Caravaggio, p. 7.
vondel’s dramas: ways of relating present and past
43
Using Bal’s term, preposterous history can be done and must be
done from the present – from any present. It is not possible to get back
to Vondel’s present, but it is possible to consider it as a present, in relation to a history. Subsequently the same dynamic of preposterousness
comes to the fore, especially in relation to allegory. Such an approach is
deeply historical because it encompasses chronological order into a
larger dynamic of times crossing each other. he play Leeuwendalers is
a good case in point. Written to celebrate the ending of eighty years of
war and civil strife in the Netherlands – the last thirty years of which
have become known as the hirty Years’ War in Europe – the play was
a comedy. In it, the Christian God did not play a role; the classical god
Pan, however, did. In the classical hermeneutical reading, this god is
supposed to stand for the Christian God. In a sense we are not supposed to take the igure of Pan seriously, because we have to read him
as ‘God’. But even classical, hermeneutical readings of the play have
encountered great diiculties in doing this. he reason is that allegory
is perhaps meant to be a means to solve discrepancies in texts or in history, but it is also a means that cannot succeed in doing this. Allegory’s
metaphorical structure does not allow one meaning to be replaced, but
produces new meaning, or an interpretative oscillation between signiiers and signiied.
In terms of preposterousness, the classical material, in this case
embodied by Pan, pre-dates Christianity. he latter is the heir of classical antiquity, and also thinks of itself as such: it comes ater the Roman
empire in order to succeed it and bring it to a higher level. So, in being
its heir, it supersedes it at the same time. Classical antiquity should be
read, then, through the lens of Christianity. Here the scales are reversed.
Consequently the post becomes pre, and as a result classical material
can and should be read diferently, with hindsight. In the case of
Leeuwendalers, Pan came irst but should retrospectively be read irst,
as God. his is the major reason why history becomes preposterous
here – as all the readings of this play in one way or another testify.
Nobody is able to grasp the dynamic installed by the play. It escapes,
exceeds and transgresses because of the confusion of shared times.
Preposterousness is distinctly diferent from appropriation, precisely
because the dynamic concerned does not solve contradictions and tensions by incorporating everything, or by removing traces of what could
not be incorporated. hese are all goals of appropriation – something
that may partly be the goal of Vondel’s Chinese play mentioned
earlier.
44
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In this 1667 play, Vondel introduces a company of Jesuits that happens to be present when the last Ming Chinese emperor falls due to
internal strife and a Tartar invasion. Vondel’s sources on the issue may
have been manifold (see W.A.P. Smit on this),39 but the most important
ones came from Jesuits who had had mission posts in China since the
sixteenth century. Studies by Martinus Martinius in particular were
important. One appeared in 1654 through the famous Antwerp publisher Plantijn, De bello Tartarico Historia, which was published in
Dutch in 1664, as an additional description in Blaeu’s Atlas, entitled
Historie van den Tartarischen oorlog (History of the Tartar War). his
was three years before Vondel wrote his play. But perhaps even more
relevant were the reports by Joan Nieuhof (1618–1672), who had
worked by commission of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) as
part of a mission from Batavia to China. In 1665 his report was
published.40
As may be clear, Vondel’s sources were serving distinct interests of
particular organizations, in this case the Roman Catholic Church and
the Dutch East India Company, but more generally the interests concerned the ‘body’ of European Christianity as a whole, and the emerging world powers constituting it. Within that context one can see the
play as a way to appropriate the downfall of the Chinese emperor and
read it as a historical event that was preordained in order to prepare the
ground for the Christianization of the Chinese empire. However,
W.A.P. Smit has rightly pointed to the fact that the Jesuits in the play
have no part whatsoever in the unfolding of its history.41 It is as if they
are thrown in either as commentators (taking the part of the classical
chorus), or as a foreign cultural body that carves out its own path
through the events. Appropriation fails, then. If one takes a look again
at the sources Vondel may have used, one explanation of this failure
may be the sheer immensity of the history and might of the Chinese
empire.
he tendency to appropriate is not something restricted to Vondel’s
times. As a tendency it is part and parcel of doing history, and of
39
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 3.
Sources mentioned by Smit are: Martinus Martinius, Sinicae Historiae Decas
prima; Joan Nieuhof, Het Gezandtschap der Neêrlandische Oost-Indische Compagnie,
aen den Grooten Tartarischen Cham, den tegenwoordigen Keizer van China. Nieuhof
used other studies in order to add to the history of China as it was known then.
41
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 3, p. 491 and ll. 497–98.
40
vondel’s dramas: ways of relating present and past
45
writing it. Although it may seem to it in with the anachronism of
which I talked earlier, it does not – and in scholarly circles it is something to be addressed, to be both done and avoided. I agree, principally,
with Quentin Skinner when he states that we should not consider historical actors in the light of what came aterwards.42 In fact, Skinner
shows himself the heir, in this respect, of a fundamental change in the
European conceptualization of the past. As Paula Findlen has argued,
the value of the past as something diferent to – as ‘other than’ – the
present is an invention of the Renaissance.43 Consequently, the past is a
foreign country, the otherness of which needs to be respected. But
anachronism in the theoretical sense that I discussed does not deny the
principal otherness of history (its Alterität, as Jauss would call it).44 In
fact, it renders it central. Appropriation would lit the tension and the
awkwardness that is intrinsic to the notion of anachronism. As that
notion highlights there are two diferent times coming together, and
they cannot be made one, as a result of which the anachronism would
be lited. Historical material, historical actors are diferent. he point is
that their diference can only be felt from within a certain present.
History persists in the present, in the sense that it is from within the
present that its diference is felt and is constituted.
I conclude by saying a little more, very briely, about this dynamic in
relation to Vondel’s relevance for us, today, in the context of which
appropriation can acquire a positive meaning.
Why Vondel Matters
Ater nigh on total silence during the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, the Dutch
theatrical scene has recently seen a growing number of performances
of plays by Vondel.45 Apparently there is renewed interest in scholarly
circles too. As for my own scholarly work on Vondel, I was interested in
his treatment of sovereignty because of the principal discussions on
this issue both in society and in scholarly circles. One pivotal element
was, and still is, the relation between religion and politics, but also
42
Skinner, Visions of Politics: Regarding Method.
Findlen, ‘Historical hought in the Renaissance’.
44
Jauss, Modernität und Alterität.
45
For an overview of that growing number of performances, see the contribution by
Smits-Veldt.
43
46
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between religion and philosophy. I consider Vondel’s plays to be important and highly complex statements on these issues.
hese statements cannot be easily divulged. In Vondel’s case, for
instance, its language will be a major stumbling block for a modern
audience. here is a distinct diference here to the work of Shakespeare.
Seventeenth-century Dutch is nowadays nearly incomprehensible to
the general audience. Whereas in recent decades there has been an
important movement towards performing classical music as much as
possible in the way in which it was done in its own time, the theatrical
approach has to be distinctly diferent. he reason for this may be fairly
basic – in terms of interest too. Apparently, a large audience is able to
enjoy music when it is being performed as close to its original form as
possible (on original instruments, for instance, and with the original
setting of the orchestra). In the case of the theatre, however, only a very
small portion of the audience is able to enjoy plays that are staged as
they have been in their own times. Plays need to be updated in terms of
content, in terms of form, and in terms of language.
With respect to this, there is also a distinct diference to paintings.
Although people from very diferent times and cultures may not be
able to understand everything in a painting by Rembrandt, they are
able to recognize the picture. To be sure, with Rembrandt as well, a
modern, by and large secularized audience will miss much of the major
concerns of the seventeenth century. It is hard to sense nowadays how
volatile, uncertain, tough, dangerous, gritty and at the same time spiritual, brilliant and exuberant life in the Dutch Republic was. However,
this may also be a reason why Vondel still fascinates, because his work
testiies to its baroque era to such an extent.
Ultimately the immense diference in appreciation between
Rembrandt and Vondel, or between Shakespeare and Vondel, may be
the result of their status and skill as artists. It may also be the result of
the way in which they have been dealt with by the powerful forces of
art’s institutions. Whatever the case, much more efort is needed to
bring Vondel across the footlights than Rembrandt.
Why make such an efort?
Perhaps the most powerful argument is given by Jürgen Pieters when
he states that historical texts ‘speak back’ and have an independent
power to allow us to look at ourselves anew, in another way, slightly
alienated from ourselves and our own times.46 A good case in point
46
Pieters, In denkbeeldige tegenwoordigheid.
vondel’s dramas: ways of relating present and past
47
may be the performance by heater Nomade of Gysbreght van Aemstel
under the direction of Ab Gietelink in the season of 2008–2009. hey
performed the play not in average theatres, but on location, in churches,
city halls, castles, bunkers and so forth. he actors were dressed both in
medieval clothes and as present-day soldiers, and the theme of the play
could be read against what happened at present in the province of
Uruzgan, Afghanistan, where Dutch soldiers were engaged in a war
against Taliban ighters (as the political underpinning of the mission
had it).47 Gysbreght, with its consideration of violence, pain and martyrdom, but with its love of life as well, and with its possibility of leeing, responds to what a Dutch ‘we’ are doing ‘there’. We may start to
read, inevitably, Vondel’s Gysbreght through this performance. But it
works the other way around as well. Gysbreght apparently still has the
power to speak to our present situation, and through it. For the average
modern audience there may be no need to go back to the original text.
he performance will be enough in itself. hat performance was based,
however, on a careful study of the original text, considering it as an
independent comment on current needs and interest. Vondel is still
speaking, and we are still listening to this voice, so strange, so ambitious, so baroque and rigid, and, at the same time, so Dutch and unDutch, so alienating, so irritating and so touching.
47
On this see http://www.abgietelink.nl/Projekten/gijsbreght/gijsbreght_frameset/
gijs.htm. Meanwhile, the Dutch government in the course of 2010 decided to withdraw
the troops.
PART I
VONDEL’S LIFE, WORKS AND TIMES
CHAPTER FOUR
VONDEL’S LIFE
Mieke B. Smits-Veldt and Marijke Spies
Vondel between Religion and the World
Joost van den Vondel was born in Cologne in 1587, where his parents,
who had led Antwerp on religious grounds, or perhaps for inancial
reasons, had found temporary refuge.1 In the 1590s Cologne became
too dangerous and the family moved on, irst to Utrecht and then to
Amsterdam, the city that was doing its utmost to overtake Antwerp as
the commercial heart of the Low Countries.
For the rest of his life, Vondel lived and worked in Amsterdam. He
went to school there, possibly attending lessons from Willem Bartjens
to whom he would later write an ode.2 Finally, at the age of ninety-one,
he was carried to his grave in the city’s ‘Nieuwe Kerk’ (‘New Church’)
by fourteen poets and lovers of poetry. During those years Amsterdam
developed to become the wealthiest city of the Republic of the United
Netherlands, and Vondel, the greatest poet of that Golden Age, was the
Dutch poet who came closest to embodying Amsterdam. His work
continually testiies to his commitment to the welfare of the city and to
his involvement in the politics of the city council, be it in the form of
criticism or, as was increasingly the case, propaganda.
‘Liefde verwinnet al’ (‘love conquers all’) were the words with which
Vondel signed his earliest poems in 1605–07. Mottos of this kind were
customary at the time. As a believing Mennonite he was no doubt
1
Translated by Liz Waters. he translation of this chapter was made possible in part
by a inancial contribution from the Vertaalfonds KNAW/Stichting Reprorecht.
2
Non-Dutch readers, and indeed most younger Dutch readers, will not have heard
of Willem Bartjens, who would be familiar to older Dutch natives from the expression
‘volgens Bartjens’ (‘according to Bartjens’), meaning that a conclusion had been reached
in a manner that was reliable and accurate. Bartjens’ method, expounded in his book
Cijferinghe (Arithmetic), formed the basis for arithmetic in Dutch primary schools for
two centuries. For the ode, see WB 1, p. 136.
52
mieke b. smits-veldt and marijke spies
referring to the love of and for Christ, of which he writes in his Nieuwjaars lied (‘New Year’s Song’) of 1607: “he Child [i.e. the Christ Child]
holds dear the Love that conquers evil / Every kind aliction: choose
my simple being.”3 When he wrote these lines he was twenty years old
and lived with his parents in a house called ‘he Righteous Faith’ on the
Warmoesstraat in Amsterdam, where his father had a silk business.
Ater his father’s death the following year, he would be brought in as a
partner in the business by his mother. A year earlier, in 1606, he had
been baptised and conirmed as a member of the Waterland Mennonite
community. Presumably he led the life of a typical Mennonite, with
emphasis placed on fulilment of faith within daily life and on rejection
of too great an attachment to earthly pleasures. Until the early 1620s
this ‘imitation of Christ’ is central to his work, and increasingly so.
Yet the irst three poems he published, Dedicatie aan de jonkvrouwen
(Dedication to the Maidens), De jacht van Cupido (Cupid’s Hunt) and
Oorlof-lied (Valedictory Song), all three of which appeared in the
anthology Den nieuwen verbeterden lust-hof (he New Improved
Pleasure Garden, 1607),4 are full of classical mythology and mild eroticism in line with the latest literary trend. Both the Oorlof-lied and the
Dedicatie are clearly inluenced by Karel van Mander, a poet and painter
and a fellow Mennonite, who in 1604 had included an ‘Explanation of
Ovid’s Metamorphoses’ in his Schilderboek (he Book of Painters). It is
also possible to discern in the Dedicatie, and even more so in De jacht
van Cupido, the tone of the playful Cupid emblems of the young Leiden
professor Daniël Heinsius, whose 1601 collection Quaeris quid sit
amor? (You Ask What Love Is?) was reissued by the same publisher as
Den nieuwen verbeterden lust-hof, and in the same year, under the title
Emblemata amatoria (Emblems of Love).
hese three poems also mark the commencement of years of cooperation between Vondel and publisher Dirck Pietersz. Pers, who was
launching a career of his own in publishing with new editions of the
anthologies Emblemata amatoria and Den nieuwen verbeterden lusthof. he texts and illustrations had been purchased from the list of
works owned by the widow of publisher Hans Mathysz., who had died
young. But as the title suggests, Den nieuwen verbeterden lust-hof was a
thoroughly revised version. he anthology, which initially comprised
3
Vondel, WB 1, p. 134: “Het Kind bemint de Liefd’, die ’t kwaad verwint, Elk noodt
minioot: kiest mijn eenvuldig wezen.”
4
Vondel, WB 1, pp. 140–49.
vondel’s life
53
works by second-rate rhetorician poets, had been expanded by Pers to
include twelve songs by major writers including Pieter Cornelisz. Hoot
and Karel van Mander, as well as the three aforementioned poems by
Vondel.
At any rate there is no reason to see these works as relecting personal details of the poet’s life. hat would not be consistent with the
purpose of the volume in which they were included – a songbook,
intended for use in social intercourse. Nor would it be consistent with
the purpose people ascribed to poetry in those days, namely to express
in a congenial manner general ideas and maxims, in any ield. In a wedding poem for a local Mennonite girl the ideas expressed would be
those of Christian conjugal ethics, and a songbook for young people
fond of singing would include eroticism dressed up as mythology. As a
poet Vondel did this as well as possible, on a par with the inest and
most modern poets of his time, with a Karel van Mander, a Daniël
Heinsius. A young poet with no more than a general secondary education, he conformed to the example set by those in command of greater
literary erudition.
From 1609, for over a decade, much of Vondel’s work is characterized by a religious and moralistic tenor far removed from this kind of
Renaissance-style playfulness. During this period Vondel was a member of ‘Het Wit Lavendel’ (‘he White Lavender’), the rederijkerskamer
(chamber of rhetoric) for immigrants to Amsterdam from the Southern
Netherlands set up in 1598. His irst play, Het Pascha (Passover), performed by this chamber in about 1610, attests to a biblically inspired
poetic cratsmanship of the kind advocated in such circles. he history of Moses’s liberation of the Jews from their Egyptian bondage is
presented in Het Pascha as a ‘preiguration’, or prophecy, of Christ’s
delivery of humankind from the slavery of sin. It is an interpretation of
the Bible that was particularly popular with – but not exclusive to – the
Mennonites in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Vondel even
came up with a third parallel, in a poem appended to the published
version of the play, a Verghelijckinghe vande verlossinge der kinderen
Israels met de vrijwordinghe der Verenichde Nederlandtsche Provincien
(Comparison of the Delivery of the Children of Israel With the Liberation
of the United Provinces of the Netherlands), in which he asserts that
the Prince of Orange, as a second Moses, is a kind of second Christ, the
liberator of the fatherland and champion of evangelism.5 he idea
5
Vondel, WB 1, pp. 261–64. he play itself on pp. 159–260
54
mieke b. smits-veldt and marijke spies
behind such parallels was to show the universal validity of God’s plan
of salvation, as well as (especially when applied to the Dutch Revolt)
divine endorsement of the war against Spain. It goes without saying
that the exhortation to be a good, God-fearing Christian was part of the
message. Current events, placed in a religious perspective, were
Vondel’s main concern in this period.
Vondel’s religious faith was characterized by Mennonite penance
and a sense of sinfulness, from which stems a spiritual rebirth, occasioned by faith, into a life of love for God and one’s neighbour. He was
far from otherworldly. In his Hymnus over de scheeps-vaert (Hymn
about Shipping) he wrote with obvious pride about Dutch maritime
achievements in war and peace, but ultimately his concern lay with the
proper Christian attitude to life, which entails an obligation to use any
riches one might earn to help the poor and so be assured of a place in
heaven.6
Nonetheless, equally obvious throughout this early period of
Vondel’s literary life is a commercial tendency. Around 1610 at the
request of Pers he edited the texts for a publication called Den gulden
winckel (he Gold Emporium), a kind of mythological-historical illustrated collection of anecdotes with a moral purport.7 Pers had managed
to get hold of the plates of the engravings used in the collection,
which had originally been published in Antwerp in 1579 under the title
Microkosmos: Parvus mundus, with Latin texts by Laurentius Haechtanus. Pers had already produced an edition of the Dutch translation by
Jan Moerman – originally published in 1584 – in 1608, and evidently
he now deemed the time ripe for a modernized version. Vondel turned
it into something more of a collection of emblems, a genre in which an
image is, in symbolic fashion, interpreted morally, creating a double
meaning, and in which instruction (as it were) lies concealed behind
pleasure. Biblical quotations reinforced the correct interpretation. Here
too we have a similar parallel-efect to the one highlighted above in
response to Het Pascha. It is a technique we will come across frequently
in Vondel’s later work.
Even though this was a matter of editing a pre-existing collection
and the editing was commissioned by the publisher, it remains Vondel’s
work. His own contribution is considerable and of a quality superior to
6
7
Vondel, WB 1, pp. 427–45.
Vondel, WB 1, pp. 265–426.
vondel’s life
55
that of his predecessors. he scholarship it expresses is rather less speciically Mennonite than in some of Vondel’s other works, but the
explicit ethic of simplicity, humility, obedience and active practice of
virtue it exudes is certainly a Mennonite ethic too. he same can be
said of the next collection, comprising animal fables, that he edited for
Pers, the Vorsteliicke warande der dieren (Regal Hunting Grounds of the
Animals), published in 1617.8
horoughly religious once more are the inal three great works of
Vondel’s Mennonite period: the play Hierusalem verwoest (Jerusalem
Destroyed); an epic poem by Du Bartas, which he translated from the
French as De heerlyckheyd van Salomon (he Glory of Solomon); and
De helden Godes des Ouwden Verbonds (God’s Heroes of the Ancient
Covenant),9 a collection of descriptive characterizations of igures from
the Old Testament, again using existing images. All three were published by Dirck Pietersz. Pers in the early months of 1620. Even his
most minor works from the years ater 1616 are entirely religious in
nature. his is far from surprising. In 1616 Vondel had become deacon
of the Waterland Mennonite community, and without wishing to assert
that such a step would necessarily entail a more intense religious life,
this does seem to have been the case with him. Even the change in his
motto supports this conclusion. In place of ‘Liefde verwinnet al’ (‘Love
conquers all’), or, as between 1609 and 1616, a mere signature with his
name or initials, from 1616 onwards he used the slogan ‘Door Een is ’t
nu voldaen’ (‘By One all is now fulilled’), which alludes to a sense of
being secure in God’s mercy, to a ‘rebirth’ occasioned by faith, as it was
perceived in Mennonite circles.
As far as his general education was concerned Vondel had to rely on
translations and on whatever more-or-less scholarly works were published in the vernacular. hus in his Hymnus over de scheeps-vaert of
1613 he drew upon the 1610 Dutch translation of the Naturalis Historia
by Roman writer Pliny the Elder. He also made use of the Politica by
Leiden professor Justus Lipsius (who later moved to Leuven), a Dutch
translation of which had been published in 1590, as well as the Dutch
translation (also from 1610) of a short work by Hugo Grotius about
Holland in the time of the Batavians. Finally, he used Emanuel van
Meteren’s Dutch-language work on recent national history in the
8
Vondel, WB 1, pp. 498–767.
Vondel, WB 2, pp. 74–215, 223–98 and 300–91 resp. On Hierusalem verwoest, see
also the chapter by Jürgen Pieters in this volume.
9
56
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editions from 1608 and 1609. For literature as such he looked primarily
to the modern French Protestant writers and their Dutch imitators.
his is true above all of the work of Du Bartas, particularly in regard to
his epic portrayal of the story of Creation and the early history of mankind in Les semaines (he Weeks).10 Het Pascha alone was teeming with
elements reminiscent of this poet, and Vondel’s 1620 play Hierusalem
verwoest was clearly inluenced by the biblical plays of French Protestant
poet Robert Garnier. In Hierusalem verwoest, besides French inluence,
we see for the irst time the inluence of classical literature.
In this regard, if Vondel was to avoid getting stuck at the level of
second-hand scholarship he would need a good reading knowledge of
Latin, particularly in view of the didactic and erudite poetry he aspired
to produce. In the years between 1613 and 1620 he was tutored by a
teacher from the Latin school, the city’s grammar school, and by 1620
he had mastered the language to such an extent that he was able to read
the most important of Latin writers, particularly Virgil and Seneca, the
forefather of early-Renaissance drama. he structure of Hierusalem
verwoest resembles that of Seneca’s Troades (he Trojan Women), a play
Hugo Grotius regarded as the ‘queen of tragedies’.11 But at the same
time, owing to its biblical content, it strives to provide a Christian
(which in those days meant ‘better’) alternative to the Latin play. Where
Seneca uses the fall of Troy to evoke the transient nature of all earthly
greatness, Vondel presents the destruction of Jerusalem as God’s punishment for mankind’s malevolence. Against the classical notion of fate
he set the Christian – perhaps we may even say Mennonite – sense of
sinfulness.
It would be one of the last times that this resounded with such clarity
in his work, one of the last times too that he would use the motto ‘Door
Een is ’t nu voldaen’ (‘By One all is now fulilled’). Between 1623 and
1629 he underwent a profound ideological reorientation, at the same
time making new acquaintances beyond the milieu of fellow Mennonites
and members of ‘Het Wit Lavendel’, amongst whom he had blossomed
up to this point.
10
Vondel must have come into contact with Du Bartas through Karel van Mander,
who at various points shows that he knew the Frenchman’s work, borrowing a number
of passages from him, for example, in his poem Olijberg, ote Poema van den laesten
dagh of 1609, which is imbued with Mennonite convictions. See Twee Zeevaartgedichten,
ed. Spies.
11
Vondel, De Amsteldamsche Hebuca, Dedication to Mr. Anthonis de Hubert,
WB 2, p. 533.
vondel’s life
57
Years of Reorientation
Shortly ater 1620 Vondel made the acquaintance of the poet Pieter
Cornelisz. Hoot. In 1622 and 1623, along with several other writers,
they regularly discussed matters literary at the residence of the poet
Roemer Visscher (who had died in 1620), where his daughters Anna
and Maria Tesselschade still lived at that time. It was also in 1623 that
Vondel published, for the irst time since 1620, a work of considerable length: the 478-verse poem Het lof der zee-vaert (he Praise of
Seafaring).12 Not a word here about an awareness of sin, about disengagement, or about giving riches away to the needy poor. he philosophy now propagated by Vondel advocates a peaceful world based on
reason, in which everyone will beneit as long as the principles of justice are upheld and not violated. his was certainly the outlook on life
held by Hoot and the people around him, with whom Vondel had been
associating for some time.
What had happened? Around 1620, his seventeenth-century biographer Geeraardt Brandt tells us, Vondel sufered ‘a long, languishing
sickness, which greatly weakened him, exhausting his spirits and making him long for death’. In October of that year he resigned as deacon of
the Mennonite community, since he ‘complained of great awkwardness
in serving further because of his melancholia’. We must assume that
Vondel was sufering from ‘melancholy’, a disease caused, according to
the medical beliefs of the time, by a failure of the spleen adequately to
control levels of what was known as ‘black bile’, one of the four humours
in the human body. he psychological consequences were listlessness
and feelings of anxiety and suspicion, culminating in weariness of life.
It was generally believed that scholars and artists were most susceptible
to this aliction. he melancholic was sombre and studious by nature,
and Brandt says this was true of Vondel too. Exactly what alicted him
in terms of today’s pathology is unclear. In any case he seems to have
recovered with time. In 1626 he experienced another attack, but ater
that we hear no more of it.
Aside from an excess of black bile, however, there were more external factors in both 1620 and 1626 that may help to explain Vondel’s
depression. For a start there were political developments. In 1618
long-standing tensions erupted between the two extreme wings of the
12
Vondel, WB 2, pp. 431–55; Vondel, Twee zeevaart-gedichten, ed. Spies.
58
mieke b. smits-veldt and marijke spies
Reformed Church, the relatively liberal Remonstrants and the far
stricter Counter-Remonstrants. As is common in such disputes, other
issues were bound up with the religious diferences. Conlicts had
developed between advocates and opponents of a lasting peace with
Spain, between Holland and Zeeland, between those who approved of
the trade monopoly held by the Dutch East India Company and those
who wanted to end it, and so on. All this resulted in greater polarisation. In 1618 the stadtholder, Maurits of Nassau, travelled to the most
important Dutch cities on behalf of the States General to remove
opponents of the Calvinist Counter-Remonstrant faction from the
municipal councils. Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, Grand Pensionary of
Holland – the highest ranking state oicial ater the stadtholder – now
over eighty, was arrested. In 1619, ater a long trial for high treason and
abuse of power, he was sentenced to death and executed. A number of
his supporters who were arrested with him, among them the municipal
pensionary of Rotterdam Hugo Grotius, were sentenced to life in
prison. Until well into the 1620s the Republic as a whole and the various cities of its most important province, Holland, were ruled by the
Calvinists. Between 1611 and 1625 their leader Reynier Pauw was
alternately, and sometimes simultaneously, active as burgomaster of
Amsterdam and leader of the representatives of the province of Holland
in the States General.
Vondel increasingly opposed what he regarded as a Calvinist dictatorship. At irst his response to these events was rather detached. As a
Mennonite he had little concern for the doctrinal quarrel between two
theology professors from Leiden, the Remonstrant Arminius and the
Counter-Remonstrant Gomarus, and their followers. In any case,
Mennonites generally declined to interfere with afairs of state on principle. In 1620, however, the year in which he sufered his depression, he
gradually became more engaged with the issue. Although his ierce
Geuze-vesper (Beggar’s Vespers), which hits out at Van Oldenbarnevelt’s
judges, was not written in 1620 but in the 1630s,13 it was at this stage that
he wrote the poem Op den burgher-krijgh der Roomeren (On the Civil
War of the Romans), as an introductory verse to the Dutch translation
by Hendrik Storm of Lucanus’s Pharsalia, which was printed that same
year. he allusion to the national political situation in a poem about the
seizure of power by Julius Caesar is veiled but unmistakable.14
13
14
Vondel, WB 3, pp. 339–40.
Vondel, WB 2, p. 396.
vondel’s life
59
here is something else too. Together with three other introductory
poems, written by Hoot, Samuel Coster and Nicolaas van Wassenaar,
Vondel’s poem is on a quarter sheet of paper that was added only at
the last moment, ater the rest had been printed. It is these poems that
turn the publication into a freedom manifesto directed against the
stadtholder, Maurits of Nassau or, in the case of Hoot’s contribution,
against the Calvinists. Everything suggests this was a pre-planned campaign by this group of poets and as such it is the irst indication that
Vondel was in contact with people who belonged to the top ranks of the
bourgeoisie and had chosen to side with Van Oldenbarnevelt.
As far as the religious issue went, Vondel made it increasingly clear
where his loyalties lay. In 1622 he wrote poems about Erasmus,15 a
statue of whom was erected in Rotterdam that year, something that was
not well received by the Calvinists. In the same year he ofered shelter
to the banished successor to Arminius, Coenraad Vorstius, for several
days, and when Vorstius died in October he wrote an elegy for him.
When his melancholy inally lited he took a clear and completely unMennonite turn towards the world, the irst sign of which was the
poem Het lof der zee-vaert (he Praise of Seafaring), dedicated to
Laurens Reael and published in the major new nautical pilot book
Zeespiegel (Sea Level), by Willem Jansz. Blaeu. It ends with a direct reference to meetings at the house of Roemer Visscher:
Wiens vloer betreden word, wiens dorpel is gesleten
Van Schilders, kunstenaers, van Sangers, en Poëten.16
Whose loor is trod, whose threshold is worn down
By Painters, Artists, Singers, and Poets of renown.
In these circles the period from 1620 to 1623, as well as being a time of
crisis and reorientation, was also a time of study, of an appropriation of
classical culture and humanist learning. From this point on Vondel was
able to ind his way around the works of the most important authors of
Ancient Rome – Ovid, Virgil, Horace – as well as the culture and literary scholarship of his day, including moral philosophy and logic. Even
the latter was studied in order, as Brandt puts it, that he would ‘have
more means of assistance in progressing at art, which he threw himself
into more and more as time went on’.17
15
Vondel, WB 2, p. 419 and pp. 414–17.
‘Het lof der zee-vaert’, ll. 477–78; Vondel, WB 1, p. 19; WB 2, p. 455.
17
Brandt, ‘Het leven van Joost van den Vondel’, p. 25: ‘om meer behulpmiddelen te
hebben tot vorderinge in de kunst, daar hy hoe langs hoe meer op verslingerde’.
16
60
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For Het lof der zee-vaert Vondel did not draw upon Dutch translations of contemporary and ancient learning as he had for the Hymnus
but upon Latin studies such as De re nautica libellus by the Italian
Giraldus and similar works by the German Jesuit Pontanus and the
Protestant professor Bartholomäus Keckermann of Danzig, to name
but a few.18 New friends helped Vondel to catch up on the schooling he
lacked. In collaboration with Hoot and Reael he translated Seneca’s
Troades around 1625. It was published under the title De Amsteldamsche
Hecuba (he Amsterdam Hecuba) in 1626.19 In that same period, probably with the help of Professor Johannes Meursius of Leiden, he worked
on Palamedes, the play in which he addressed the Van Oldenbarnevelt
controversy through a story from Ancient Greece. his work too continually testiies to the inluence of Seneca, through several plays in
addition to Troades.20
Along with the classics, the poems of Hoot and the other literati
associated with him had a rejuvenating efect on Vondel’s poetry. Hoot,
Heinsius and other modern poets not only wrote works of a more serious nature but also primarily composed lyric poetry of a light, mildly
erotic character. he roots of this mode are to be found in Petrarch,
whose poems for Laura had inluenced Western European love lyrics
for some hundred and ity years, along with classical lyrical poets like
Catullus, Propertius, and heocritus, the last of whom had been the
inspiration for Heinsius’s Cupid poems. It can also be traced back to
the pastoral verse of Virgil. All these movements had combined to create a new literary culture of song which, from its beginnings in Italy
and France, poured out across Europe from the early seventeenth century onwards. Dutch poets joined in. Suddenly Vondel was writing
songs again as he had not done since the publication of Den nieuwen
verbeterden lust-hof in 1607.
hese songs were a kind of social poetry, written as a git for the
children of a highly esteemed acquaintance. All his life Vondel created
poems and songs of this kind, to mark weddings, births or deaths, to
celebrate a portrait or a publication, or simply for their own sake. In
later years especially, they were oten meant for oicial personages or
institutions and probably quite oten written in the hope of some kind
of reward, but in the years between 1623 and 1626 they were above all
18
19
20
See Vondel, Twee zeevaart-gedichten, ed. Spies, passim.
Vondel, WB 2, pp. 529–612.
Vondel, WB 2, pp. 615–753. See also the contribution by Nina Geerdink.
vondel’s life
61
intended to help maintain his new personal contacts. It seems his new
literary network took on a social role for him that was previously fulilled by publishers like Pers and De Koning.
Socially Engaged Poet, Court Poet, or City Poet?
he changes of the years 1620–1623 are unlikely to have meant that
Vondel immediately turned his back on the Waterland Mennonite
community. In 1624 he issued the playful poem Stryd of Kamp Tusschen
Kuyscheyd En Geylheyd (Fight or Struggle between Chastity and Lewdness)
as a separate book for the daughters of Laurens Baeck.21 It was published by Jacob Aertsz. Calom, a fellow Mennonite who had joined the
Waterland community in 1622. Calom remained his publisher for the
next two years, Dirck Pietersz. Pers not having published anything by
Vondel since 1622. Calom produced Palamedes in 1625, followed in
1626 by De Amsteldamsche Hecuba (he Amsterdam Hecuba). Further
evidence that Vondel still had ties not only with Calom but also with
the Waterland community is provided by the long poem Antidotum.
Tegen het vergit der Geest-dryvers (Antidote to the Poison of the Zealots),
published in 1626,22 in which Vondel takes sides in a ierce argument
among Mennonites in these years on whether the Bible was the only
basis for faith, a debate in which Calom was actively involved.
hereater, apart from a few occasional poems written for Mennonite
acquaintances in later years, there is no further sign of Vondel’s involvement with the Mennonite community. Perhaps his aversion to such
quarrels was the deciding factor. Vondel’s peace-loving nature has been
emphasised repeatedly since Brandt’s biography, but the peace-loving
Vondel nevertheless managed to attract conlict time and again.
At around the same time as the argument within the Waterland
community, the row regarding Palamedes was erupting at the level of
municipal politics. Vondel had disguised his views on the arrest and
conviction of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt as a story taken from classical
antiquity, but this did not stop the Calvinist clergy feeling that the play
was addressed to them. It had barely been printed before charges were
brought against the playwright. Afraid he would be arrested and transferred to he Hague, where the Calvinists were still in full command of
21
22
Vondel, WB 2, pp. 486–94.
Vondel, WB 2, pp. 808–12.
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mieke b. smits-veldt and marijke spies
the national government, Vondel took refuge with the Baeck family.
he Amsterdam city council refused to extradite him, satisfying itself
with a substantial ine and a ban on the play. For the printer the ban
was actually beneicial. Public interest was aroused and one print run
ater another sold out rapidly. Vondel had little to gain by this; authorial copyright did not yet exist. Nevertheless, its success seems to have
persuaded him to throw of any remaining hesitancy about presenting
himself as a socially engaged poet. To be sure, the Palamedes controversy was followed by another bout of melancholy, but in the years that
followed he published one poem ater another about public afairs.
To this end, political developments were not unfavourable now. he
tendency that had irst emerged in Amsterdam developed at national
level too. Maurits of Nassau died in 1625. His half-brother and successor Frederick Henry was expected to act so as to reconcile diferences.
Uniied under the House of Orange, the Dutch could now resolutely
resume the war against Spain, which had not gone well for them since
the truce ended in 1621. Vondel was among those who made his
thoughts known in this regard, but ultimately he seems to say more
about his own ideals and (to some extent) those of the Amsterdam
magistrates than those of the new stadtholder; the Dutch were right to
pursue the war, but only in order to bring peace so that trade could
lourish again. hese were not so much the political opinions of
Frederick Henry as the views of the Amsterdam regents whose mouthpiece Vondel would increasingly become in the years that followed.
In 1626 this faction did not yet form a majority in the municipal
government. When in that year or thereabouts Vondel denounced the
selishness and greed of the regents in his Roskam (Curry Comb), he
undoubtedly had his eye on the opposing party,23 but the shiting balance of power was already evident from the uninhibited way in which
he dared to assert his voice. He even refers directly to the execution of
Van Oldenbarnevelt.
Illustrative of Vondel’s deinitive break with his Mennonite past and
his identiication with the liberal milieu of the Amsterdam haute bourgeoisie – and perhaps to an even greater degree of the status he sought
to achieve with his work – was his choice of publisher. In 1626 he began
to publish with Willem Jansz. Blaeu, continuing to do so until 1638,
when Blaeu died. Blaeu had developed his business into the most
23
Vondel, WB 3, pp. 300–06.
vondel’s life
63
important publishing house in Amsterdam, not only for works on seafaring and for navigational charts and maps but also for literary publications. He had at his disposal the technical means needed to present
Vondel’s work in an appropriately attractive material form, publishing
it in substantial volumes on high-quality paper in a clear, modern
typeface.
In the laudatory and epinicial poems that Vondel wrote for Frederick
Henry and his family between 1626 and 1632 he developed a style that
could justiiably be called loty. It is narrative, rich in imagery, packed
with mythology and extended comparisons, buoyed by igures of
speech and sound efects, and carried along by the majestic rhythm
of his alexandrines. Such a style, derived from both classical Latin
and Neo-Latin poetry, was regarded at the time as a supreme literary
achievement. It was an expression of the loty social signiicance people
attributed to this kind of poetry: trumpet of princes, mouthpiece for
governments. At that time, no one besides Vondel possessed such a
mastery of versiication of this sort. His poem celebrating the irst great
victory by Frederick Henry, who did indeed bring about a political
breakthrough as people had hoped, the Verovering van Grol (Conquest
of Groenlo) of 1627, has the character of a minor epic.24 Alongside the
airy tone he gave to his songs, the elevated style of his heroic poems
was his great literary achievement of the 1620s. A third achievement
would shortly announce itself in the brutal ferocity of his satirical verse.
he relative leniency with which the city council had treated Vondel
in the case of Palamedes, and the fact that publisher Calom had been
given a chance to put so many illegal copies of the controversial play on
the market, were early signs of a change in Amsterdam’s political climate. he elections of February 1627, which had placed the party of the
‘moderates’ in a majority position, facilitated a deinitive change of
course; the regime of Reynier Pauw was over, and the liberals had won.
he extent to which Vondel could identify with this new policy as a
result of his aversion to religious fanaticism and his desire for a rational,
harmonious society became clear in 1628, when he irst acted as oicial
spokesman for the city and its government in his poem Amsteldams
wellekomst (Amsterdam’s Welcome), written for Frederick Henry’s
visit.25 Besides praising the new stadtholder, from whom the magistrates expected mediation in their problems with the clerics, Vondel
24
25
Vondel, WB 3, pp. 124–52.
Vondel, WB 3, pp. 182–86.
64
mieke b. smits-veldt and marijke spies
dedicated laudatory verses to burgomasters Pieter de Vlaming and
Jacob de Graef through the mouth of Amsterdam’s stedenmaagd
(‘city maiden’). In Vondel’s view they were now the godlike rulers of
the ‘widely renowned mercantile city of Amsterdam’ (‘wijdberoemde
koopstad Amstelredam’). Henceforth he would support the policy of
these men, who would surely place the crown of Europe on the head of
this lourishing commercial city, through poetry.
he new municipal government openly joined battle against
the Calvinist preachers and all ex-politicians who wanted to regain
their hold on the rudder of the civic ship. Vondel’s satirical pen now
became a formidable weapon in that struggle. he Calvinist preachers
were the target of a number of satirical verses by Vondel, some of which
could be sung to popular tunes. He denounced their far-reaching intolerance of dissent, especially their hostility towards the Remonstrants, to whose clandestine religious services the city council was
now turning a blind eye. However, the time when preachers were said
to have one foot in the pulpit and the other in the Town Hall, concerning themselves with both ecclesiastical and secular matters, was over.
Another reason for Vondel to rejoice was the inauguration of the irst
Remonstrant church building in Amsterdam, in September 1630. His
poem on the occasion of this Inwying van den Christen tempel
t’Amsterdam (Consecration of the Christian Temple of Amsterdam)
included praise for ‘Amstel’s wise Council’ (‘Amstels wijzen Raad’),
which had granted the oppressed Remonstrants their new freedom of
worship.26
Almost all these poems were distributed on loose sheets, without the
name of either the author or the printer, but Vondel had become a public igure to such a degree that he was easily recognisable to his opponents. In this period he held an important oicial literary position,
namely that of dean – perhaps even head or ‘prince’ – of ‘Het Wit
Lavendel’. Since 1628 an important change of course had occurred
within the policy of this Brabant-based chamber of rhetoric. It once
more tended towards a politically-engaged position, which found
expression in (for example) a sensational poetry competition in which
Vondel asked for poetic answers to a series of provocative questions
directly inspired by the politico-religious situation of the moment. It
prompted so many bitter reactions in verse, some of them aimed at
26
Vondel, WB 3, pp. 322–28.
vondel’s life
65
Vondel personally, that the magistrates decided the chamber had overstepped the mark.
Ater 1631 Vondel no longer had reason to sharpen his satirical pen
in opposition to the situation in Amsterdam. Both a merchant and a
poet, he was a resident of a rapidly growing mercantile city. Along the
new canals to the west of the city centre, mansions were being built that
testiied to the wealth and élan of a great economic power. In a city
where freedom of conscience was recognised as an inalienable right,
there was now room for academic freedom too. Despite strong opposition from the university in Leiden, Amsterdam established its own
institution for higher education, the Athenaeum Illustre, in January
1632. he famous scholars Gerard Vossius and Caspar Barlaeus, both
allied to the Remonstrant cause, became its irst professors, and eager
audiences were able to attend public lectures in history and philosophy,
although they would need to understand Latin. Both professors also
taught students at their homes. Vondel would remain in close contact
with both men, especially with Vossius. He would translate several
poems by the Neo-Latin poet Barlaeus into Dutch, while Vossius’s erudition and extensive private library would provide him with an inexhaustible wealth of knowledge, which he would draw upon when
writing his later tragedies.
Faced with the burgeoning return of freedom and harmony,
Amsterdam also had urgent need of a general peace, i.e. an end to the
war with Spain that was still dragging on. It had been important to
conquer ’s-Hertogenbosch to secure the ‘garden of Holland’ (‘Hollands
tuin’), but once this was achieved the city’s merchants had a direct
interest in peace or in a truce based on the status quo. Pursuing the
conlict would mean continuing to have to bear the crippling inancial
burden of warfare and above all it would entail risks: the territory of
the Republic might be extended to include Brabant and Flanders which
would lead to the reopening of the port of Antwerp, a potential rival to
Amsterdam. Amsterdam’s municipal authorities did not listen to the
protests of the Calvinists who bore a ierce grudge against Catholic
Spain but pursued a resolute policy aimed at achieving the longed-for
peace in meetings of the States General from 1631 onwards.
Vondel identiied with this peacemaking policy. As ever he followed
the conduct of the war on the borders of the Republic closely, but at
the end of Frederick Henry’s campaign along the River Maas, with the
seizure of Maastricht in August 1632, he no longer saw reason to
compose a victory ode such as he had written ater the victory at
66
mieke b. smits-veldt and marijke spies
’s-Hertogenbosch. He did still regard the stadtholder as the promised
avenger and redeemer, as is clear from his Stedekroon van Frederick
Henrick (City Crown of Frederick Henry), but now he called upon him
to close ‘the gate of the abominable war’ (‘de poort van ’t gruwlijk oorloog’).27 It would be the last poem Vondel ever dedicated to the Prince
of Orange, whom he had once applauded so vehemently. Ater the failure of the formal peace negotiations between North and South, begun
in the spring of 1633, Frederick Henry once again went into battle, and
from that moment on his war strategy alienated him permanently from
both Amsterdam and Vondel.
heatre of Life
In these years, 1632 and 1633, Vondel had to prove that with his poetry
he was able to sublimate his own personal sufering through stoical
acceptance of an inescapable fate that ultimately strikes us all. In his
simple, ‘childlike’ verse Kinder-lyck (meaning both Child-like [sic] and
Child’s corpse – cf. the obsolete English word ‘lych’), he expressed his
resignation in the face of the death of his newborn son Constantijn.28
he death of the baby boy, who becomes an angel in heaven, is part of
a universal, divine policy: ‘Eeuwigh gaat voor oogenblick’, or ‘eternity
takes precedence over the moment’. here was no room for such comfort in Vondel’s bitter lament at the death of his eight-year-old daughter
Sara not long aterwards, under the title Uitvaert van mijn Dochterken
(Funeral of my Little Daughter).29 Just over a month later he was able to
write a consolatory poem for his new friend Vossius, whose gited son
Dionys had died of smallpox at the age of twenty-one.30 Two years later,
however, he would sufer another deeply personal blow with the death
of his wife Maaike, ater whose loss he had to mobilise all his poetic
gits to lend form to his melancholy.
In his poem for Maaike, Vondel portrays his late spouse as another
Creusa, wife of the Trojan Aeneas, the hero of Virgil’s epic. He
describes how Maaike urged him in a dream not to cease his ‘heroic
27
Vondel, WB 3, pp. 384–86.
Vondel, WB 3, p. 388.
29
Vondel, WB 3, pp. 396–97.
30
Vertroostinge aan Geeraerdt Vossivs (Consolation to Geraerdt Vossius) Vondel,
WB 3, pp. 400–01.
28
vondel’s life
67
work’ on any account.31 He was referring to the major poem on which
he had been labouring for several years, an epic about the irst Christian
Roman emperor, Constantine the Great, ater whom he had named his
son. With this Constantinade Vondel aimed to accomplish an unprecedented feat. It was to be a Christian-classical epic in emulation of the
classical poet Virgil and the Christian poet Tasso. His meeting with
Hugo Grotius – who, in the hope of rehabilitation, returned from exile
in France to his native country in late 1631 – had a decisive inluence
on his decision. Grotius’s religious ideal was the restoration of Christian
unity by means of a return to the situation of the early church in the
irst few centuries AD. Vondel was now at last able to hold personal
conversations with the scholar he so admired, and Grotius must have
indicated to him that Constantine would be a worthy hero for a
Christian epic. Grotius’s arguments for a general reconciliation between
Christians, based on law and ecclesiastical history, will also have given
additional substance to Vondel’s pleas for peace.
Ater Grotius was forced to leave the country again, he continued to
encourage Vondel’s literary work with useful advice sent in letters. Five
cantos had been completed when Vondel’s wife died. he poet let of
his great work at that point, possibly for lack of creative energy as a
result of his loss, but Grotius continued to provide advice for new work,
and with the help of old friends Vondel set about translating Grotius’s
recently published Latin tragedy Sofompaneas, the Dutch version of
which would become famous under the title Jozef in ’t hof (Joseph at
Court). Blaeu brought out the translation, dedicated to Vossius, not
long ater Maaike’s death.32 Vondel’s principal goal was to make Grotius’s
poem widely known. It must have been clear to him that Grotius had
seen a parallel with his own fate in this biblical episode in which the
initially humbled Joseph becomes chief advisor to the Egyptian pharaoh. Ater all, following fourteen long years in Paris as a jobless citizen
dependent on others, Grotius would now be accepting an honourable
appointment as Swedish ambassador at the French court. hus Grotius
portrayed Joseph as the wise and just ruler of a nation, a stranger to all
forms of tyranny, carrying out his responsible task as a holy duty. his
was how Grotius saw himself and how Vondel saw him – as an example
31
Lyckklaght aan het Vrouwekoor, Over het verlies van mijn Ega (Dirge to the Chorus
of Women, On the Loss of my Spouse), Vondel, WB 3, pp. 421–22.
32
Vondel, WB 3, pp. 431–82. See also the chapter by Mieke Bal, Maaike Bleeker,
Bennett Carpenter and Frans-Willem Korsten on the Joseph plays.
68
mieke b. smits-veldt and marijke spies
to the humanist Christian regents of his day. It was therefore to Grotius
that Vondel dedicated his Gysbreght van Aemstel in 1637, written for
the opening of the new Amsterdam Schouwburg (Amsterdam’s municipal theatre) on the Keizersgracht.33 his play would establish his reputation as a tragedian for centuries to come, not so much because it was
his most successful piece of work in a dramatic sense as because he had
given the people of Amsterdam their own national drama. In the play,
Gijsbreght and his wife end their lives as exiles, but as predicted by the
archangel Raphael the devastated city will rise again, greater and more
prosperous than before. Exiled Grotius, who was never able to see a
performance of the play, regarded this ‘beautifully embellished history’
as an immortal work.
Had it been let to the clergy, however, Gysbreght would never have
seen the light of day. Before the irst performance of the play, which is
set in the Catholic Middle Ages, on Boxing Day 1637, members of the
church council became extremely agitated by rumours that it included
scenes showing ‘papist superstitions, such as Masses and other ceremonies’.34 A delegation sent to the Town Hall to protest against the depiction of Roman Catholic degeneracy was successful to the extent that
the director of the play was forced to omit one or more of the tableaux
vivants that – as was customary in those days – had been interspersed
throughout the text.
When, despite these disputes, Gysbreght van Aemstel was staged on
3 January 1638, it was not simply an opening performance. Richly costumed, it inaugurated a unique Amsterdam building, the Schouwburg
designed by the classicist architect Jacob van Campen. he prestigious
project had been inanced by the city’s two charitable institutions, the
Municipal Orphanage and the Home for Elderly Men and Women,
which would continue to receive a substantial share of the proceeds
from performances. Incidentally, the fact that a great deal of money
had been invested in the preparation and decor for this grand opening
performance was one practical reason to ensure it went ahead.
he magistrates were also well aware that the Schouwburg gave them
an excellent means of guiding public opinion and that it formed a
counterweight to the pulpit. Just how closely bound up with municipal
33
Vondel, WB 3, pp. 514–600. In this volume, the play is discussed by Marco
Prandoni and Peter Eversmann.
34
See Vondel, WB 3, p. 515: ‘… superstitien vande paperye, als misse ende andere
ceremoniën’.
vondel’s life
69
politics the theatre’s policy was is clear from the way in which its
top managers, whose responsibilities included the choice of repertoire, were selected by the burgomasters, having been nominated by
the governors of the charitable institutions involved, who were themselves appointed by the burgomasters too. Vondel never became head
of the Schouwburg, but over the next thirty years he was a central igure in the theatrical life of Amsterdam, as a poet for the stage. Ater
Gysbreght he would write another twenty-two original plays and translate ive Greek tragedies by Sophocles and Euripides. From 1639
onwards he was in fact permanently present in spirit, since the interior
of the theatre was decorated with lines he had written, including the
famous:
De weereld is een speeltooneel,
Elck speelt zijn rol en krijght zijn deel.
he world’s a stage for playful art,
Each plays his role and has his part.
Classical Tragedies and the Turn towards Catholicism
In the period between 1637 and 1641 Vondel completely ‘reverted to
tragedies’, as he wrote to Grotius.35 he new theatre, with which he felt
Van Campen had imitated ‘great Rome in miniature’, must in his view
have required as illustrious a repertoire as the classical tragedians had
provided for their audiences in ancient times – illustrious in the
Christian sense of representing the most essential religious values. It
was no longer the epic but the tragedy that Vondel now deemed the
most important classical genre, and he wanted to pursue it in the footsteps of the writers of antiquity. hrough his humanist friends he
became acquainted with the Greek tragedies, which in their opinion
surpassed those of Seneca. An initial challenge to make the spirit of
these tragedies his own was a translation of the masterpiece by the
author most admired by scholar of Greek Daniël Heinsius, Sophocles’s
Elektra. Since Vondel’s knowledge of Greek was scant, he would continue to depend on Latin translations, and in translating Elektra he was
assisted by a younger brother of the late Dionys Vossius, the equally
gited Isaac. His Elektra was printed in 1639 by Abraham de Wees, who
35
See Vondel, WB 3, p. 889: ‘Ick ben aen de treurspelen vervallen’.
70
mieke b. smits-veldt and marijke spies
became Vondel’s regular publisher ater Blaeu’s death. hrough
Sophocles, Vondel’s attention was drawn not only to the power of a
tight, soundly composed tragedy but to the emotional efect of the
‘churning’ of diferent passions in the protagonist’s inner self. In translating Elektra – more so than in writing Gysbreght – he obtained a view
of human history in its own right, with characters placed in atrocious
situations and called upon to act. As a Christian poet, however, he
would also continue to express the meaningfulness of God’s rule in his
dramas of this period. In the same year as Elektra (1639), Vondel’s martyrdom tragedy Maeghden (Maidens) was published, in which he
dramatised the story of St. Ursula, a tale closely bound up with Cologne,
the city of his birth.36 In this tragedy, Ursula and her virginal handmaids die as martyrs, meeting a gruesome end, killed by an aggressor’s
sword, but from the outset Ursula adopts an exemplary attitude towards
the situation in which she inds herself, guided by her faith in the
incomprehensible will of God. Vondel’s Maeghden was certainly no
crowd-puller. It was not performed until 1650 and ater being staged
four times it disappeared from the repertoire for good.
With Gebroeders (Brothers, 1640), dedicated to Vossius, a new period
in Vondel’s work as a dramatist began.37 It was the irst of his tragedies
to be written entirely ater the Greek model and a play that was a success with both scholars and the general public. Based on his assessment
of Gysbreght, Grotius had already predicted immortality for Vondel,
and now Vossius concurred by answering Vondel’s dedication of the
work to him with the pronouncement ‘Scribis aeternitati’, ‘You are
writing for eternity’.38 Men of letters must have especially admired the
successful Christian imitation of Sophocles. Vondel depicts David’s
internal conlict, torn between human empathy and obedience to God,
when he is ordered by the high priest to have Saul’s seven sons put to
death. In contrast to Elektra’s experience, justice manifests itself to
David in an incomprehensible, unacceptable form. When he inally
resigns himself to God’s decision, he, like Ursula, demonstrates unconditional faith in the meaningfulness of divine rule, the demand that
Vondel believed was made of every Christian.
Although Vondel had demonstrated an ‘inclination’ towards
Catholicism even as early as Gysbreght van Aemstel and certainly in
36
37
38
Vondel, WB 3, pp. 708–80.
Vondel, WB 3, pp. 797–876.
Vondel, WB 5, p. 108; Brandt, ‘Het leven van Joost van den Vondel’, p. 46.
vondel’s life
71
Maeghden, it was 1641 before he oicially converted to the Catholic
faith. In those years many Amsterdam intellectuals were returning to
the bosom of the mother church, prompted in part by the powerful
propaganda of Father Marius of the Begijnhof (Beguinage). In Vondel’s
case, however, the inluence of Grotius’s thinking certainly played its
part too.39 Furthermore, Vondel had seen in Mennonite circles the
degree to which the conviction that only the Bible can be a source of
faith led to diferences in interpretation and therefore to religious strife.
He was now joining a united community of believers for whom ecclesiastical authority was binding. Many distinguished igures still
belonged to this community, which the magistrates just about tolerated
(contravening the express wishes of the States of Holland in doing so),
including members of what had once been regent families with important connections in government circles. Around 1650, Catholics made
up at least eight per cent of Amsterdam’s population. heir numbers
would increase markedly in the course of the century.
Vondel’s need to assert his Catholic conviction found expression in
various literary genres in this period. In the year of his conversion he
once again wrote a tragedy, this time setting it in the era of the early
Christians. Nonetheless, the play, Peter en Pauwels, which took as its
subject the martyrdom of God’s explicitly appointed representative, the
Apostle Peter, and that of St. Paul, was never performed.40 With Brieven
der Heilige Maeghden, Martelaressen (Letters of the Holy Maidens,
Martyrs), he also deployed the genre of the literary epistle, so popular
during the Renaissance, in the service of his religious convictions.41
his was actually an attempt to provide a religious counterpart to Ovid’s
famous Heroides which, as a kind of rehearsal, he irst translated under
the title Heldinnebrieven (Heroines’ Letters).
In his next tragedy, Maria Stuart, in which he drew upon recent
history for the irst time, Vondel’s Catholicism was given a political dimension.42 By presenting Mary Stuart, the Catholic Queen of
Scots, as the innocent victim of bloodthirsty aggression by Protestant
Queen Elizabeth I, he was in some sense passing judgement on the
current political situation in England. Maria Stuart met with ierce
39
On Vondel’s conversion to Roman Catholicism, see also the contribution to this
book by Judith Pollmann.
40
Vondel, WB 4, pp. 219–94.
41
Vondel, WB 4, pp. 428–522.
42
Vondel, WB 5, pp. 162–238. See also the chapter by James Parente and Jan
Bloemendal in this volume.
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mieke b. smits-veldt and marijke spies
reactions in the form of pamphlets produced by the Calvinists
(Counter-Remonstrants as well as Remonstrants), who abhorred its
gloriication of Catholicism, as well as from those who did not wish to
equate Cromwell, seen as a rebel, with Elizabeth, their one-time ally in
the war against Spain.
Controversy and Success: he Struggle with Authority
It seems Vondel had manoeuvred himself into a rather isolated position by openly switching religious allegiance. On the one hand he was
generally acknowledged as the greatest of poets. his was underscored
once more in 1644 with the publication of his uncollected poems at the
instigation of a number of admirers, under the title Verscheide gedichten (Various Poems), in which he had not wanted his satirical verse to
be included. On the other hand it was probably precisely because of the
widespread recognition of his artistic prowess that young Remonstrant
poets such as Geeraardt Brandt resented the fact that he had placed his
talent at the service of his religious zeal. Possibly a degree of professional jealousy may have played its part in the case of another poet and
dramatist, Jan Zoet, who had established a powerful reputation at the
Amsterdam Schouwburg in 1640–1641.
It was in this period that Vondel published a fairly literal although
not entirely accurate prose translation of the three great works of
Virgil – the Eclogues, the Georgics and the Aeneid – which he dedicated
to his fellow poet Constantijn Huygens. He sent a copy to P.C. Hoot as
well. hese gestures were also clear attempts to restore contacts that
had been broken of partly because of his conversion. Hoot’s reaction
was extremely cool. Huygens’ response to the translations of Virgil is
unknown, but we do know what Barlaeus thought of them: he found
this Virgil ‘bloodless, without marrow, and with broken limbs’.43
In 1647 Brandt and the Hague poet Jacob Westerbaen launched an
attack, partly out of bitterness at Vondel’s annexation of Grotius as a
crypto-Catholic. hey confronted the public with this other Vondel,
whom the poet would have preferred to abandon to obscurity. In a socalled ‘part two’ of Verscheide gedichten they published almost all his
‘green and unripe verses’ – as Vondel had called them in a letter to
43
WB 5, p. 7: ‘ “Gij hebt Vondels Virgilius gelezen, [..], of ten minsten gezien, maar
zonder leven, zonder mergh, en de lenden gebrooken”. ’
vondel’s life
73
Grotius – that had been excluded from the original collection of 1644
together with a couple of anti-Catholic poems that were not by Vondel
at all. In an ironic preface they denounced his change of faith. As
quickly as possible, in 1650, Vondel arranged for a new edition of his
non-dramatic poetry, Poëzy of verscheide gedichten (Poetry or Various
Poems) in which he presented himself with the full weight of his poetic
authority. he special introduction he added to this collection is one of
the few extant seventeenth-century Dutch texts on theoretical aspects
of literature. Like Horace – who gave practical advice to emerging
poets in his famous letter to the Piso brothers, known to us as Ars poetica – Vondel ofered aspiring Dutch poets a smoothly integrated series
of recommendations as to how they could become proicient in their
crat in his Aenleidinge ter Nederduitsche dichtkunste (Introduction to
the Dutch Art of Poetry).44 ‘Nature gives birth to the poet, art nurtures
him’ (‘Natuur baert den Dichter, de Kunst voedt hem op’) was Vondel’s
basic principle. Like Horace he emphasised that, although talent was
the prerequisite for artistry, without knowledge of the rules and systematic practice of poetic skills, talent alone would not suice to make
a person a good poet. And just as Vondel had trained himself by studying the work of classical and contemporary predecessors he admired,
so too would his poetry have to be able to stand as an example to future
generations, as he was probably aware. In 1653, aged sixty-ive, he was
crowned with a laurel wreath at the festival of St. Lucas by Amsterdam
poets and painters, to signify their recognition of his uncontested mastery of the art of poetry.
By 1647 the peace with Spain longed for by the residents of
Amsterdam for so many years had almost become a reality. he death
of Frederick Henry in May of that year drew no reaction from Vondel,
but the real prospect of the peace fought for so diligently certainly reinforced his sense of commitment to the well-being of his city and to the
felicitous policy of its rulers. In August 1647 he paid homage to the
burgomasters in a song of praise, De getemde Mars (Mars Tamed), calling them ‘fathers of peace, fathers of the fatherland’ (‘Vredevaders,
Vaders des Vaderlands’) for having helped, in their wisdom, to curb the
violence of the god of war ‘to whose heart no desire for peace could
adhere’ (‘op wiens hart geen vredewensch kon hechten’).45 he oicial
44
Vondel, WB 5, pp. 484–91; Vondel, Aenleidinge ter Nederduytsche dichtkunste, ed.
Utrechtse werkgroep.
45
Vondel, WB 5, pp. 250–57.
74
mieke b. smits-veldt and marijke spies
peace treaty, due to be signed in Munster on 30 January 1648, would
naturally have to be celebrated in the Amsterdam Schouwburg, like
all other momentous events of the time. Guarini’s pastoral tragicomedy Il pastor ido, which was extremely popular in the Dutch Republic
as elsewhere, inspired Vondel to write Leeuwendalers, a ‘landspel’ (pastoral play) structured according to the latest theoretical insights as
formulated in Vossius’s recently published Institutiones poeticae
(Institutes of Poetics).46 he pastoral, which – in contrast to Guarini –
Vossius took to be a play set not among shepherds but among farmers
tilling the land, was exceedingly well suited to Vondel’s purposes. With
a tragedy, which Vossius felt should always have historical subject matter, he would once more have run the risk of being accused of making
references – pro-Catholic and therefore possibly pro-Spanish – to
current afairs. With a play set in a dream world that danger could be
avoided. At the same time, as a tragedy with a happy ending the
pastoral was a suiciently digniied genre for a momentous event of
this kind.
In his dedication of the work to Michiel le Blon (the Queen of
Sweden’s envoy to England) Vondel also demonstrated for the irst time
his deepened knowledge of the structure of Greek tragedy by explicitly
mentioning his use of ‘recognition’ and ‘peripety’ (‘herkennisse’ and
‘overgang’). He was referring to two central concepts in Aristotle’s
Poetics – anagnorisis and peripeteia – upon which the action turns.
he former refers to the protagonist’s overcoming of initial ignorance and attaining to an understanding of the situation that he or she
faces (in this case insight into the true parentage of the orphan
Hageroos); the latter refers to a reversal of circumstances (in this case
from misfortune to happiness but usually the opposite way around). In
his dedication for Maria Stuart Vondel had touched upon another
Aristotelian requirement, which by his own admission he had violated,
namely the prerequisite that, if the action was to arouse ‘terror and
empathy’, the protagonist should be neither entirely good nor entirely
bad. Clearly when writing Gebroeders and the tragedies that followed
he was not yet aware of these demands; conversations with Vossius
during the writing of the latter’s Poeticae institutiones must have opened
his eyes to them.47 From this point on, then, Vondel would follow
46
47
Vondel, WB 5, pp. 261–353. See also the contribution by Stefan van der Lecq.
See also Vossius, Poeticae institutiones, ed. Bloemendal, pp. 40–42.
vondel’s life
75
the path shown him by Vossius. So in the biblical tragedy Salomon,
which immediately followed Leeuwendalers, the main character was
no longer an innocent hero set against wickedness as a shining example of virtue (as in the Joseph plays) but a weak character caught
between the representatives of good and evil, who each in turn try to
win him to their side.48 he old King Solomon eventually allows himself to be dragged down by his heathen wives, abandoning himself to
idolatry.
When Salomon was added to the Schouwburg repertoire in February
1650 it was a popular success, as Vondel’s early works for the stage had
been. It ran until 1659, and it was the irst play since Gysbreght to have
a performance graced by the oicial attendance of the burgomasters.
In the years that followed, Vondel would once more show himself to be
a public poet, placing his ripe and animated talent at the service of
the city of Amsterdam and its distinguished representatives. In 1649
the death of Vossius, the supreme representative of the classical scholarship that had now also blossomed in Amsterdam partly as a result
of his eforts, had already inspired Vondel to write a beautiful elegy.
Many occasional poems would follow, mostly commissioned by prominent individuals, including birth poems, wedding poems, elegies, and
poems to paintings.
Two years ater the Peace of Munster in 1648, the Amsterdam burgomasters proved in Vondel’s view that their divine duty had rightly been
conferred upon them. Some years later Vondel would continue to recall
in verse that eventful night of 29 July 1650 when the youthful stadtholder
William II attempted to storm the walls of Amsterdam with his armies,
to force the city to support his policy of a renewed war against Spain.
he attack failed because of a combination of circumstances, but the
two leaders of Amsterdam’s resistance to the stadtholder’s authority
were forced to withdraw from public oice. hey were quickly restored
to their former governmental positions, however, when William’s sudden death in November of that same year changed the political situation in Holland radically.
Vondel’s gloriication of the authority of the burgomasters reached
its peak in the most beautiful ode to Amsterdam ever written:
Inwydinge van ’t stadhuis t’Amsterdam (Inauguration of the Amsterdam
48
Vondel, WB 5, pp. 373–449. he play is discussed in this volume by Yasco
Horsman.
76
mieke b. smits-veldt and marijke spies
Town Hall).49 he construction of the majestic Town Hall on Dam
Square designed by architect Jacob van Campen, celebrated at its opening on 29 July 1655, had not been without its problems. Neither had
there been any shortage of critical diatribes, with the authorities being
accused of profane conceit for the construction of such an extravagant
prestige object, which ultimately would cost eight million guilders.
Vondel described the erection of the vast, expensive building as a glittering triumph of the economic power of Amsterdam, which saw itself
as the centre of the world and therefore as the successor to ancient
republican Rome. Except that whereas Rome’s power had been founded
on military violence, Amsterdam, in his view, was enjoying a reign of
peace based on its lourishing trade. Just as sculptors, painters and
poets had testiied to Rome’s greatness, so too in Amsterdam artists of
all kinds gloriied the honour of the municipal authorities that had
given their city its prestige. Architects built a temple to house impressive displays of justice and civilian government, visual artists gave
meaningful expression to the eminent responsibility of the government
by means of mythological, allegorical and historical works, while poets
such as Vondel sang the praises of this eighth wonder of the world.
Vondel’s Inwydinge was not only a panegyric, it was primarily a
defence of a breathtaking status symbol. By showing that the Town Hall
being a worthy seat of authority was the result of a carefully considered
decision by the municipal council, in line with the needs of its citizens,
he rebutted all criticism and was able to end his poem with the image
of a city adored by all regions, ruled in peace by Wisdom itself.
In 1654, a year before Inwydinge, Vondel had emphasised the inviolability of the Christian authorities, as direct representatives of the
highest King, in the dedication to his tragedy Lucifer: ‘he worldly
Power, which creates its light out of God and represents Divinity.’50 he
rebellion and fall of the ‘power-hungry’ (‘staetzuchtigh’) archangel
Lucifer, God’s representative, who had the audacity to oppose God’s
decision to place man above the angels, was to him the celestial exemplar of all arrogant creatures who dared to rebel against the powers set
above them by God. Lucifer is regarded as Vondel’s masterpiece, both
for its expressive depiction of exalted, superhuman characters in a
developing primal conlict and the rising tensions that result, as well as
49
Vondel, WB 5, pp. 856–904; see also Spies, Vondel en Amsterdam.
he play in Vondel, WB 5, pp. 601–96; the quotation on p. 604: ‘de weereltsche
Mogentheit, die haer licht uit Godt schept, en de Godtheit abeelt.’
50
vondel’s life
77
for its linguistic power, expressing the most elevated thoughts with
controlled simplicity.
In Vondel’s time the performance of Lucifer must have had a dazzling impact, not only because it presented a heavenly subject but also
because of the impressive staging. To this end, costly scenery depicting
heaven with clouds and stars had been painted. here was also elaborate stage machinery about which audiences were increasingly fanatical, which could be used in all kinds of ways. Vondel had wanted to
conclude with a dance by the lamenting angels, but Schouwburg governor Jan Vos instead developed a fantastical pantomime with allegorical
igures who came dancing onto the stage, by turns joyful and sorrowful, accompanied by appropriate music. In February 1654, however,
ater two performances to a packed theatre, Lucifer unexpectedly had
to be removed from the repertoire. Protestant preachers had railed so
vehemently from the pulpit against what they saw as a sacrilegious play
that the remaining performances had to be cancelled and, by order of
the burgomasters, the printed text would be impounded. his time,
then, the magistrates did listen to the views of the church, although
only with one ear. hat same year the play went through seven reprints.
In Defence of the heatre: Creativity in Old Age, and Death
Vondel hastened to make amends for the inancial damage the
Schouwburg had sufered. He did so by the only means available to
him: he wrote a new tragedy, which could be performed using the same
decor as Lucifer. Salmoneus, about a mythological prince who insults
the gods, was not performed until 1657, however, and it was less than
successful.51 From this time onwards Vondel would lose the rapport he
had reestablished with the Schouwburg audience, even when he used
biblical subject matter, which had always met with approval before.
Only Gysbreght van Aemstel and the Joseph dramas would continue to
be staged. Of the series of biblical tragedies he went on to write, several
were not performed at all.
Even the tragedy Jeptha, in which he dramatised the Old Testament
story of Jephthah’s sacriice of his daughter, was performed only a
handful of times, in 1659.52 Yet Vondel himself, in his ‘Berecht aen de
51
52
Vondel, WB 5, pp. 708–90.
Vondel, WB 8, pp. 769–850; the ‘Berecht’ on pp. 773–79.
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mieke b. smits-veldt and marijke spies
begunstelingen der toneelkunste’ (‘Foreword to the Beneiciaries of the
Dramatic Arts’), commended the play as a model tragedy in which he
had complied with all the requirements of Aristotelian theory.
Furthermore, he proudly declared that in a technical dramatic sense he
had succeeded in outstripping the famous work on which it was based,
the Neo-Latin tragedy Jephthes by the learned Franco-Scottish writer
George Buchanan. Unlike Buchanan, he pointed out, he had managed
to comply with two demands that were diicult to reconcile in this
case: the theoretical requirement of the ‘unities’ (here speciically the
unity of time) and the Christian-inspired requirement that a biblical
tragedy should never depart from its sacred subject matter.
his Aristotelian tragedy, which he had come to know through interpretations by Heinsius, Grotius and especially Vossius, was an example
of aemulatio (the surpassing of a work recognised as a masterpiece),
something theoreticians believed should be seen as the greatest of
poetic achievements. he Schouwburg audience, however, wanted to
be enthralled by visual efects. Vondel’s plays, which now concentrated
on a single central act, scarcely met the growing demand for fast-moving, spectacular plays with changes of scene and astonishing technical
tricks aimed at producing an entertaining spectacle. he outward theatrical efect of the action he depicted now relied – as in Lucifer – almost
entirely on impressive acting, attractive staging, the costumes worn by
the characters and their entourages, and on the addition of special displays. Brandt writes that in these later years Vondel complained about
the fact that roles in his plays were given to inexperienced actors,
decked out in ‘old, threadbare and inappropriate clothing’ (‘oude versleete en wanschikkelyke kleederen’).53 his complaint is probably
authentic. Most of Vondel’s subsequent tragedies existed purely in
written form.
We can be certain that Vondel deplored the lack of response from
Schouwburg audiences. It leaves a slightly bitter taste to know that it
was precisely in this period that he felt forced to set himself up as a
champion of the stage, arguing resoundingly in its favour in response
to attacks from the clergy. He did so for the irst time in his ‘Berecht aen
alle Kunstgenooten, en Begunstigers der Tooneelspelen’ (‘Foreword
to all Companions in Art, and Supporters of Stage Plays’), which
was printed at the front of editions of Lucifer.54 In it he defended the
53
54
Brandt, ‘Het leven van Joost van den Vondel’, p. 68.
Vondel, WB 5, pp. 607–14.
vondel’s life
79
usefulness of ‘elevating and entertaining plays’, especially those with
biblical subject matter. Vondel evidently understood even before its
performance that Lucifer would ofend the clergy. When this assumption was borne out, he issued another apology for the stage, this time in
a ‘Berecht aen alle kunstgenooten en voorstanders van den Schouburgh’
(‘Foreword to all Companions in Art and Advocates of the Schouwburg’)
published in the edition of Salmoneus.55 In this he added new arguments to his defence of dramatised Bible stories, and once again formulated what he believed the essence and goal of a tragedy to be in
terms derived from Aristotle and Horace. Like painting, drama imitated human action, uniting instruction and delight. A tragedy deals
with the fate of eminent persons and its purpose is to move and to
portray passions. Even more insistently than Vossius, Vondel emphasises the didactic purpose of the tragedy, which, he writes:
teaches, according to circumstances, to tighten or let loose the reins of
the State, and take warning by the misfortune of others. It ofers a lively
portrayal of wisdom, comprising digniied (i.e. estimable) examples
taken from history, for in histories one unceasingly sees the wheel of fortune turning, and how people here treat one another.56
Immediately ater the banning of Lucifer, Vondel had rounded on the
preaching of Petrus Wittewrongel, ridiculing him a number of times in
verse. he orthodox Calvinist preacher regarded anything that had to
do with the Schouwburg as born of Evil, especially, of course, Vondel’s
Lucifer. In 1661 Wittewrongel hit back with a powerful attack in book
form, Oeconomia Christiana ote Christelijke Huishoudinge (Oeconomia
Christiana or Christian Housekeeping), in which he advanced a gamut
of dogmatic objections to the stage and to Vondel’s play set in heaven.
he poet returned ire immediately. In the same year he published
Tooneelschilt ot Pleitrede voor het toneelrecht (Shield of the Stage or
Defence of the Rights of heatre), which he ended by expressing his
belief in the city’s rulers’ wisdom and their love of art and freedom;
they would never allow the Schouwburg to be closed the way the
Puritans in England had closed the theatres.57 Yet that is exactly what
55
Vondel, WB 5, pp. 710–18.
Vondel, WB 5, p. 715: ‘[…] leert naer voorvallende gelegenheit de toom des Staets
vieren of aenhaelen, en elck zich zacht aen een anders ongeluck spiegelen. Zy beelt
levendigh de wysheit uit, die in detige voorbeelden, uit de historien getrocken, bestaet;
want in de historien ziet men geduurigh het radt van avontuure draejen, en hoe de
menschen hier met elckanderen omspringen.’
57
Vondel, WB 9, pp. 380–90.
56
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happened in 1672, for a period of ive years, though in part due to the
pressure of political circumstances.
Meanwhile, great changes had occurred in Vondel’s private life. Until
1652 he had lived and worked continuously in ‘De rechtvaardige trouw’
(‘he Righteous Faith’), the business that bought and sold luxury stockings and other silk goods, begun by his father. In 1652 he transferred
both the business and the family home to his son. Not long aterwards
he went to live with his daughter Anna in a rented dwelling on the
Prinsengracht, close to the Berenstraat. Even at this point the business
was probably not all that healthy. he First English War (1652–54),
which caused great poverty in Amsterdam, was undoubtedly detrimental to the trade in luxury articles such as silk stockings. Within a
few years Joost, who seems to have been a prodigal, went bankrupt and
his father had to take over his debts.
A nephew interceded for him with the wife of one of the burgomasters and in January 1658 Vondel, now seventy, was given a job as bookkeeper at the municipal pawnbroking bank. He earned a fairly decent
salary, more than most clergy of the time, but it was no sinecure. As
time went on he seems increasingly to have neglected his duties, which
consisted of recording details of the pawned goods. Finally, when he
turned eighty, Brandt writes, ‘the Gentlemen Burgomasters, knowing
how little service the bank was obtaining from him, dismissed him
from his duties, with the retention of his salary’.58 Joost Jr. had been
dead for eight years by then. In late 1659 his father had asked the burgomasters to force him to leave for the East Indies, the customary ‘solution’ for wayward sons. He had died at sea.
Looking at the amount Vondel wrote in these later years, his creative
industry is impressive: ten original tragedies and three major religious
works (two didactic poems and a biblical epic). He also wrote a large
number of occasional poems in this period, mainly for the burgomasters and their relatives, sometimes on behalf of the municipal authorities to mark all kinds of oicial events, as on the occasion of the
Restoration of Charles II in 1660. In 1660 his verse translation of the
complete works of Virgil was published, in 1671 those of Ovid, and
meanwhile he published no fewer than four translations of Greek
tragedies.59
58
Brandt, ‘Het leven van Joost van den Vondel’, p. 64: ‘Toen hebben de Heeren
Burgermeesters, weetende hoe weinig dienst de bank van hem trok, hem van zyne
bedieninge ontslaagen, mits behoudende zyn wedde.’
59
Vondel, WB 7 and 10.
vondel’s life
81
Even more impressive than the quantity of his output is its creative
elasticity, which is particularly in evidence in his original work. In his
tragedies he continued to tap into new themes. In the three plays of
1660 – Koning David in ballingschap (King David Exiled) Koning David
herstelt (King David Restored) and Samson – the central subject is that
of a ‘change of state’ (‘staetveranderinghe’), the reversal of fortune from
happiness to unhappiness that had dominated Jeptha, for instance,
although from Adonias onwards the theme of justice and injustice
comes to the fore as well.
It has oten been claimed that practically all Vondel’s plays of the
early 1660s are connected to his sorrow over his son. Indeed it seems
inconceivable that such emotions could fail to have inluenced his indepth exploration of the countless father-son relationships he portrays
in them. Yet his concentration on the father-son issue in this period
does not detract from the fact that here too Vondel elevates matters
above the level of the personal and the incidental, both in a purely literary sense – as in the David plays and Samson, where he experiments
with the structural possibilities of the tragic ‘change of state’ – and in
terms of content. In Adonias, and particularly in Batavische gebroeders
(Batavian Brothers) of 1663 and Faëton (Phaeton) of the same year, he
successively explored various aspects of the basic themes of guilt and
punishment, and of justice as their ultimate foundation.60
In this same period Vondel also produced a far more important literary novelty, namely the irst original biblical epic in Dutch literature,
Joannes de Boetgezant (John the Baptist), published in 1662.61 More
than any other genre, the epic in its traditional form has been forgotten, and nothing is so remote from contemporary taste as its then customary mythological phraseology, its extended comparisons, and its
relentless, thumping alexandrines. In the seventeenth century, however, it was regarded, along with the tragedy, as the highest form of literature. As we have seen, the great exemplars were Virgil’s Aeneid and,
among contemporary works, Gerusalemme liberata by Torquato Tasso
(1575). In France Du Bartas had written an epic about the creation of
the world and in England Milton’s topic was the battle between heaven
and hell, to name but two. Yet in the Dutch Republic the genre barely
existed as yet. Vondel had already used the technique and style of the
epic in his Verovering van Grol (Conquest of Groenlo) of 1627, in order
60
61
Vondel, WB 9, pp. 898–971 and WB 10, pp. 31–93.
Vondel, WB 9, pp. 673–794.
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to lend his subject the necessary appeal and universal depth, something he would continue to do in many of his more oicial occasional
poems, but in the late 1630s he had abandoned his true epic work,
Constantinade.
With Joannes de Boetgezant Vondel produced both the irst successful and the irst biblical epic of the Dutch Republic. It would become
the model for a long series of such heroic poems in the eighteenth century. He gave the epic a new form that was entirely his own, one that
departed from the usual Virgilian-Tassonian model in its strong didactic bias. It is less narrative, more aimed at convincing and teaching, and
as such it is more in keeping with his great religious didactic poems,
with one of which, De Heerlyckheit der Kercke (he Glory of the Church)
of a year later, it is also connected in terms of its content.
Christ’s baptism by John, the climax of the irst half of the epic,
marks the true beginning of the Christian Church, although in De
Heerlyckheit der Kercke it is referred to as such only in passing. John’s
story is linked with that of Jesus in the second half of the epic too. His
death is placed in the context of Satan’s battle with Christ and interpreted as a foreshadowing of the cruciixion. Vondel lends form to this
interpretation not only in his story of John’s life but also by repeatedly
framing John’s biography with metaphysical events, as was customary
in an epic. Since this was a biblical epic, those events were not mythological in nature but Christian. A ‘council of heaven’ is set against a
‘council of hell’, the former being convened by God.
Taken as a whole, Joannes de Boetgezant can be seen as a portrayal of
the age-old duality between good and evil, a motif characteristic of the
epic ever since Tasso, and one that had already been used by Vondel in
his epic poem Verovering van Grol. In the years that followed he went
on to make this duality the central theme of his inal three tragedies,
Adam in ballingschap (Adam Exiled) of 1664, and Zungchin and Noach,
both published in 1667.62 In doing so he returned to what he had done
in earlier works, although he now managed to harmonise his theme
with that of the ‘change of state’, achieving a synthesis of everything that
had inspired his work in previous years. he reversal of fortune from
happiness to unhappiness sits comfortably with the battle between
62
Vondel, WB 10, pp. 94–170, 323–90, and 391–454 resp. See also the contributions
by Jan Bloemendal (on Adam in Ballingschap) and Wiep van Bunge (on Noach).
vondel’s life
83
good and evil, with the universal solace that good will ultimately prevail. his is the ‘lesson’ of Noach, Vondel’s inal play.
Ater his honourable dismissal from the pawnbroking bank Vondel’s
life gradually ebbed away. He no longer wrote long poems, although he
did produce dozens of shorter occasional poems, mainly for relatives
and acquaintances. Among the longest is a poem of forty-eight verses
about De slapende Venus van Filips de Koning (Philips de Koninck’s
Sleeping Venus), published on a loose sheet in 1670 by ‘the widow of
Abraham de Wees, bookseller on the Middeldam’, his publisher to the
last. As Vondel wrote a relatively large number of poems inspired by
paintings, it may be regarded as one of the kinder twists of fate that
there are several drawings of him in his inal years by Philips de
Koninck, who was among his closest friends. hey are moving in their
depiction of his slow drit towards death. ‘His age was his sickness’,
writes Brandt, one of those who still visited him regularly. ‘he wick of
life lacked oil; the lamp was extinguished for want of nourishment.’63
63
Brandt, ‘Het leven van Joost van den Vondel’, p. 73: ‘Zyn ouderdom was zyn
ziekte. Het pit des levens ontbrak oly: de lamp most uitgaan by mangel van voedzel.’
CHAPTER FIVE
VONDEL’S RELIGION
Judith Pollmann
No subject in Vondel’s biography has attracted as much scholarly interest as his religious convictions. Brought up as a Mennonite, the poet
spent many decades in the circles of Arminian ‘Remonstrants’, before
converting to Catholicism around 1640. Scholarly fascination with the
subject of Vondel’s conversion peaked between 1860 and 1960, when
cultural critics and scholars devoted many gallons of ink to the details
of Vondel’s religious development.1 From the mid-nineteenth century,
Dutch Catholics, on the wings of their political emancipation, were
busily reclaiming a space for themselves in the cultural history of the
nation. Since this was widely acknowledged to have been at its apogee
in the seventeenth century, Catholics were particularly keen to emphasize their contribution to this greatness. What better way to do so than
to appropriate the greatest poet of the Dutch Golden Age?
he Catholic Vondel scholarship that resulted from this interest was
underpinned by what we might call a hermeneutics of Catholic experience. Catholic Vondel scholars believed that their own Catholicism
enabled them to better understand Vondel. Since they also had a clear
sense of what a conversion should involve, and what a convert should
experience, they felt very conident that they could recognize the symptoms of Catholicity and conversion pains in the literary output of their
seventeenth-century coreligionist.2 Inevitably, non-Catholic Vondel
scholars – liberals, moderate Protestants, and even socialists – riposted
with their own readings, and continued to foreground the Protestant
side of Vondel. hus there were eforts to bring out the Remonstrant in
Vondel, while in 1935 W.A.P. Smit made an attempt to show that, at its
core, Vondel’s religiosity had always remained that of the Mennonite
1
Spies, ‘Nederlands vele Vondels’.
Relections on this hermeneutics can be found in (for instance) Drabbe, Vondel’s
overgang tot de katholieke kerk. Other examples include: Brom, Vondels bekering;
Molkenboer, ‘Wanneer werd Vondel katholiek?’, pp. 6–7.
2
86
judith pollmann
doopsgezinden.3 Secularists, in the meantime, argued that Vondel’s religious development was really not to be taken too seriously. he socialist scholars Jan and Annie Romein even talked of his ‘alleged’
conversion.4 One way or the other, it was the ideological preferences of
the authors, rather than those of Vondel, that coloured most of the
work on Vondel’s religion.5
he highly ideological character of the discussion explains why in
the 1960s interest in Vondel’s religion suddenly collapsed. he secularization process that overwhelmed the Netherlands in that decade turned
the poet in general, and his religious ailiation in particular, into a
deeply unfashionable topic. For decades, silence surrounded the subject. he latest Vondel biographer, Piet Calis, does no more than carefully adjudicate on the indings in the older literature.6 Frans-Willem
Korsten’s recent study of sovereignty in Vondel’s work consciously
steers away from an attempt to connect Vondel’s views of the divine
with a confessional position.7 New insights into the religious culture of
the Dutch Republic, however, mean that we should be in a much better
position to contextualize and compare Vondel’s religious sentiments
with those of his contemporaries than we used to be. he aim of this
chapter is to suggest ways of rethinking Vondel’s religious development
by reexamining and recontextualizing some of the core evidence on his
religious views, without reading between the lines in his dramatic
work. In efect, I shall try here to explore Vondel’s religion as one might
attempt to do for any other seventeenth-century believer, in the hope
that a more sober assessment of the evidence can help others towards a
new look at the role of religion in his work.
Choice and Certainty
From the age of eight, when his family moved from Cologne to the
Dutch Republic, Vondel lived in a polity that did not have a state
3
Leendertz, ‘Is Vondel remonstrant geweest’; Smit, ‘Vondel en zijn bekering’;
Kühler, Geschiedenis van de doopsgezinden in Nederland, pp. 41–42
4
Jan and Annie Romein, ‘Joost van den Vondel’.
5
It is no accident that the most clearheaded summary of Vondel’s religiosity to date
appeared in Melles, Joost van den Vondel, pp. 130–32, whose primary aim was to reconstruct Vondel’s inances.
6
Calis, Vondel, p. 201.
7
Korsten, Vondel belicht, p. 106; Sovereignty as Inviolabitily, p. 95. He does so by
invoking my Religious Choice in the Dutch Republic, but I did not argue that seventeenth-century Netherlanders were uninterested in doctrinal issues, just that their
decisions to convert were not necessarily inspired by dogmatic issues alone.
vondel’s religion
87
church. he Calvinist Reformed church was known as the ‘public
church’ – it had the monopoly on religious worship, its ministers were
paid for by the secular authorities, and it had the use of the old church
buildings. he church was expected to ofer prayers for the nation, and
to take the lead on days of public penance or thanksgiving. Consistories
of the church advised the authorities in matters of morality, education
and charity. he church was required to ofer some religious services to
all comers. Anyone could be baptized in the Reformed church, and the
churches also married the non-Reformed (although those nonReformed who could aford it preferred to use the provision for civic
marriage that existed in many places). Anyone could be buried in the
church buildings and cemeteries around them. Anyone was free to
attend sermons. Yet membership of this church was not compulsory –
quite the opposite, the Reformed churches claimed and retained the
right to admit to communion only those who, as adults, had made a
confession of faith and who were prepared to submit to church discipline.8 Many Dutch believers did not want to do so. By 1600 perhaps
only one in ten residents of Amsterdam was a member of the Reformed
church; a century later the Reformed still only made up just under half
of the urban community – Calvinist church members were always a
minority, even if they were the most privileged, among many other
minorities.9
he fact that such other minorities could continue to thrive
was because the Republic guaranteed ‘freedom of conscience’ to its
citizens – no one could be taken to task for his religious beliefs (although
in practice, an exception was sometimes made for Socinians and ‘atheists’). While, formally, freedom of conscience did not in any way involve
freedom of worship, in practice its existence did leave the road open to
small religious gatherings in private homes. Especially in cities like
Amsterdam, these could develop into semi-legal church communities,
which usually paid for the privilege of being let undisturbed.10 As a
consequence, Amsterdam had a series of well-established Mennonite
communities, as well as an emerging underground Catholic subculture, by the time the Vondel family settled there in 1596. In the course
of the seventeenth century, many other minority groups also set up
their own churches there. Among these, it was especially the Arminian
8
9
10
Van Deursen, Bavianen en Slijkgeuzen.
Spaans, ‘Stad van vele geloven, 1578–1798’, p. 401.
Van Nierop and Po-Chia Hsia, Calvinism and Toleration in the Dutch Republic.
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Remonstrant community that was to be important for Vondel. Ater
1610 a schism emerged in the Dutch Reformed church over the doctrinal issue of double predestination. Followers of the theologian Jacobus
Arminius lost their battle for control of the Reformed church, and the
so-called Counter-Remonstrants succeeded in imposing their take on
the issue of double predestination. he Synod of Dordt of 1618–1619
forced all ministers of the church into line, and expelled all Arminian
theologians who refused to abide by its canons. Ater a few years the
Arminians regrouped as the ‘Remonstrant brotherhood’.
Geeraardt Brandt, Vondel’s contemporary and irst biographer,
described Vondel’s early religious commitments as follows:
In matters of religion he had accepted the doctrine of the Mennonites,
according to his parents’ teaching, and had, among their many branches,
opted to join the community of the Waterlanders, and had served as a
deacon among them. Yet when the quarrels among the Remonstrants
and Counter-Remonstrants had arrived at their peak, and the former had
been condemned […] he took the side of the underdog, and the injustices that had, so unfairly in his view, been visited upon them, kindled in
him a great zeal to defend their cause […] his caused everyone to say
that he had become altogether Remonstrant, although he never took
communion with them […].11
One of the key characteristics of Netherlandish religious life was its
confessional luidity. In the sixteenth century, many people had developed an interest in dissident ideas without necessarily breaking away
from the old church. Oten it had been the punitive measures of the
Habsburg authorities that had forced confessional choice upon those
who were forced to recant their beliefs, or to lee into exile and into the
arms of refugee communities where a fully ledged form of Protestantism
was taught. Because the Dutch Republic did not force its citizens to
join the public church, and because many Dutch believers did not seal
their religious convictions with church membership, the culture of religious luidity could continue to exist throughout the Golden Age.
By the mid seventeenth century, there were still many believers
who refused to become communicant members of a church, and all
churches were used to the presence of non-communicant liehebbers or
‘sympathizers’.12
11
12
Brandt, ‘Het leven van Joost van den Vondel’, pp. 17–18.
Pollmann, ‘From Freedom of Conscience to Confessional Segregation?’.
vondel’s religion
89
Ater his conversion to Catholicism, Vondel himself described his
former Mennonite faith as ‘inherited doctrine’.13 With two Mennonite
parents, who were prepared to migrate for their faith, he was raised a
Mennonite as a matter of course. Yet both in Mennonite and Reformed
circles, church membership was not automatically transferred to
younger generations. Each generation decided for itself when to join
formally – by accepting adult baptism in the Mennonite case, or by
making one’s confession in the Reformed and Remonstrant communities. Many children, even when brought up in a household in which the
parents shared one religion, took their time over committing themselves. hus Vondel’s own daughter, Anna, was still unbaptized when
she joined the Catholic church at age 30 – she had apparently felt free
to postpone this choice and had thus never become a communicant
Mennonite.14 Other members of the Vondel family also ignored family
commitments when deciding which of the Amsterdam Mennonite
communities to join. Vondel was a member of the Waterlander
Mennonite community of Amsterdam, yet in 1637, at the end of her
life, his mother Sara just bequeathed a sum of money to the ‘Flemish’
Mennonite community, suggesting that she was a member of this
group.15 It is possible that it was she who, later in life, decided to change
communities – because Vondel and all his sisters were Waterlanders.
An alternative explanation is that she and her husband had always
belonged to the Flemish community, but that the children decided otherwise – as most historians have assumed. However that may be, there
is no reason to believe that such choices were necessarily accompanied
by ‘an intense inner struggle’, as a recent biographer surmises.16 he differences between the communities, however bitter, concerned church
order more than doctrine.17 In early seventeenth-century Amsterdam
there were also practical reasons that might inspire decisions to change
community. For the Vondel children, this could have been marriage –
Joost and his sister both married a brother and sister of the Waterlander
De Wolf family. And it was by no means uncommon for doopsgezinden
13
‘Toetssteen’ (1650), WB 5, p. 492.
‘Litterae Annuae missionis Hollandicae anno 1641’ ed. by Van Lommel in his De
historische waarde der Litterae Annuae, pp. 60–69, esp. 66. On the freedom to choose
see Pollmann, ‘From Freedom of Conscience’.
15
Sterck, Oorkonden over Vondel en zijn kring, pp. 322 and 328.
16
Calis, Vondel, pp. 61–62.
17
Zijlstra, Om de ware gemeente en de oude gronden, p. 273.
14
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to move from one community to another at some point in their lives.18
here is no reason to believe, therefore, that their support for a diferent ‘lavour’ of Mennonite community caused a breach between the
Vondel siblings and their mother.
Until his late thirties, Vondel’s religious trajectory was therefore uneventful. He accepted adult baptism, married a doopgezinde girl, Maaike
de Wolf, and from 1616 served as a deacon in his church. In 1620, and
again a few years later, he sufered from debilitating attacks of ‘melancholy’, which for some time made him unproductive. Yet by the mid
1620s he suddenly resurfaced and took the stage with angry interventions in a series of public debates on religious issues. he irst of these
related to a conlict within his own community. In 1626, the Waterlander
community was deeply divided over the value of Scripture as opposed
to any revelations of the Holy Spirit that individuals might experience.
Waterlander leader Hans de Ries thought that these were of value, and
silenced his opponent Nittert Obbesz who argued that Scripture alone
should be the anchor of the faith. In his Antidotum: Tegen het vergit der
Geestdryvers: Tot verdedigingh van ’t beschreven woord Gods (Antidote
to the Poison of the Zealots, in Defence of the Word of God, 1626),19
Vondel took the side of Nittert, predicting dire consequences if religion
were to be based on random intimations of the spirit. Recalling the
embarrassing Anabaptist bids in the 1530s to create a new Jerusalem in
the cities of Münster and Amsterdam, he predicted that De Ries’s stance
‘would make a mockery of Christ, if anyone can believe what he wants
and what mills about in his loose and brainless head, so that temples
will stand empty and none of the laity will heed the Bible, but will consider Sunday preaching just letterwerk’.20 Judging by this passage,
Vondel’s emphasis on Scripture was apparently coupled with a fear of
disorder, and desire for certainty and stability in matters pertaining to
the faith.
At the same time, Vondel did not like enforced uniformity. In 1619
the political protector of the Remonstrants, Johan van Oldenbarnevelt,
had been beheaded for treason, and their preachers had been silenced
or banished. When some of the Remonstrants were implicated in a
coup against Stadtholder Maurits of Nassau in 1623, the magistrates in
some cities in Holland again lashed out with unprecedented force
18
19
20
Kühler, Geschiedenis der doopsgezinden, pp. 5–6.
Zijlstra, Om de ware gemeente, pp. 280–81.
WB 2, p. 808.
vondel’s religion
91
against the dissident Remonstrant communities. Many Waterlander
Mennonites sympathized with some Remonstrant viewpoints, but sensibly decided not to become too closely associated with the controversy.21 Not so Vondel, however, who now came out in open support of
his many Remonstrant friends. He protested against the Calvinist ‘conscience-butchers, disguised in the robes of justice’, calling upon them to
give ‘your fellow Christians’ the free exercise of their religion. In 1631
he signed a petition to demand freedom of worship for the Remonstrant
community.22 Apart from voicing his distaste of the forcing of consciences, he also proved strongly opposed to the Reformed take on
double predestination. In his Decretum horribile (he Horrifying
Judgement, 1631), he outlined the anguish of a young mother with her
newborn twins, both cleansed by baptism ‘in Christ’s loving blood’,
who asks herself which of the two might be doomed to hell. he poem
ends with his reassurance that God will protect both babies as a hen its
chicks, and with a vision of paradise. Many Remonstrants before
Vondel had been attacking the doctrine of double predestination with
the argument that this might condemn innocent babes to hell, so there
is no need to connect this to Vondel’s biography.23 Still, it is interesting
to note that the baby twins in his vision had received infant baptism. It
is unlikely that we should see this as a rejection of adult baptism, the
single most important characteristic of the Mennonite community.
Brandt thought that Vondel continued to live as a Mennonite at least
until the death of his wife in 1635. But it does perhaps suggest that by
the 1630s Vondel was no longer particularly careful to stick to the confessional culture in which he had been brought up. Yearning for certainty he might be, but he was also exercising his right to choose.
Suferings
According to Geraardt Brandt, Vondel’s distaste for religious persecution could be traced back deep into his family history. Brandt was a
Remonstrant preacher, who himself knew the poet and who was well
at home in at least some of Vondel’s Amsterdam milieu. In the life
of Vondel that he published in 1682, three years ater the poet’s death,
21
Zijlstra, Om de ware gemeente, p. 278.
Leendertz, ‘Is Vondel remonstrant geweest’.
23
‘Decretum horribile: Gruvvel de verwoestinghe’ (1630), WB 3, p. 346. On earlier
use of this argument, see Van Deursen, Bavianen en slijkgeuzen, pp. 282–83.
22
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he drew on his own conversations with Vondel, as well as on information that he had gathered from his friends. Ater introducing his topic
Brandt started his account of Vondel’s life with a dramatic ‘tale of
origin’:
His maternal grandfather Peter Kranen, a […] resident of Antwerp, was,
together with his spouse, committed to the most defenceless of all the
reforming groups, the Mennonites, at the time of the ierce persecutions
[…] when placards were in force of which it was said ‘that they were written in blood rather than in ink’, and he was attending their gatherings in
the days when this could cost people their lives.24
Indeed, Brandt continued, Kranen was betrayed, and while he himself
escaped, his wife, many months pregnant, was arrested and jailed.
Although she was briely allowed to leave prison to give birth, she was
again interned and was tried for heresy. Fortunately a cousin had come
to her rescue:
When he heard from the Margrave [of Antwerp], that she ‘had been condemned to the ire, and would die together with some preacher’, he was
deeply worried, begged for a reprieve and asked ‘if one might not save
her by having one of her children baptized as a Catholic by a priest’. he
reply was ‘perhaps’. And in this hope they hastily called one of the children (who had led to Cologne with their father) back to Antwerp, where
the child was baptized according to the customs of the Roman church:
and aterwards the mother, through much begging and pleading, was at
last released, having promised to continue to live as a Catholic.
She then went to Cologne to join her husband and children, where
they found their refuge, and the daughter who had been baptized by a
priest to save her mother was named Sara Kranen, and was later to be the
mother of Vondel, our poet. Because the milliner Joost van den Vondel
[…] who was also a keen follower of the Mennonites, also went into exile
in Cologne because of the persecution, and married that girl […].25
Cross-checking with other records has shown that Brandt’s tale had a
basis in reality. Peter Craanen was indeed indicted for attending
Mennonite meetings in 1571, and in July 1571 one of his daughters was
actually baptized in Antwerp’s cathedral aged three and a half, in the
presence of a high-ranking Catholic priest.26 Yet it is also worth examining this passage as a tale of origin – a tale that was transmitted by the
24
25
26
Brandt, ‘Het leven van Joost van den Vondel’, p. 7.
Brandt, ‘Het leven van Joost van den Vondel’, p. 8.
De Valk, ‘Vondel’s grootouders onder Alva om het geloof vervolgd’.
vondel’s religion
93
descendants of Sara Craanen and Joost van den Vondel senior and that,
by the time it reached Brandt, had probably been told and retold many
times. Unsurprisingly, the story had changed shape in the process.
hus it was not in fact Sara, Vondel’s mother, ‘who had been baptized
by a priest to save her mother’, but his aunt Anna.27 It is also unlikely
that Vondel’s father, the milliner Joost senior, let Antwerp because of
persecution. In 1582, when he departed, Antwerp was ighting on the
side of the Revolt and not persecuting Mennonites – like so many others, Joost probably let the city because of the economic downturn. His
religious commitment was to be tested, but that happened twelve years
later, when Joost senior was harassed and ined for attending Mennonite
gatherings in Cologne. At that point he decided yet again to migrate,
and took his wife and children to the Dutch Republic, reputedly sufering the discomfort with such patience that their coachman compared
the couple to ‘Joseph and Mary’.28
Stories like these were familiar enough in the Republic. Both in
Mennonite and in Reformed circles, tales of martyrdom, persecution
and light igured prominently. As a form of ‘imitatio’ of the passion
and a simile to the history of Israel, they resonated strongly in contemporary piety. Martyrdom and sufering among one’s ancestors conferred status on their descendants. It was especially among the tens of
thousands of Southern Netherlanders who had come to the Republic
rather than abandon their Protestant faith that such tales lived on. For
the many families of Brabantine and Flemish extraction, stories of victimhood fulilled an additional function as a ‘tale of origin’ and for
many it formed the start of their family histories. Moreover, stories like
these legitimized and even sanctiied their presence as aliens in the
Republic.29 It is no wonder, then, that in families like that of Vondel
such tales were carefully transmitted, and perhaps also adapted in the
retelling so as to conform even more closely to expectations or to
achieve greater symmetry.
here is one unusual trait in the tale Brandt tells. In the martyrological tradition, for a believer to cave in like Vondel’s grandmother
Clementia had done, and to allow the Catholic baptism of her daughter, was not necessarily considered a good outcome. True steadfastness
27
Ibidem, pp. 98–99.
Brandt, ‘Het leven van Joost van den Vondel’, p. 11
29
Pollmann, Het oorlogsverleden van de Gouden Eeuw. http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/
rome002erl01_01/rome002erl01_01_0014.htm
28
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in the Mennonite tradition would have prescribed choosing death
rather than make such a compromise.30 It is interesting, therefore, that
Clementia’s concession had remained part of the story – or perhaps reentered it once many in the Vondel family had converted to Catholicism.
At the same time, Vondel’s respect for the sacriices of his ancestors was
apparently unafected by his conversion. Brandt reported that the poet:
considered non-Catholics to be heretics but had a good feeling about his
grandfather Kranen, and, because of his simple piety, expected the best
for him, despite the fact that he had died a non-Catholic.
It may seem surprising that Vondel managed to square his attachment
to a family history of sufering and Mennonite piety with a conversion
to the same church that his ancestors had abandoned and rejected at
such a price to themselves and their family. In the Dutch Republic, stories of the suferings under Habsburg rule were frequently used to
remind people of the iniquities of Rome. here was a powerful discourse that used the memories of the inquisition and Spanish rule to
associate Catholicism with violence, and its adherents with enemies of
the Netherlands. As we shall see, some of Vondel’s friends were to use
these arguments to criticize him for his conversion. Yet the Catholic
minority in the Netherlands did not fail to point out that Catholics had
sufered their own martyrdoms in the Dutch Revolt, and that in the
Republic they were being persecuted rather than being the persecutors.
hroughout his life, the themes of persecution, exile and sacriice
remained of enormous interest to Vondel, but he was not inclined to
see them as a vindication of one brand of Christianity alone.
Conversion
Many scholars have regretted that Vondel did not describe a conversion experience, and some have tried to reconstruct an alternative for it
from his Altaergeheimenissen (Secrets of the Altar) of 1645 or other
texts. In his omission to tell us of his experience of conversion, however, Vondel was entirely typical of most sixteenth- and seventeenthcentury converts. here are early modern, emotive conversion
narratives in the tradition of Saint Augustine.31 Yet in most instances
30
31
Gregory, Salvation at Stake, pp. 112–87.
Fredriksen, ‘Paul and Augustine’.
vondel’s religion
95
when early modern people described a ‘conversion experience’ in that
classic sense, they were not talking about a change of denomination,
but about a transformation in their relationship with God. Early modern believers who changed religious confession were more oten than
not silent about their motives for doing so. here are, admittedly,
exceptions. In Catholic circles, there was a genre of printed conversion
narratives that served propaganda purposes.32 Protestants might
account for their conversion when they found they needed to justify or
explain themselves. hus both the conversion narratives of Luther and
of heodore de Bèze were written to explain to their readers how it was
possible that the religious ideas and sentiments in their later oeuvre
difered from those they had expressed earlier.33 It was in this tradition
that we should place Vondel’s Toetssteen (Touchstone, 1650), which
formed part of the introductory matter to his collected poems:
If any verse Romish or not
ediies or annoys the reader
please excuse my pen for those passages
and judge the matter by the time in which it was written
Saint Paul followed the trails of his ancestors
Saint Augustine the Manicheans
before the bright light appeared to them
through which the dark mist disappears.
My youth was bound by inherited teachings
to a sect, and one alone,
until I, by a clearer sight
of things secular and ecclesiastical
discovered, at a better day
the pearl that had been hidden,
and for which all is proitably lost.
Happy is he who chooses the best.34
While this account of what had made him change religions is very
pithy, it is worth noting that it was framed in terms of discovery,
32
Luria, ‘he Politics of Protestant Conversion to Catholicism in Seventeenthcentury France’.
33
Pollmann, ‘A Diferent Road to God’.
34
WB, 5, p. 492: ‘Indien hier Roomsch of Onroomsch dicht / Den Lezer sticht, of
hem ontsticht; / Men schell’ mijn pen die vlacken quijt, / En toets’ de stof naer heuren
tijt. / Sint Pauwels volght der Vadren zeên, / Sint Augustijn de Manicheên, / Eer hun het
heldre licht verschijnt, / Waer voor de donkre mist verdwijnt. / Mijn jonkheit bondt
door erreleer / Zich aen een Secte, en geene meer, / Tot datme, door een klaerder blijck
/ Van ’t Weereltlijck en Kerckelijck, / Ontdeckt wiert, in een’ schooner dagh, / De Perle,
die verborgen lagh, / Waer voor men ’t al met winst verliest. / Geluckigh die het beste
kiest.’
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enlightenment (bright light vs. dark mist) and choice. Forty years earlier, the Mennonite schoolmaster Israel van der Meersch had described
his own conversion to Calvinism in terms that were somewhat more
emotive, but that also referred to the light that brought truth and that
was like a ‘pearl’.35 Believers like these did not describe a conversion as
a personality change, but as a process in which they exercised their
judgment: ‘happy is he who chooses’.
hat is not to say, of course, that this choice had been made completely individually. Other people were instrumental in Vondel’s choice.
Catholic scholars have expended much energy and anger on the question as to who might be credited with having pointed the great poet in
the direction of the light. he Jesuits claimed this scalp in 1641, in one
of their annual reports to Rome, but since the eighteenth century there
has also been a camp that has argued in favour of the vicar Leonard
Marius as Vondel’s true guiding light.36 Not much has been made of the
role of Vondel’s daughter Anna in this process. Yet it was she who in the
Jesuits’ report is highlighted as the driving force:
Among the converts were […] Joost van den Vondel, a poet renowned
for his vernacular tragedies, an excellent man and one-time buttress for
the Arminian sect, who – when he saw that his only daughter, blessed
with an excellent mind and also thoroughly versed in Latin literature,
had abandoned Menno at the age of thirty plus, to embrace the camp of
the true faith, and, once she had been cleansed by the waters of baptism,
also to serve this with perpetual virginity – followed her soon aterwards,
together with another child.37
Beyond this passage, we know little about Anna – Brandt conirms that
she was intelligent, and we also know that she let most of her money to
a Catholic charity in Amsterdam. he passage in the ‘Litterae Annuae’
suggests that Anna may have opted to become a klop or ‘spiritual
maiden’, like many other Catholic women in the Republic did. hese lay
sisters, of whom there were thousands, formed an important mainstay
for the church.38 Yet Anna also kept house for her father, and was to
extract him from the inancial diiculties he experienced later in life,
when his hapless son Joost had gone to seed. he chances are that she
35
Pollmann, ‘From Freedom of Conscience’
For a taste of the discussion see Van Lommel, De historische waarde.
37
‘Litterae annuae’, p. 66. Only Brom, Vondels bekering, devoted signiicant attention
to her role.
38
Spaans, ‘Orphans and Students’.
36
vondel’s religion
97
was as important as any priest in suggesting Vondel take a fresh look at
the Roman faith.
Nevertheless, there is also evidence of altogether diferent motives
for Vondel to convert. Perhaps because this was one subject upon
which he had never dared or wanted to quiz Vondel himself, when
coming to the subject of Vondel’s conversion, Geraardt Brandt reverted
to third-party information. ‘A certain reliable jurist’ had told him that
Vondel had been considering remarrying, and had cast his eye on
a wealthy widow of the Romish persuasion and had started to consider
whether he could, in conscience, follow her in this. hat he had, in conversation about this matter with this jurist and others, irst cast doubt on
everything, and said in the end that there was no certainty to be had
about religion, unless one were prepared to accept an infallible judge and
explainer of all disputed points, and acknowledged on earth one
Stadtholder of Christ, and that this led to the Pope as the successor of
Peter, and the Roman church with its authority, and all the more so
because some priests and other religious, hoping to gain a man of such
renown, did their best for it.39
For obvious reasons, Catholic scholars have never liked this story.40 Of
course it may well have been true; it was not unknown for people in the
Dutch Republic to convert in order to please their spouses, although
that would not explain why Vondel proceeded to also dedicate so much
of his subsequent literary output to Catholic themes. Alternatively, it
may well be that in this story we simply have the gossip that Vondel’s
Remonstrant friends used to rationalize what to them was an unimaginable choice for Rome. While they knew and acknowledged that
Vondel was not himself a Remonstrant church member, they had long
seen Vondel as their hero. heir dismay at his conversion is therefore
easily understandable, and all the more so since Vondel now seemed to
conirm the old Reformed charge that Arminians were ‘crypto-Catholic’. Ater Vondel had launted his new allegiance by publishing his
Secrets of the Altar, a number of Remonstrants decided to take the poet
to task. In a pamphlet entitled Kracht des geloofs van […]Joost van
Vondelen (he Power of the Faith of Joost van den Vondel), his former
friend Jacob Westerbaen lashed out against the convert. How could
someone who had fought against the tyranny of Geneva now sell out to
39
Brandt, ‘Het leven van Joost van den Vondel’ pp. 45–46.
See, for example, Wijnman, ‘Cherchez la femme bij Vondel’s overgang tot het
katholicisme’.
40
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the Roman yoke, he asked? He discredited Vondel by suggesting that he
was ickle and easily inluenced – all that was needed for him to become
Jewish (joots), he sneered, was for him to swap the last two letters of his
name.41 Another poet, hiding behind the single initial P., wrote:
If a righteous man lives by faith
How much better of, then, Mr. Vondel, you are than others
When your old [faith] gives out, you just get yourself a new one.
hose beasts thrive best that oten change their pasture.42
No wonder, then, that Brandt felt he needed to ofer a rationalization of
Vondel’s conversion. He added that his friend had been so busy with
his poetry that he was simply a bit ignorant about religion.
Yet before dismissing the passage about the rich Romish widow altogether, it is worth considering the line of reasoning that Vondel is
alleged to have used: ‘that there was no certainty to be had about religion, unless one were prepared to accept an infallible judge and
explainer of all disputed points, and acknowledged on earth one
Stadtholder of Christ, and that this led to the Pope’. Vondel’s argument
proceeds from what was a very modern viewpoint, rather Hobbesian in
lavour, that there is no clear basis on which people can ever agree on
religion. For the ‘Vondel’ in Brandt’s account, as for Hobbes, this creates an unacceptable situation, which demands the acceptance of one
‘infallible’ arbiter. Very much unlike Hobbes, ‘Vondel’ then concludes
that this arbiter might as well be the Pope. In many ways this account
actually its quite well with what we know about Vondel’s interests in
religion, and with those of many Protestant contemporaries. he passage chimes with Hugo Grotius’s project to reunify the churches, in
which Vondel had been extremely interested. And although Vondel’s
later claim that Grotius had considered opting for Rome himself was
spurious, it is quite possible that for Vondel, it was a Grotian quest to
try and deine core values in Christianity that resulted in his choice for
Rome.43
his reported conversation is therefore well worth taking seriously –
even if it is diicult to say whose narrative we have here. Was Vondel
41
[Jacob Westerbaen], Kracht des geloofs van den voortrefelijcken ende vermaerden
Nederduytschen poeët, Joost van Vondelen, te speuren in de Altaer-geheymenissen, by
sijne e. ontvouwen in drie boecken &c (Schiedam, 1648).
42
P., ‘Toegit aen Sr. Joost van Vondel op sijne e. spreucke, ghestelt op den tijtel
Altaer-Geheymnissen’ in [Westerbaen], Kracht des geloofs, unpaginated.
43
Nellen, Hugo de Groot, chapters XV–XVI, pp. 581, 587; Calis, Vondel, p. 129.
vondel’s religion
99
trying to explain his conversion in terms his friends would understand?
Or was this really the route by which he had arrived at his choice?
Although it is impossible to decide this with any certainty, it is worth
noting that he was not the only Dutch convert to Catholicism who
explained his decision with such arguments. His acquaintance and fellow convert Maria Tesselschade Roemers was also pushed by disapproving Protestant friends to explain herself. One of these, the
Arminian theologian Caspar van Baerle, reported to a friend:
She has got it into her head that only a few articles are needed for the
faith, and that what she has from the Roman church is in accordance with
the ceremonies and customs of the ancients – the rest is not for a laywoman to worry about and investigate. he errant [woman] really likes
Grotius’s declaration, and, using his authority, is diicult to shit from her
proposition.44
By claiming that as ‘a laywoman’ she did not have to worry about theological niceties, Tesselschade was neatly playing the gender card. Yet
this was clearly also nonsense. If she had the ability to read and sympathize with Grotius’s proposals for unity, she was also well up to making
a reasoned decision to convert to Catholicism. And what she gave by
way of explanation is very similar to the one Vondel was alleged to have
given: ‘only a few articles are needed for the faith’ and Rome has the
best claims to antiquity and thus to authority.
In Vondel and Tessel, then, we can detect the outline of one route by
which moderate Protestants in a multiconfessional society might end
up converting to Catholicism. Like many Protestants before them had
done when confronted with the disagreements between the churches,
they thought that one might reach consensus about a core of essential
beliefs.45 However, whereas this moved some Christians to argue that
no one could decide for another person what the truth in religion was,
Vondel and Tessel were yearning for authority and unity, and were prepared to grant this to Rome.
By making this decision, Vondel exercised the right to choice that he
had valued for a long time. It gave him the certainty that he had long
considered essential in the faith. he decision did not require him to
change his social network – quite the opposite, he maintained his many
44
Letter from Caspar van Baerle to Constantijn Huygens, 8 June 1642, in Worp, Een
onwaerdeerlycke vrouw, p. 264.
45
Kaplan, Divided by Faith, pp. 127–43.
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judith pollmann
contacts in the Mennonite and Remonstrant communities. Neither did
it mean that he abandoned his commitment to the Republic or its values – rather, because he was steeped in a confessional culture that privileged histories of sufering and sacriice, he could easily transmit his
loyalty to a Catholic community which cherished its own victimhood
as a clandestine minority religion in a Reformed country. Seen from
this perspective, it was perfectly plausible for the Mennonite Joost van
den Vondel to have moved to new Catholic pastures, and to have done
so ‘in conscience’.
CHAPTER SIX
VONDEL AND AMSTERDAM
Eddy Grootes
Many of Vondel’s poems demonstrate that he felt deeply involved with
the changing fortunes of Amsterdam, his home for more than eighty
years. He was proud of the city. He wrote in celebration of practically
every important event in its history, its economic well-being and
municipal building activities, the successful policies of the city council,
and its cultural revival. He was a ierce opponent of all those he regarded
as a threat to the prosperity and freedom the city had achieved. Yet
Vondel was not a native to Amsterdam. His parents were among the
large number of immigrants who had led the Southern Netherlands
for religious, political or economic reasons to create a new life for
themselves elsewhere. hey came from Antwerp, where they had been
part of a small Mennonite community that found itself subjected to
severe oppression, especially in the ten years ater the arrival in the Low
Countries of the Duke of Alva, who acted as governor from 1567
onwards on behalf of the devoutly Catholic king of Spain, Philip II.
Almost a hundred Mennonites and Anabaptists were executed in
Antwerp under his rule.1
It was probably in the early 1580s that milliner Joost van den Vondel
let Antwerp and moved to Cologne, where his son and namesake, the
future poet, was born in 1587.2 In 1595 the Mennonites of Cologne
received notiication from the municipal authorities that they must
leave the city within fourteen days. he Vondel family was set adrit,
staying in Frankfurt, Bremen, Emden and Utrecht before inally deciding to settle in Amsterdam. he city was experiencing a spectacular
economic renaissance, its population growing from around 30,000 to
1
Marnef, Antwerp in the Age of Reformation, p. 159.
he key facts about Vondel go back to the irst biography, published in 1682:
Brandt, Het leven van Joost van den Vondel. Modern biographies include Barnouw,
Vondel (in English) and Calis, Vondel: het verhaal van zijn leven (which includes an
extensive bibliography). An excellent overview of his life and work can be found in
Smits-Veldt and Spies, ‘Inleiding’. For facts about Vondel I rely mainly on Calis.
2
102
eddy grootes
105,000 in just twenty years. he choice of Amsterdam became inal
when Joost senior, ater swearing the burgher oath and paying eight
guilders to the treasury, acquired Amsterdam citizenship on 27 March
1597. his gave him the right to set up in business. He opted for the silk
trade and opened a shop in the Warmoesstraat, which was then one of
the city’s principal streets. he trade in silk fabrics and stockings would
eventually be taken over by his son.
he successful integration into Amsterdam life of Vondel senior and
later his son is no doubt attributable in part to the social networks they
were able to draw upon for support, most importantly that of their fellow Mennonites. he fact that even in Amsterdam this religious minority was barely tolerated reinforced its mutual solidarity, especially
among those of shared extraction. Nor was Joost senior the only textile
trader whose origins lay in the Southern Netherlands. He chose marriage partners for his children accordingly. Both young Joost and his
sister married into families of Mennonite cloth merchants who like
them lived in the Warmoesstraat. he presence of a familiar circle of
their own people must have given them a footing in a mercantile city
that was increasingly cosmopolitan.3
Among those of Amsterdam’s newcomers who were foreign immigrants, people from Antwerp probably formed the largest contingent.
heir accents must have been heard all over the city. Natives of
Amsterdam loved to make fun of linguistic eccentricities speciic to the
Southern Netherlands. hey themselves, in most cases at least, spoke a
North Holland dialect. In his popular comedies and farces the
Amsterdam poet Gerbrand Bredero (1585–1618) used this form of
speech brilliantly to bring the common people to life. But by the late
Middle Ages, alongside the various Dutch dialects, a literary language
had developed. It was coloured slightly diferently depending on the
writer’s regional origins, but it could nevertheless be regarded as common to the leading authors of North and South. From around 1550
there were regular pleas for the puriication and further development
of the Dutch language, and objections were raised against the afected
French borrowings popular in the poetry of the time, with loan words
chosen primarily for the way they sounded. From his earliest poetic
endeavours the young Vondel, who probably spoke the dialects of
3
On integration, networks, and the choice of marriage partners: Kuijpers and Prak,
‘Gevestigden en buitenstaanders’, pp. 205–12.
vondel and amsterdam
103
Antwerp and Cologne until he turned ten, endorsed the ideal of pure
Dutch. His oldest known work dates from 1605, a wedding verse written for a neighbour.4 Loan words from French and Latin are conspicuous by their absence. Even at this stage Vondel was approaching the
ideal of linguistic purity advocated by (for example) the inluential
older poet Hendrik Laurenszoon Spiegel. In the mid-seventeenth century Vondel noted that a correct form of Dutch had developed in the
intervening decades, spoken in cities like Amsterdam and he Hague
by ‘people of good upbringing’. It was clearly distinguishable from the
traditional vernaculars of Amsterdam and Antwerp.5 He himself strove
all his life to use pure, clear, smoothly lowing language.
From the age of ten Vondel would have been trained in correct
Dutch and perhaps in the writing of poetry at one of the Amsterdam
schools, probably the establishment close to his parental home that was
run by Willem Bartjens, author of a much-used arithmetic book, whose
name has remained proverbial to this day in the context of lawless
calculation. Vondel must have learned good French as well, to judge by
the long French dedicatory verse that accompanies his play Het Pascha
(Passover) of 1612. Sons of the mercantile middle class were not usually
sent to the Latin school; their school careers were limited to what was
known as the French school. Vondel did not master Latin until later,
under his own tuition.
Willem Bartjens may also have been a bridge to a form of education
of a diferent kind, provided by the chambers of rhetoric. In the
Netherlands from the iteenth century onwards, especially in towns
and cities in Flanders, Brabant, Zeeland, and Holland, the chambers of
rhetoric had developed into urban societies in which people studied
and composed poetry together, wrote and performed plays, and contributed to the festival culture of the municipalities, with its processions and tableaux vivants. In doing so they could usually rely on
assistance from the authorities. Rivalry between towns was channelled
into contests in which rhetoricians could win prizes for various aspects
of their performances.6 he culture of the chambers of rhetoric
lourished in Antwerp. Although generally speaking the Mennonites
4
All the Vondel texts named below can be found in the standard edition (in ten
volumes with an alphabetical index in a separate volume): Vondel, De werken
(1927–1940).
5
Vondel, Aenleidinge ter Nederduitsche dichtkunste (1650).
6
On the rhetoricians in general see Van Dixhoorn, Lustige geesten and Van
Dixhoorn, he Reach of the Republic of Letters.
104
eddy grootes
disapproved of worldly entertainment of any kind, including theatrical
events, by no means all of their number distanced themselves from the
activities of the chambers, in which, incidentally, there was a strong
emphasis on religious and ethical teaching. Vondel’s grandfather on his
mother’s side, who died before he was born, had been a member of a
chamber of rhetoric in Antwerp, so it is no surprise to come across the
youthful Vondel (who, according to his seventeenth-century biographer, took to writing verse at a very early age) in this environment. he
chambers of rhetoric ofered an opportunity to rehearse the various
poetic genres systematically, with the help of reciprocal criticism. he
most important genre was the ‘ballade’, a stanzaic poem, usually with
copious rhymes, in which the ‘Prince’ of the chamber was addressed in
the inal stanza. Vondel’s early wedding poem takes this form, although
its ponderous formulations demonstrate that the seventeen-year-old
poet was not yet in full command of his crat.
Amsterdam had had a chamber of rhetoric of its own since the late
iteenth century, the Eglentier (Eglantine).7 From 1561 to 1578 its
activities were suspended, but at the end of that period, when the city
changed sides to join the Revolt against Spanish rule, the chamber was
revived. In the late sixteenth century its members were a rather select
group and the entrance fee was steep. It may have been this, along with
a desire to perpetuate in Amsterdam the lourishing rhetorical tradition of their own native region, that encouraged immigrants from the
Southern Netherlands to found their own chamber. In 1598 the
‘Brabant chamber’ was established, under the name ‘’t Wit Lavendel’
(he White Lavender).8 We know that Vondel was a member by 1606,
if not before, since it was then that he took part in an allegorical
procession staged by the Brabant chamber to mark the start of a major
rhetoricians’ contest in Haarlem. At the end of that same year he wrote
a New Year song addressed to the Haarlem rhetoricians. To the overlapping social spheres in which the young silk merchant and poet
moved – natives of Antwerp, family members, neighbours, his religious community, his school, fellow textile merchants – a society of
lovers of literature and the stage had now been added.
he fact that Vondel’s early development as a dramatist took place
within the framework of the chambers of rhetoric was of crucial importance. Ater all, until the 1630s these amateur associations were the
7
8
Spies, ‘he Amsterdam Chamber De Eglentier’.
Smits-Veldt, ‘Het Brabantse gezicht’.
vondel and amsterdam
105
only platform available for the performance of plays, and their prevailing conventions and conigurations, in particular the possibilities and
limitations presented by the speciic layout of the stage, determined the
form a dramatist could choose for his work. By closely analysing the
few facts available about the Brabant chamber, W.M.H. Hummelen has
been able to shed some light on this matter.9
In early 1610 the municipal authorities in Amsterdam made the attic
of a former monastic church available to ‘’t Wit Lavendel’. his enabled
it to compete on an equal footing with the Eglentier, whose performances were held in the attic of the nearby Meat Hall. In contrast to
earlier plays performed in the open air, an entrance fee could now be
charged. his made it possible to pay more attention to costumes and
stage sets. he frontispieces to several published play scripts give an
impression of what these were like. A permanent decor was probably
used for a diverse range of plays. In theory the openings to the various
acting spaces had a neutral character and could change function within
a single play, and the stage was ‘polytopic’, meaning that several sets
were visible at the same time. At the centre of the rear wall was a relatively large opening, which gave access to a ‘compartment’ known as
the rear stage that could be closed and then opened to reveal a tableau
vivant, for example, or to represent an inner room.10 In his irst theatrical work, Het Pascha, Vondel made use of this device by directly following a scene in the Pharaoh’s throne room with a discussion between the
Israelites who had been chased out of it. Het Pascha, printed in 1612,
was probably performed in this attic theatre.
For several years beginning in 1616, the Brabant chamber was
housed in the attic space of one of the city gatehouses and thereater at
a location that has not been identiied. In 1617 the Amsterdam physician and playwright Samuel Coster arranged for a wooden theatre to be
built for a new company, the Nederduytsche Academie or Dutch
Academy. Developments in political and religious relations in the city
that worked to the disadvantage of Coster and his associates were no
doubt among the reasons why this theatre was sold in 1622. It was
bought by the municipal orphanage, which would henceforth proit
from its income, and the Brabant chamber became its resident acting
company. he stage at the Dutch Academy (the name was retained)
9
10
Hummelen, ‘Types and methods’ and Hummelen, Amsterdams toneel.
Hummelen, ‘Het tableau vivant’.
106
eddy grootes
ofered slightly more space, especially in its broader central compartment, but its potential applications were essentially the same. It is
unclear whether or not Vondel was actively involved in the theatrical
life of Amsterdam in this period. He translated several dramas by
Seneca and in 1625 he published Palamedes, a drama à clef about the
execution of Oldenbarnevelt (for several decades the most powerful
politician in the Republic), any performance of which was unthinkable
given its explosive political tenor. Hippolytus, a translation of Seneca’s
Phaedra, was alone in being staged ten times in 1629.11 he following
year Vondel seems to have been involved with the leadership of the
Brabant chamber, which had now developed into something akin to a
professional company of players, with a varied repertoire and performances several times a week.
Vondel’s position in Amsterdam theatrical life changed markedly in
1637, when the Academy theatre underwent thoroughgoing alterations
to become the ‘First Amsterdam Schouwburg’. From then on
Amsterdam had a well-equipped professional theatre that occupied an
important place in the cultural life of the city, under the leadership of
directors appointed by the municipal authorities. Vondel developed
into an inluential playwright in the ield of tragedy modelled on classical drama. His Gysbreght van Aemstel was staged to mark the festive
opening of the new Schouwburg on 3 January 1638.12 Among Vondel’s
dramas it is alone in being set in Amsterdam. Vondel chose as his
theme for this occasion an episode from Amsterdam’s early history.
he tragic demise of the thirteenth-century precursor of the city he
knew is mitigated by the fact that the play closes with the prophecy that
it will lourish in the seventeenth. In his foreword to the printed edition
Vondel calls his own time ‘most fortunate’ and praises the wisdom of
the Amsterdam burgomasters, who have placed the general good above
self-interest and are actively striving for peace. A remarkable future on
the Amsterdam stage awaited Gysbreght van Aemstel. Until the late
1960s it was performed annually in the Amsterdam Schouwburg,
almost without exception, to usher in the New Year.
Its success is attributable in large part to a couple of spectacular
scenes. Towards the end the archangel Raphael, equipped with the
wings of a swan, descends from heaven to announce his prophesy of
11
12
Oey-de Vita and Geesink, Academie en Schouwburg, p. 47.
Smits-Veldt, ‘3 januari 1638: Opening van de Amsterdamse Schouwburg’.
vondel and amsterdam
107
seventeenth-century prosperity. his was accomplished using a
machine installed above the central compartment at the back of the
stage.13 And although Vondel adhered to classical precepts in having
the murder of the nuns in their convent described by a servant, the
audience got its money’s worth when the curtain across the central
compartment was drawn back to reveal a ‘living painting’ portraying
the scene. In most respects the stage at the Schouwburg was essentially
the same as that of the Dutch Academy. With its broad platform it
might be described as ‘democratic’, since it ofered the entire auditorium a good view without greatly advantaging the elite seated in the
middle, in contrast to the perspectival stage of Italian-style court theatre. he interior of the Schouwburg is familiar from contemporary
engravings of the stage, auditorium and loor plan.14 he relatively
inlexible character of the stage layout demanded creative solutions
from the poet if the plots of his dramas were to be acted out in a convincing fashion.15
In 1665 the Schouwburg was rebuilt as a ‘modern’ theatre with wings,
but by then Vondel’s heyday as a playwright had passed and variety and
spectacle were more popular than his classical plays on biblical themes.
he majority of his later works were rarely if ever performed. Of
Vondel’s original and translated dramas, thirty-three in total, barely
half were staged at the Amsterdam Schouwburg during his lifetime.
Gysbreght van Aemstel is the notable exception, with 110 performances
between 1638 and 1665, but apart from the three popular Joseph dramas (with 27, 17, and 41 separate performances respectively and 23 of
the trilogy as a whole), only Elektra, Gebroeders, and Salomon were
performed more than thirty times in the same period. Other plays got
no further than a short run at most, within a single year.16
Handwritten notes by Vondel in a copy of the irst edition of
Gebroeders (Brothers, 1640) show that the author was involved with
decisions about how his plays were to be staged. He made suggestions
concerning the costumes of Old Testament characters and some of
13
Hummelen, ‘1637: Jacob van Campen bouwt de Amsterdamse Schouwburg’,
p. 198; Smits-Veldt, ‘3 januari 1638: Opening van de Amsterdamse Schouwburg’,
pp. 205, 207.
14
Brandt and Hogendoorn, German and Dutch heatre, pp. 357–61; Hummelen,
‘1637: Jacob van Campen bouwt de Amsterdamse Schouwburg’.
15
Smits-Veldt, ‘Vondel en de Schouwburg van Jacob van Campen’.
16
Oey-de Vita and Geesink, Academie en Schouwburg.
108
eddy grootes
the props.17 He also set himself up as a defender of the stage, arguing
against the Calvinist clergy who were opposed to theatrical performances of any kind and who regularly urged the municipal authorities
to ban them.
Gysbreght van Aemstel is by no means the only work in which Vondel
extols the lourishing Amsterdam of his day. He had already depicted
the city in many poems, long and short, most of them full of praise and
admiration, although where he saw matters and developments of which
he disapproved he did not hesitate to express criticism. He took very
seriously the task of defender of the common interest and instructor in
public morals that Humanism attributed to the poetic life in its ideal
form. his can be explained as one result of Vondel’s reversal of orientation in the 1620s. Whereas previously he had moved mainly in the more
inward-looking Mennonite milieu and his poetry had been above all
religious and contemplative in nature, from about 1623 there is clearly
a greater engagement with events in the wider world. As a poet this took
him beyond his own religious community, drawing him above all towards
the circles surrounding P.C. Hoot, undoubtedly the most prominent
Dutch literary igure of the time, which inclined towards Humanism.18
he most important expression of Vondel’s new orientation is his
great poem Het lof der zee-vaert (In Praise of Seafaring, 1623).19 Hugely
erudite, it celebrates overseas trade, the basis of Amsterdam’s prosperity. In Vondel’s view such trade is a highly commendable activity, as
long as it is pursued through peaceful cooperation with other peoples.
Here the poet was taking sides against those who proposed engaging in
military action to establish a trading monopoly in the East Indies. With
even greater fervour he became involved in the conlict between orthodox Calvinists and the more liberal Arminians, another issue that
dominated the politics of the time. A long series of virtuoso satirical
poems and songs, distributed on loose sheets, testiies to his views. We
have already touched upon his drama Palamedes, published in
Amsterdam ater the death of Stadholder20 Maurits of Nassau, the
adversary of the executed Grand Pensionary Johan van Oldenbarnevelt,
17
Brandt and Hogendoorn, German and Dutch heatre, p. 375; Porteman, ‘28 april
1641: In de Amsterdamse Schouwburg’.
18
Spies, ‘Mennonites and literature’.
19
Vondel, Twee zeevaart-gedichten.
20
For the function of the Stadholder in the Netherlands, see the excellent entry at
http://en.wikipedia.org.
vondel and amsterdam
109
in which the execution of Oldenbarnevelt is presented, in classical
guise, as a political murder. his created problems for Vondel. He was
charged and brought before the High Court of Holland, but he beneited from the reluctance of the Amsterdam municipal authorities to
extradite its own residents and got away with a lenient (though still
considerable) ine. It seems that at this juncture he could rely on just
enough support among members of the city council.21
In the years 1627–1628 a change took place in the balance of power
in the Amsterdam municipal government. In elections for the burgomasters and aldermen in 1627 the strict Reformed lost their majority.
he church council, despite ierce protests on its part, would in future
have less inluence with the magistrate while its opponents would be
given greater scope.22 Whereas in previous years Vondel had expressed
his unreserved appreciation only of tolerant ex-burgomaster Hoot
(father of the poet P.C. Hoot), who had been sidelined, from this point
on he could applaud the politics of the municipal authorities without
hesitation. One example is his 1628 poem of welcome to Prince
Frederick Henry, who had succeeded his brother Maurits in 1625 as
Stadholder of Holland. At the request of the burgomasters, Frederick
Henry came to Amsterdam that April to mediate in the conlict with
the church council. In the poem, distributed in broadsheet, a female
personiication of the city welcomes Frederick Henry as the man who
will silence the Reformed agitators. Vondel commends the wisdom of
the burgomasters, identifying them by name. In future the poet would
quite frequently act as a mouthpiece for the views of Amsterdam city
council, whether or not at its own request. In the 1630s he wholeheartedly supported Amsterdam’s peacemaking policy.
Vondel did not always bow down in the face of authority. his is
clear from a iercely satirical poem called Roskam (Currycomb), which
denounces the hypocrisy of patricians, who are quick to speak of religion yet are governed by self-interest and avarice, abuse their power,
and live in luxury at the expense of the common man. he 178-line
poem was distributed anonymously and without a printing address;
there has been some debate as to its date, with arguments for 1626,
1628 and 1630, of which the latter seems to have the best credentials.23
21
Beekman and Grüttemeier, De wet van de letter, pp. 15–19.
Brugmans, Geschiedenis van Amsterdam, pp. 40–44; Hell, ‘De Oude Geuzen en de
Opstand’, pp. 264–69.
23
Smits-Veldt and Spies in their ‘Inleiding’, p. xx, opt for 1626; Bot, ‘Het historische
kader’, ofers arguments in favour of 1630.
22
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eddy grootes
It was in that year that Vondel was taken to task by the municipal
authorities for publishing a poem on behalf of the Dutch Academy in
which all Dutch versiiers are invited to answer leading questions about
the danger posed to freedom by fanatical preachers. he prize on ofer
was a silver goblet. Some ity entries were received. hese poetic
responses, and the counter-responses to them, created such unrest that
the Amsterdam authorities banned them from publication in any form.
he city government had no interest at all in allowing a ierce polemicist like Vondel to stoke the ire of a conlict of this kind. It continued
to advocate a policy of toleration, however, as demonstrated when, in
establishing an institution for university-level education, the
Athenaeum Illustre, it took on two professors who had run into problems in Leiden because of their Arminian sympathies, Gerard Vossius
and Caspar Barlaeus. Vondel became good friends with both men.
Vossius, generally regarded as one of the greatest humanist scholars of
his time and the owner of an impressive library, was to fulil a particularly important function as Vondel’s walking encyclopaedia in his studies of the classical and biblical sources for his dramas. he festive
opening of the Athenaeum in 1632 was celebrated by Vondel with an
elegant panegyric, the Inwying der doorluchtige schoole t’Amsterdam
(Inauguration of the Illustrious School in Amsterdam), dedicated to a
member of the city council.
When in 1661 he presented his translation of Virgil to burgomaster
Cornelis de Graef, Vondel, now 74, looked back in all humility at what
he had meant to his city. He readily admitted that none of the short
works he had produced were in the same league as the great epic by the
classical poet. However, he does believe himself to have contributed to
the dissemination of the glory of Amsterdam. Here he is alluding to the
lengthy poem he had written for the inauguration of the new Town
Hall, to poems of welcome for royal personages such as Frederick
Henry and Maria de Medici, to his plays and lyrics for lovers of song
(who are always eager to hear something new), and to his hundreds of
occasional poems: epigrams about important city buildings, laudatory
poems, epitaphs and wedding verses. he Amsterdam elite knew they
could always turn to him.
A highpoint is indeed his Inwijdinge van ’t Stadhuis t’Amsterdam
(Inauguration of the Amsterdam Town Hall, 1655).24 In almost fourteen
24
Vondel, Inwydinge van ’t Stadthuis t’Amsterdam. For Vondel and painting see also
Bakker, ‘Een goddelijk schilderij’; Weststeijn, he Visible World, pp. 256–57.
vondel and amsterdam
111
hundred lines of verse Vondel not only praises the splendour of the
impressive (but still far from inished) building but also constructs a
closely reasoned argument for the importance of such a prestigious
seat for the municipal government. At the close Vondel extols the quality and wisdom of the city’s burgomasters and aldermen. hey ofer
leadership with a gentle hand, defend freedom, maintain order and
peace, welcome strangers, support the needy, foster the arts and sciences, and strive for economic success in a peaceful manner without
disadvantaging anyone. his idealised depiction was rewarded by the
burgomasters, although in a modest fashion. hey presented the poet
with a silver cup or bowl. It is unclear whether or not they had commissioned the poem. If so, then the fact that in 1640 Vondel had converted
to Catholicism, a denomination tolerated only in the sense that a blind
eye was turned, had been without efect. However, his conversion had
led to ierce attacks from the ranks of the Reformed, for example in
response to his tragedy Maria Stuart, of Gemartelde Majesteit (Mary
Stuart, or Martyred Majesty, 1646). For this publication, purportedly
printed in Cologne, the city magistrates imposed a ine on Vondel,
which was paid by his Amsterdam publisher.
here has been some discussion in scholarly art-historical publications as to whether Vondel was involved with the design of the interior
of the city hall. He wrote the legends for a number of the paintings, but
it is unlikely that his inluence extended any further than that.25 he
question irst arose in the context of research into the relationship
between Rembrandt and Vondel. Rembrandt had been commissioned
to deliver a painting depicting the oath of Claudius Civilis, an episode
from the freedom struggle of the Batavians, who were regarded as the
ancestors of the people of Holland. In the end the canvas was never
hung in the city hall. It was cut into pieces; the only surviving fragment
is now in Stockholm. It has been claimed that Vondel, with his preference for an idealising style of painting from which Rembrandt’s later
work clearly departs, had a hand in the rejection of Rembrandt’s painting, but there is no basis for this belief. Questions about the relationship between Rembrandt and Vondel were not raised on a regular basis
until some two centuries ater the fact, when Rembrandt’s reputation
was at its absolute height. It had become hard for people to imagine
that the greatest poet and the greatest painter of the Dutch Golden
25
Van de Waal, ‘Holland’s Earliest History’, notes 2 and 20.
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eddy grootes
Age could have lived so close to each other and yet have had little
contact.
Vondel certainly was extremely interested in the ine arts. In the
prefaces to several of his tragedies he relects upon the relationship
between the stage and historical painting,26 and we know of more than
two hundred ‘image poems’ written by Vondel in which he responds to
paintings, especially portraits. hese most commonly concern works
by Govert Flinck and Joachim van Sandrart, but he was also a great
admirer of Rubens. In the dedication of his Gebroeders to Vossius,
Vondel imagines how Rubens, ‘the glory of the brushes of our century’,
might have illustrated a dramatic moment in the play with a large historical painting.27 here is no evidence, however, of any particular
appreciation for his fellow resident of Amsterdam Rembrandt, however natural it may seem to us given their shared fascination for stories
from the Old Testament. he poet produced no more than a few epigrams to portraits by Rembrandt. In the case of one, which refers to
Rembrandt’s portrait of the clergyman Anslo, various scholars have
interpreted Vondel’s response as unfavourable. he discussion on this
point has been going on for more than a century. One problem is that
Vondel’s statement that the true quality of this particular clergyman
lies not in his appearance but in what he has to say – something the
painter cannot depict – could be regarded simply as a rather tired
commonplace within the genre of the portrait epigram. Recently, however, there have once again been claims that the structure of the epigram, in which Rembrandt is addressed directly, and the fact that the
painter altered his original composition of the work, indicate that
Vondel did intend his comment as criticism and that Rembrandt interpreted it as such.28
No less interesting is the fact that a number of sketches have survived in which Rembrandt portrays characters from Vondel’s Gysbreght
van Aemstel.29 However, these demonstrate merely that the painter was
interested in the actors as picturesque characters. It tells us nothing
about what he thought of Vondel’s play. he hypothesis put forward by
Wytze Hellinga, that Rembrandt’s Night Watch was inspired by the
26
Konst, ‘Een levende schoon-verwighe schilderije’; Porteman, ‘Vondel schildert
een Rubens’.
27
Porteman, ‘Vondel schildert een Rubens’.
28
Schuss, ‘De relatie tussen Vondel en Rembrandt’.
29
Van de Waal, ‘Rembrandt at Vondel’s tragedy Gijsbreght van Aemstel’; SmitsVeldt, ‘3 januari 1638: Opening van de Amsterdamse Schouwburg’.
vondel and amsterdam
113
opening scene of Gysbreght van Aemstel, is intriguing, but unfortunately the evidence is far from conclusive.30
Nonetheless, there are clear signs of great admiration for Vondel on
the part of other Amsterdam painters. In 1653, on the feast of St Luke,
patron saint of artists, in a building belonging to the Amsterdam civic
guard, a hundred painters, poets, and lovers of the arts gathered. hey
paid tribute to Vondel. A publication was produced to mark the occasion, two folio sheets called Op de Vereenigingh van Apelles en Apollo, of
’t Iaar-gety van S Lucas. Geviert, door Schilders, Poëten en Liehebbers
der zelfder Konsten, op S Joris Doelen, den XX. October, 1653 (To the
Fellowship of Apelles and Apollo, or the Feast of St Luke. Celebrated by
Painters, Poets, and Lovers of hose Same Arts, on St Joris Doelen, 20
October, 1653). It describes the festive gathering. Vondel, then sixtyive years old, was greeted in song as ‘the chief of poets’. Nine girls,
representing the muses, placed a laurel wreath on his head and Apollo
conferred ‘immortal praise’ on ‘the great poet’. He was addressed in a
sonnet as the ‘great light’ and ‘our country’s phoenix’.31 A year later, at
the next festival of St Luke, Vondel marked the founding of a
‘Brotherhood of Painting’ with a short poem that crowns the art of
painting as the tenth muse. here are various reasons to assume that
Rembrandt was present on that occasion.32
he 1650s can be regarded as the zenith of Vondel’s success as the
poet of Amsterdam. In 1650 he self-published his collected poems, a
substantial volume of over six hundred pages. In the certainty of his by
then generally acknowledged mastery of the art, he introduced the volume with a concise exposition of the demands that should be made of
a good poet. His Lucifer, later at least regarded as the highpoint of his
dramatic work, dates from 1654. In the genre of the civic ode, his
Inwijdinge van ’t stadthuis (1655) can be seen as another highpoint.
Only in the Zeemagazijn (Admiralty Arsenal, 1658) did he ever
approach the same elevated tone again. For this imposing naval depot
at the Amsterdam docks Vondel once again pulls out all the stops,
using the superlatives he loved to apply to the city he so admired. His
status as a playwright reached a turning point in these years. Although
several of his existing dramas continued to be staged, as we have seen
30
Hellinga, Rembrandt fecit 1642.
Postma and Blok, ‘Duidelijkheid over de Amsterdamse St. Lukasfeesten in 1653’;
Grootes, ‘20 oktober 1653: De Amsterdamse schilders eren Vondel’.
32
Postma, ‘Rembrandt en de Broederschap der Schilderkunst’.
31
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eddy grootes
the same cannot be said of his later plays. Ater Lucifer he produced a
further thirteen dramatic works. hey testify to an unlagging creative
power, but they met with no success at all among theatre audiences.
Nor did his personal life bring him much joy. His most important contemporaries had fallen away: Hoot, with whom his relationship had in
fact cooled long before, was dead by 1647, Barlaeus committed suicide
in 1648, and Vossius died a year later. Partly as a result of mismanagement by his son, Vondel’s once lourishing silk business went bankrupt.
He was in danger of falling into hopeless poverty. Acquaintances welldisposed towards him stepped in without his knowledge and negotiated with the municipal authorities, who gave the poet, now seventy, a
post as bookkeeper with the municipal pawnbroking bank. He would
serve in that capacity for another ten years. In 1668 he was dismissed at
his own request. he city council continued to pay his salary until he
died in 1679. Ater his burial in the New Church, on the main square of
his beloved Amsterdam, each of the pallbearers was given a memorial
coin showing the poet on one side and on the other the inscription ’s
Landts oudste en grootste poëet: the country’s oldest and greatest poet.33
33
Calis, Vondel, p. 364.
CHAPTER SEVEN
VONDEL AS A DRAMATIST: THE REPRESENTATION OF
LANGUAGE AND BODY
Bettina Noak
Introduction
In early modern culture, drama and power formed a structural alliance, as they do in Vondel’s plays.1 his might result in self-fashioning
or alternatively, where the efect is subversive, self-destruction.2 he
nature and efects of this alliance are the main focus of this chapter, in
which Joost van den Vondel’s dramatic oeuvre is examined against the
background of two concepts: performativity and theatricality. Both
terms are employed in the sense in which they occur in New Historicism
(Greenblatt) or in the approach to drama seen in cultural studies
(Fischer-Lichte).3 An important starting point is the idea that the complex treatments of power and power structures found on the early
modern stage indicate, among other things, the performative character
of power displays. A reinforcement of the status quo might result from
this association, since splendour and propaganda can be made to serve
political ends, but at the same time, laying bare the mechanisms of
power could have a subversive efect by unmasking its deceptive character. he latter aspect, as we shall see, was of great importance in the
dramatic work of Vondel.
he recipients of early modern drama were provided with an important form of knowledge that cannot be acquired from books but
1
See Greenblatt, Shakespearean Negotiations; Pieters, Moments of Negotiation;
Korsten, Vondel belicht; Sovereignty as Inviolability; Schößler, Literaturwissenschat als
Kulturwissenschat, pp. 79–100. On the relationship between power, religion and politics in literature see also Marotti and Bristol, Print, Manuscript & Performance;
Tennenhouse, Power on Display.
2
On the concept of ‘self-fashioning’ see Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning. On
New Historicism and Cultural Materialism, see, for instance, Healy, New Latitudes.
3
‘Performativity’ is understood here as the representation of speech acts in
early modern theatre and ‘theatricality’ as the representation and observation of
physicality.
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bettina noak
emerges from a process of interaction between characters on the stage
and spectators in the audience. he theatricality of this kind of knowledge transfer lies in the fact that speciic ideas are conveyed to readers
or spectators not by language alone but by characters who act both
linguistically and physically.4 he reciprocity between the two was recognized by Vondel, who used it as an argument with which to defend
the theatre as a medium. Language and body become inextricably
linked. Speech acts have far-reaching physical consequences, just as the
deployment, injury, or usurpation of bodies can have profound implications for the power of the characters, for their positions in the power
structure, and, as a result, for their linguistic capacities.
Ater a general introduction to the dramatic works of Vondel, I will
elaborate upon this idea as it relates to three points. he irst has to do
with Vondel’s theoretical writings and the importance he attributes to
the theatre as a medium for the acquisition of knowledge. he second
relates to the performative function of bodies on the stage, as well as to
the language of power and its potentially self-destructive consequences,
aspects exempliied in particular by the utterances of rulers. he third
point concerns the relationship between language and body against the
background of political action, conceived as a permanent act of
sacriice.
Vondel as a Dramatist
Joost van den Vondel created a dramatic oeuvre that makes him the
most important seventeenth-century author for the stage working in
the Dutch language and at the same time a dramatist of European stature.5 Between 1612 and 1668 he published a total of thirty-two tragedies, of which twenty-four were original dramas and eight were
translations, mainly of classical works.6 he high point of his activity as
a dramatist came in the 1650s and 1660s, when more than half his tragedies were completed. Generally speaking it is possible to identify three
special qualities in Vondel’s works for the stage. First of all, he goes his
own way in his choice of familiar themes, since he draws on biblical
4
For the theoretical background see Fischer-Lichte, Ästhetik des Performativen;
idem, heatre, Sacriice, Ritual.
5
In sum, see Konst and Noak, ‘Belust op Bybelstof ’.
6
I consider Adam in ballingschap a creative imitation, not a translation.
vondel as a dramatist
117
material for the majority of his works. Secondly, he emerges as a theoretician of the stage.7 Several of his tragedies are preceded by long forewords (berechten) in which he expands upon his views on poetry or
discusses problems concerning the historical and theological embedding of his choice of subject-matter. Finally, he was one of the few
authors anywhere in Europe to be powerfully inluenced by Greek
drama and by Aristotle’s writings on drama from as early as the 1640s,
as evidenced by his translations of three tragedies by Sophocles, Electra
(Elektra, 1639), Oedipus Rex (Koning Edipus, 1660), and Trachiniae
(Herkules in Trachin, 1668), and two by Euripides, Iphigenia in Tauris
(Iigenie in Tauren, 1666) and Phoenissae (Feniciaensche of Gebroeders
van hebe, 1668).8
Vondel scholarship has shown that the playwright’s attention to
Greek drama increased from about 1640. By contrast, his earlier plays –
like those of most of his Dutch fellow poets – were strongly inluenced
by Seneca.9 Vondel translated two plays by the Roman author, Troades
(De Amsteldamsche Hecuba, 1626) and Phaedra (Hippolytus of
Rampsalige kuyscheyd, 1629). In about 1640 a new tone can clearly be
detected in Vondel’s work, coinciding with his in-depth study of
Aristotle’s Poetics. he Amsterdam poet did not receive any education
in the classics as a child but mastered Latin and Greek as an autodidact,
so for his studies of Aristotle he relied on the help of a friend, Gerardus
Joannes Vossius (1577–1649), a polyhistorian and professor of classical
philology at the Atheneum Illustre in Amsterdam.10 In the drama
Gebroeders (Brothers, 1640), which he dedicated to Vossius, Vondel put
on stage for the irst time a protagonist wracked by doubts about how
See Vondel, Poëtologisch proza.
One of Vondel’s forerunners in displaying an interest in Greek tragedy was George
Buchanan (1506–1582). He too translated works by Euripides, into Latin. With his
tragedy Jeptha, Vondel strove to emulate Buchanan’s neo-Latin drama Jephthes sive
votum (1554). See Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 2, pp. 240–306.
9
he literature on Vondel’s dramatic oeuvre is of course extensive and here I name
only a few studies containing the most recent research: Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah;
Witstein and Grootes (eds.), Visies op Vondel na 300 jaar; Spies, ‘Vondel in veelvoud’;
Korsten, Vondel belicht; Sovereignty as Inviolability; Porteman and Smits-Veldt, Een
nieuw vaderland voor de muzen, pp. 379–86, 530–45. Quotations from the plays are
taken from the WB edition: Joost van den Vondel, De werken: Volledige en geïllustreerde tekstuitgave. he volumes of this edition are available from the ‘digitale bibliotheek van de Nederlandse letteren’ at www.dbnl.nl.
10
For Vossius see Rademaker, Life and Work of Gerardus Joannes Vossius. His works
on poetics have recently been published by Jan Bloemendal. In his Poeticae institutiones (1, 4, 33) Vossius states that he and Vondel discussed matters of poetics.
7
8
118
bettina noak
to make the right choice between alternative ways of acting. King
David, the hero of the story, inds himself in a bitter moral dilemma
that he resolves only with great diiculty. Here Vondel undeniably created an Aristotelian igure, but almost another twenty years would pass
before the poet felt able to publish a true ‘model tragedy’ in the spirit of
Aristotelian poetics.
In his foreword to Jeptha of oferbelote (Jephtha or the Sacriicial
Vow, 1659) Vondel explains to future poet-dramatists the characteristics of a well-composed tragedy, introducing important concepts from
Aristotelian teachings on drama.11 He believed these teachings
demanded that particular attention be paid to characterization.
Jephthah, the protagonist, ‘appears here neither as extremely pious nor
as impious but as between the two’.12 Here the author is referring to
hamartia, the requirement that a play’s protagonist, despite committing serious errors, must not entirely lose the audience’s sympathy.
he foreword also addresses two important elements of the structure
of the action, namely the peripeteia or sudden reversal and the anagnorisis, the denouement or recognition scene. hese ensure that the
audience as well as the characters in the play experience the ‘churning,
tumbling and blazing’13 of the passions.14 Lastly, the Amsterdam poet
writes that the aim of a tragedy is to bring about a katharsis, or puriication. By evoking empathy and fear in its audience, a tragedy puriies
and modiies the emotions. he tragedy, Vondel writes, must be capable of
evoking sympathy and terror if it is to achieve its aim and purpose, which
is to moderate and curb both these passions in the feelings of the people,
to purge members of the audience of shortcomings, and to teach them to
endure the disasters of the world more good-naturedly and placidly.15
11
On the Aristotelian character of Jephthah in particular see also Smit, Van Pascha
tot Noah, 2, pp. 240–379. On the ‘berecht’, see Grootes, ‘Het Berecht voor Jeptha en de
Prolegomena van Grotius’ Phoenissae-vertaling’.
12
WB, 8, p. 775: ‘verschijnt hier nochte heel vroom, nochte onvroom, maer tusschen beide’.
13
WB, 8, p. 777: ‘het woelen, tuimelen en barnen’.
14
Vondel, Jeptha, WB, 8, p. 775: ‘De beide hootcieraden, hier by een gevoeght, by
de Latijnen peripetia, en agnitio, of staetveranderinge, en herkennis genoemt, gaen in
arbeit, om hunne kracht met eene maghtige beweeghenisse te baeren.’
15
Jeptha, WB, 8, p. 777: ‘medoogen en schrick uit te wercken op dat het treurspel
zijn einde en ooghmerck moght trefen, het welck is deze beide hartstoghten in het
gemoedt der menschen maetigen, en manieren, d’aenschouwers van gebreken zuiveren, en leeren de rampen der weerelt zachtzinniger en gelijckmoediger verduuren.’
vondel as a dramatist
119
Two important motifs in Vondel’s work are mankind’s lack of certainty
and freedom of the will.16 In the three King David plays, Gebroeders
(Brothers), Koning David in ballingschap (King David Exiled, 1660) and
Koning David herstelt (King David Restored, 1660), as well as in Lucifer
(1654), Faëton (Phaeton, 1663) and Adam in ballingschap (Adam
Exiled, 1664), to name but a few, his concern consistently lies with
doubt as a deeply felt moral dilemma. Many of his characters are tormented by the need to take a diicult personal decision of a far-reaching nature or, as Vondel puts it, to choose ‘the lesser of two evils’.17 his
strong emphasis on the motif of doubt and uncertainty in Vondel’s
Aristotelian period is partly responsible for the internal division seen
in his most important characters and their position in between worldly
and heavenly history. In fact they possess two bodies, one mortal, subject to all human passions, and one immortal, which allows them to
take part in the story of God’s deliverance of humanity.18 his dichotomous way of thinking can be seen as a characteristic of the early modern period, an attitude in evidence in Vondel’s plays as it is elsewhere.
In the analysis that follows, it will emerge as of great importance in
several of his dramas.
Although doubt is a symptom of man’s earth-bound nature, Vondel
nevertheless gives his characters – and with them his audience and his
readers – a means of overcoming their uncertainty and therefore of
participating in the salvation that God has in store for man. he poet,
who converted to Catholicism in about 1640, repeatedly emphasizes
God’s mercy and His git to humanity of reason and free will:
You blended your bright radiance
Into our soul, a majesty
Of free will, immortality
And reason, never clouded nor obscure.19
Vondel regarded drama above all as a means of promoting reasonable
behaviour and of presenting to his readers or audiences the articles of
16
On doubt in Vondel see Noak, ‘ “Wanneer de hemel spreeckt moet alle reden
wijcken” ’.
17
WB, 3, p. 848.
18
Kantorowicz, he King’s Two Bodies.
19
Vondel, Adam in ballingschap, WB, 10, p. 113: ‘Gy dommelde uwen heldren
luister / In onze ziele, een majesteit / Van vryen wille, onsterlyckheit, / En reden, noit
bewolckt noch duister.’
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bettina noak
faith to which he so deeply subscribed.20 He was keen to make use of
the special opportunities aforded by the theatre in this regard.
he Stage as a Medium for Conveying Knowledge
Despite all the developments in Vondel’s dramatic work over time, his
oeuvre exhibits a great deal of consistency. If we look at the forewords
to his plays one by one, it immediately becomes clear that the author
believed the stage had an important function in conveying knowledge.21 hroughout his life the Amsterdam poet was consciously
engaged in competitive rivalry with the sermon, that other powerful
medium used primarily for didactical purposes.22 his explains why
many of his theoretical essays include a defence of the theatre against
opposition from the pulpit. he decisive argument in Vondel’s view was
that the main concern of the theatre was not entertainment but the
increasing of competence, and in this respect the stage had enormous
advantages, since it did not achieve its purpose by means of ‘vapid
addresses, cast to the winds for hours, and more distressing than
instructive’,23 as the author believed was oten the case in church, but
instead through the bodily expression of knowledge on the stage. An
interplay of words and actions developed in the theatre, and those
watching were touched by it. he process of conveying knowledge
became a sensory afair and its recipients were given something that
changed them more profoundly than any preacher’s rhetoric.
In the foreword to his very irst play, Het Pascha (Passover, 1612), the
poet, then still Mennonite, writes:
he old wise heathens, contemplating the nature and depravity of human
beings and seeing how slow almost all of them were to climb the steps of
virtue, and to rise high in all those things that among them could be
called creditable and virtuous, as being a mountain all too steep; so they
have in all ways tried by certain means to bring all to a good, chaste, and
20
On free will in Vondel see Konst, Determinatie en vrije wil in de Nederlandse
tragedie van de zeventiende eeuw; Konst, ‘ “Het goet of quaet te kiezen” ’.
21
here are extensive references in the research to the mediating function of literature in the process of knowledge transfer in the early modern period. For a summary
see Klausnitzer, Literatur und Wissen.
22
On Vondel’s conlict with the clergy see for example Bostoen, ‘Vondel contra
Smout’.
23
WB V, p. 614: ‘lafe redenen, uren lang in den wint gestroit, en eer verdrietigh dan
leerzaem’.
vondel as a dramatist
121
natural civic life, whether through various poetic fables and poems about
invented happenings, or through efective rules and laws. hen among
other things they have well realized ways of reviving old stories or forgotten histories and of putting them on the stage for the whole world, and in
this way, through certain ingeniously constructed depictions and characters, expressing and imitating in a lively form that which time and antiquity had well-nigh wiped from remembrance through many past
centuries and harvested years, in a manner as if they had irst happened
in the present, such that they show how in the end all good things lead to
their own rewards and all evils their punishment, and as a consequence
even coarse, rough, and unlearned people, who exhibit a willed deafness
and a willed blindness, are able, without spectacles, to have their failings
indicated to them as if by a pointing inger, and through the expressive
teachings of symbolic characters are civilized and made virtuous.24
One striking thing here is the important function Vondel attributes to
the representation of the chosen material as a means of transferring
knowledge. hrough representation (‘expressing and imitating in a
lively manner’), in the form of images and action on stage, a process of
generating knowledge is set in train among the spectators even if they
are uneducated or have no access to the usual educational curriculum
(‘coarse, rough, and unlearned people’). he stage becomes a medium
of cultural reciprocity. he material, which comes from a diferent cultural environment with its own system of norms (‘which time and
antiquity had well-nigh wiped from remembrance’) is transformed by
its representation into a matter of contemporary concern (‘as if they
24
Vondel, Het Pascha, WB, 1, p. 163: ‘D’oude wijse Heydenen aenmerckende den
aert ende verdorventheyt des menschen, ende ziende hoe traegh vast een yeder was om
langhs de trappen der deughden op te klimmen, ende om hoogh te stijghen in al het
ghene wat lolijck ende eerlijck by hun mochte ghenaemt worden, als zijnde eenen al te
steylen bergh; zoo hebben sy in alle manieren ghetracht door zekere middelen een
yeder te brenghen tot een goet, zedigh, ende natuerlijck borgherlijck leven; tzij door
eenighe Poëtische Fabulen, ende verzierde ghedichten, ot door andere bequame
Regulen ende Wetten: dan onder andere hebben sy voor goet inghezien de maniere van
eenighe oude Historien ote vergheten Gheschiedenissen wederom te ververschen,
ende voor al de Werelt op’t Toneel te stellen: om alzoo door zekere aerdighe toeghemaecte Beelden ende Personagien, levendich wt te drucken ende na te bootsen tghene
tijt ende outheyt met veel verloopen eeuwen ende afghemaeyde jaren bykans wt tghedacht ghewischt hadde, in voeghen als ot die eerst teghenwoordich gheschiedden:
waer inne sy betoonden hoe int eynde alle goet syn belooninghe, ende alle quaet syne
eyghen strafe veroorzaeckt, op dat zelfs plompe, rouwe ende ongheleerde menschen,
die al hoorende doof, ende al ziende blindt waren, zonder bril mochten hun feylen als
met den vingher aenghewesen, ende door sprekende Letteren van ghecierde Figuren
ghetemt ende ghezedight werden.’
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bettina noak
had irst happened in the present’) and can therefore be understood by
the audience.
In later forewords Vondel again emphasizes the importance of theatricality in transferring knowledge. He even regards the ‘deceptive character’ of the stage as a decisive advantage of the medium, quoting
Plutarch with approval:
he tragedy is the same kind of deception, such that he who had deceived
another and he who was deceived could become wiser than the undeceived, for the tragedy deceives or makes wiser in as much as it treats of
an invention, but it deceives with such wit that the invented seems
entirely authentic; yet he who by deceiving people or making them wiser
brings them something that is of use appears to deal the more correctly;
and he is wiser who, through invented fables, comes to know what is
regarded as scandalous or honourable.25
By visiting the Schouwburg, citizens who were interested in the stage
acquired a certain form of competence, and this was something Vondel
contemplated at length in his forewords from the very beginning of his
career as a dramatist. His ideas on the subject developed over time. In
his early theoretical writings, still under the inluence of Seneca, language and its rhetorical power to inluence its recipients by reasoned
argument are uppermost. he representation of characters in the theatre is important in conveying certain ideas to the audience in a digestible form, but the audience itself does not undergo any profound
change of heart. his view was altered by Vondel’s encounter with
Aristotle’s Poetics, in which the emphasis lies on the consequences for
the audience’s psyche of linguistic and bodily interaction on stage. he
efect of the theatre now penetrates a good deal further, triggering a
psychological process that changes and puriies the emotions, not
only – by means of the anagnorisis and peripeteia – in the characters on
stage but in the spectators. In one of his forewords Vondel writes, for
example:
he aim and purpose of tragedies following the tragic rules is to mollify
people through terror, and empathy. Scholars and budding youths are
25
Vondel, Salmoneus, WB, 5, p. 715: ‘Het treurspel is eenerhande slagh van bedrogh,
waer door hy, die een ander bedrogen hadde, en de geen, die bedrogen was, wijzer kon
worden dan een die onbedrogen is: want het treurspel bedrieght of verkloeckt, naerdien het een verziersel verhandelt: maer het bedrieght zoo geestigh, dat het verzierde
geheel waerachtigh schijnt: doch hy schijnt rechtvaerdiger te handelen, die de menschen bedriegende of verkloeckende, hun eenigh nut aenbrengt: en hy is wijzer,
die door gedichte fabelen leert kennen wat schandelijck of eerlijck luit.’
vondel as a dramatist
123
exercised in languages, oratory, wisdom, discipline, and good morals and
manners by plays, and this creates in their tender emotions and senses a
habit of decency and appropriate behaviour, which will remain with
them and cling to them into old age. Yes it sometimes happens that the
exceptionally gited, who cannot be either swayed or diverted by the
usual means, are touched by pithy utterances and grandiloquent theatricality and are drawn in without realizing it. Just as a noble lute string
gives a sound, and answers, when its equal, of the same nature and character and with the same tone although stretched on a diferent lute, is
plucked by a skilful hand, which, as it plays, can drive the evil temper out
of a possessed and unrelenting Saul.26
In the theatre, therefore, not only are the intellectual powers of the
audience stimulated, their feelings in particular are afected. By such
means, plays are even able to inluence people who have resisted a normal education because of their high estimation of their own intellectual powers, the ‘exceptionally gited, who cannot be either swayed or
diverted by the usual means’. hey are persuaded ‘without realizing it’
during the interactive process set in train by the performance on the
stage. So the theatre achieves its aim precisely at the moment when
there no longer seems to be any prospect of the successful intellectual
appropriation of knowledge.
he content of the knowledge conveyed in the theatre is of great
social relevance. he Amsterdam poet claims that in drama there are
three types of information, namely ‘knowledge of history, nature, and
morality’.27 By ‘nature’ he means ‘natural philosophy’ or what we would
now call physics. he knowledge that Vondel wishes to cultivate in his
readers therefore covers a very broad ield and can be described as historical, social, moral, and scientiic. An important aspect here is the
exposure of the power structures that existed in early modern society.
Vondel, Lucifer, WB, 5, p. 613: ‘Het wit en ooghmerck der wettige Treurspelen
is de menschen te vermorwen door schrick, en medoogen. Scholieren, en opluickende jongkheit worden door spelen, in talen, welsprekentheit, wijsheit, tucht,
en goede zeden, en manieren, geoefent, en dit zet in de teere gemoeden en zinnen, een
ploy van voeghelyckheit en geschicktheit, die hun, tot in den ouderdom toe, byblyven,
en aenhangen: ja het gebeurt by wylen dat overvliegende vernuten, by geene gemeine
middelen te buigen, noch te verzetten, door spitsvondigheden en hooghdravenden tooneelstyl geraeckt, en, buiten hun eigen vermoeden, getrocken worden: gelyck
een edele luitsnaer geluit geet, en antwoort, zoo dra heur weêrgade, van de zelve
nature en aert, en op eenen gelycken toon, en andere luit gespannen, getokkelt wort
van een geestige hant, die, al speelende, den tuimelgeest uit eenen bezeten en verstockten Saul dryven kan.’
27
WB, 10, p. 34.
26
124
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Power can take two forms. It can be exercised legitimately (potestas) or
illegitimately (violentia). In what follows we will look more closely at
each of these two dimensions.28 Of central concern are the violentia
experienced by the female characters in Vondel’s plays and the potestas
that the male characters aim to exhibit. In both cases, self-destruction
as a phenomenon accompanying the exercise of power is of decisive
signiicance.
he Body as a Symbol
he interaction between linguistic and bodily performance is clearly an
important concept in Vondel’s theoretical essays and in the aesthetics
he presents to the reader. We will now examine the relationship between
verbal and physical action in a number of his plays. his draws our
attention to a gender perspective. he text of Vondel’s tragedies shows
that the female body can be regarded, among other things, as a ‘script’,
in which actions undertaken by men are ‘inscribed’. While a man who
acts politically has two bodies, earthly and heavenly, and therefore the
potential both for earthly freedom of action and for the attainment of
heavenly immortality, a woman has to rely on the non-earthly aspect of
physicality – only in the heavenly spheres will she ind autonomy. Her
role model is the martyr.29 Later we will see how this apparent male
supremacy carries the germ of self-destruction within it.
Gysbreght van Aemstel (1637) provides an exemplary demonstration
of the role of the female body as a ‘script’ of male dealings.30 he play
was written for the inauguration of the new Amsterdam Schouwburg
in January 1638 and it is characterized by the dichotomy in Vondel’s
thought touched upon above. On the one hand it depicts the downfall
of medieval Amsterdam in a truly brutal manner, while on the other it
predicts – against the background of the Nativity – the future salvation
and resurrection of the city in Vondel’s own time. Vondel was also concerned to ‘light the beautiful ire of Troy in Amsterdam, in the sight of
28
On these aspects see also Noak, ‘Taal en geweld in enkele bijbelse treurspelen van
Joost van den Vondel’.
29
On the relationship between body, politics, and gender in the seventeenth century
see Alt, Von der Schönheit zerbrechender Ordnungen.
30
On Gysbreght see the summary by Prandoni, Een mozaïek van stemmen, which
presents an overview of recent secondary literature on the play.
vondel as a dramatist
125
its inhabitants’31 and he therefore detected in his ancient subject matter
a further example of downfall and resurrection.
In the seventeenth century everyone knew the story on which
Gysbreght was based. It had been put on stage in 1613 by the poet P.C.
Hoot (1581–1647).32 Geeraerdt van Velsen, hero of Hoot’s tragedy of
that name and a member of the nobility of the Province of Holland,
gravely insults his prince, Count Floris, by refusing to marry the count’s
mistress. Velsen’s blunt reaction to the proposal – ‘your worn-out shoe
will not it my foot’33 – sets in train a sequence of events that have fateful consequences for the characters involved. When Count Floris rapes
Velsen’s wife Machtelt in revenge, he is imprisoned by Velsen’s friends,
including Gijsbreght van Aemstel. Floris is eventually killed by Velsen,
which leads to a civil war in Holland, drawing in Gijsbreght, a moderate by nature. His city of Amsterdam is besieged by the count’s followers. It is here that the action of Vondel’s drama begins.
he events live on in the memories of the supporters and opponents
of the count and of Gijsbreght van Aemstel, and they are written in the
bodies of the women who appear in the story. heir bodies become
chronicles of the violent acts of the men. Geeraerdt van Velsen has
sparked this series of events not only by impugning the honour of
Floris’s mistress – and in so doing that of the count himself – but by in
some sense violating the integrity of her body with his description of
her as a ‘worn-out shoe’. Her body is clearly sullied and worthless in his
view. With this performative utterance he not only metaphorically
wounds the body of the woman Floris loves but directly afects her status and her position of power at court at the same time, so Floris too is
damaged. he count takes revenge by raping Machtelt van Velsen,
thereby putting the stamp of ‘worn-out shoe’ on her body as well. hese
traumatic events from the source material for Gysbreght van Aemstel
return to Gijsbreght’s wife Badeloch in a dream.34 Dressed for church
on Christmas night she sees her cousin Machtelt van Velsen, her body
disigured as a result of her rape by Count Floris. Machtelt sombrely calls out to Badeloch: ‘No resistance nor any struggle will avail
31
WB III: 521: ‘den schoonen brand van Troje t’ Amsterdam, in het gezicht zijner
ingezetenen, stichten’
32
he extract from Hoot is quoted here ater the edition by De Witte (see also www.
dbnl.nl). On Geeraerdt van Velsen see Noak, Politische Aufassungen, pp. 101–27.
33
Hoot, Geeraerdt van Velsen, l. 292: ‘uw slete schoen myn voet niet passen.’
34
On the handling of trauma in Renaissance drama see Assmann, Einführung in die
Kulturwissenschat, pp. 190–92.
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bettina noak
you / God’s saints have long since abandoned church and altars.’35
he violence inlicted on these female bodies in the past makes all
members of the Velsen and Aemstel families sinful; the women’s experiences can never be expunged. Only at the end of the story, with the
light of the family to a rural region where the memory of these events
has no currency can a new historic start be made.
In the further development of Gysbreght, history once more plays
itself out as a violent infringement of the female body. he well-known
early modern concept of the ‘city maiden’, conquered and raped by the
hostile besieger, was undoubtedly of relevance here. It is a motif that
emerges in several of Vondel’s occasional poems.36 Illustrative of the
situation of the women in the play is the scene in the church where the
citizens of Amsterdam have gathered to celebrate Christmas night.
Calamity overtakes the Nativity when the enemy storms the church.
he frenzied tearing down of the Marianum by the count’s soldiers is
merely the start of a general assault on women, and Krijstijn, sister to
Gijsbreght van Aemstel, is among its innocent victims. he epitome of
this orgy of violence is the rape and murder of Klaeris van Velsen,
daughter of Machtelt and abbess of the Clarissen convent, by Count
Floris’s bastard son Witte van Haemstee. With this act the trauma is
passed down to the next generation.
he powerlessness of women in the face of male violentia can nonetheless be overcome if they assume the role of martyr, as demonstrated
in Vondel’s play Maeghden (Maidens, 1639). his drama tells the story
of the martyrdom of St. Ursula, whom Vondel calls Ursul, and her
eleven thousand followers in Cologne. he city is besieged by Attila the
Hun, who has taken Ursul and her handmaidens prisoner. To the dismay of his advisors, Attila falls in love with Ursul and postpones the
violation of the women in order to win her afection. his causes great
discontent in the Hun army. he superior strength of the heathen soldiers and the physical threat to the innocent maidens are enthrallingly
portrayed. he eleven thousand are encircled by a cordon of male
violence:
he enemy has made a fortress of scythe-wheeled chariots
Facing the city like a rampart, assailing her breast.
35
WB, 3, p. 561: ‘Geen tegenworstelen noch strijden magh u baeten. / Gods heilgen
hebben kerck en outers lang verlaeten.’
36
On this subject see Gelderblom, Mannen en maagden in Hollands tuin, pp. 78–93.
vondel as a dramatist
127
he foot soldiers on both sides, like an iron crust,
Cover her lanks. he horseman, on their heels
From behind, encloses the backs of these doomed souls.37
he soldiers’ intentions are clear. One of Attila’s lieutenant-colonels
urges the king to concentrate on the requirements of the army and no
longer to take any account of Ursul:
Necessity forbids it you. he soldiery stands, alame
At this beguiling host. he soldiery rages, furious
hat the King’s eyes keep turning to Ursul’s eyes,
And they pluck no love fruit from the war’s harvest.
If the laws of war depart, this army, tired of waiting,
Roused by sexual desire, will soon simply help itself.38
Unlike the women in Gysbreght van Aemstel, however, Ursul and her
maidens keep control of the story, even though they are killed and
mutilated in the end. Holy martyrdom transforms all earthly power
relationships, and the apparently weak women are ultimately triumphant. A large proportion of the action consists of debates between the
saint and her male opponents, Attila the Hun and his priest and advisor
Beremond.39 It is precisely in these discussions that Ursul is able to
demonstrate her superiority to her heathen enemy, as was traditional
in martyr plays. A future martyr, she is not in such a weak position as
it seems. Since her martyrdom will bring victory over tyrannical violence, Ursul actually has no interest in self-preservation – something
her followers, including the Archbishop of Cologne, cannot comprehend. It could almost be said that her striving for martyrdom in some
sense amounts to a form of violence against Attila and his men, since
he can only lose.40 Against this background, Ursul’s speech acts can be
explained. Nowhere does she show weakness. She challenges Attila and
Beremond, partly by insulting them, until the heathen prince explodes
37
Vondel, Maeghden, ll. 882–86, WB, 3, p. 748: ‘De vyand heet een zeissenwagenburgh geslaegen / Naer Stad toe, als een wal, die stoot haer voor de borst. / Het voetvolck
van weerzy, gelijck een ysre korst, / Bedeckt de lendenen. de ruiter, op de hielen / Van
achter, kleed den rugh van dees gedoemde zielen.’
38
Vondel, Maeghden, ll. 951–56, WB, 3, p. 751: ‘De nood verbied het u. het krijghsvolck staet en vlamt / Op dit bekoorlijck slagh. het krijghsvolck raest, vergramt / Dat ’s
Konings oogen vast naer Ursuls oogen draeien, / En zy van ’s oorlooghs oeghst geen
minnevruchten maeien. / Indienghe ’t Recht vertreckt, dit heir van wachten moe, / Van
geilheid aengeport, tast lichtlijck daedlijck toe.’
39
See also Konst, ‘Wat de toeschouwers niet te zien krijgen’.
40
On violence in the legends of the saints see Koch, ‘Formen und Bedingungen von
Sprachgewalt in Katharinenlegende und –spiel’; Lützelschwab, ‘Vom Blut der Märtyrer’.
128
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with rage and kills her with his dart. Ursul hereby achieves her goal.
Without realizing it, Attila has lost sovereignty over both his speech
and his acts. By killing Ursul he turns her body into a symbol with great
performative power, since on seeing the dead and mutilated corpses of
her eleven thousand handmaidens, the Huns lee the battleield, bringing deliverance at last to besieged Cologne. A body violated by physical
assault is able to exercise power over its assailants.
he Language of Power
he example of Maeghden demonstrates that the sovereignty of male
rulers can in some sense be regarded as an illusion. here are consequences for the function of language as an instrument of power; every
linguistic expression of power carries a potential for self-destruction
within it.41 his applies not just to power exercised illegitimately, as in
the case of Attila and some of the male characters in Gysbreght van
Aemstel, but no less so in the case of potestas, the legitimate form of
violence. By demonstrating this, Vondel reveals a fundamental weakness of power structures.
In King David and Jephthah, Vondel puts rulers on stage who can be
regarded not as despots but as righteous holders of power in Israel. It is
important to note that he portrays these leaders not as strong and sovereign igures but in a state of weakness and of dependency on earlier
linguistic utterances. As the source story of Gysbreght demonstrates,
the person who carries out a particular action is but one link in a long
chain of performative acts by other persons or forerunners and is
therefore constructed in part out of what has been said in the past.
his is particularly true of King David in Vondel’s Gebroeders, whose
acts are determined and restricted by two oaths sworn many years
before. Joshua, one of David’s forebears, once ofered protection to the
Gibeonites (whom Vondel calls the Gabaonners), sealing his promise
with a vow.42 King Saul, however, broke this oath, bringing about a
massacre among the Gibeonites. David is told by his high priest
Abiathar that the drought that prevails in Israel at the start of the play
41
On language and power see the classic studies by Austin, How to Do hings With
Words and Butler, Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative.
42
On the play see Konst, Fortuna, Fatum en Providentia Dei in de Nederlandse tragedie, pp. 184–91; Korsten, ‘Legitimatie, allianties, natievorming en mannenliefde’; Noak,
‘ “Wanneer de hemel spreeckt moet alle reden wijcken” ’.
vondel as a dramatist
129
and the hunger it is sufering now are a result of the violation of Joshua’s
oath. he Israelites’ blood-guilt, Abiathar says, can be absolved only if
they make a peace ofering to be decided upon by the vengeful
Gibeonites – who demand the deaths of the late Saul’s descendants (the
brothers of the title). Now David comes under pressure because of
another oath he once swore to his bosom friend Jonathan, namely to
protect the descendants of the house of Saul. David is unable to resolve
this conlict, which we have already seen described in this study of
Vondel as the Old Testament king’s moral dilemma. In a debate with
representatives of the house of Saul and two women who speak up for
the brothers, Rispe and Michol (Saul’s widow and David’s former wife
respectively), he proves no match for arguments that appeal to his
humanity. With the words ‘my spirit is now sick unto death on account
of your sorrow; you can surely see the tears run down my cheeks;
I promise you, here is my hand, I shall not break my vow’,43 he promises
the women that he will continue to protect the brothers. his promise
too, although no doubt sincerely meant, remains an empty speech act,
since David does not have the power to carry it out to the full. He cannot act against the will of his advisors, especially Abiathar, who makes
a connection between the bloody demand of the Gibeonites and the
will of God and reasons of state. hey furnish David with a dubious
solution. He must deliver seven instead of nine brothers to the
Gibeonites. his enables him to keep his promise to the women. he
scope of David’s words is therefore very limited; he has no power over
language but is subjected to the violence of the speech of others (Joshua,
Abiathar, the Gibeonites, and Rispe and Michol). he order to deliver
the seven brothers whom he does eventually have to relinquish causes
him great pain and damages his personal integrity. Here the weakness
of his legitimate power is clearly demonstrated.
his painful experience of his own linguistic impotence seems to
have lasting efects. In Vondel’s two subsequent plays about King
David – Koning David in ballingschap and Koning David herstelt (both
of 1660) – we see an Old Testament king who at a certain point ceases
to give orders at all.44 A ruler, as he ought to have learned, is in an
43
WB, 3, p. 848: ‘mijn geest is nu ter dood bedroet, om uw verdriet, ghy ziet de
tranen vast langs bey mijn wangen leken, ‘k beloof u, dat ‘s mijn hand, ick zal mijn’ eed
niet breecken’.
44
On the tragedies see Konst, ‘ “Geen kinderhaet verruckt u tot dees daet”; Konst,
Fortuna, Fatum en Providentia Dei in de Nederlandse tragedie, pp. 223–31.
130
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extremely dependent position. he exercise of power is coupled with
sufering; his pronouncements, as demonstrated by Joshua’s vow, will
have consequences for entire generations. David is clearly trying to
avoid such sufering by falling silent. Again he inds himself in a perilous position, his favourite son Absalom having risen in revolt against
him. Koning David in ballingschap describes his light from Jerusalem,
and in Koning David herstelt his army is ready to defeat Absalom’s
troops. Paralyzed by anxiety about his favourite child, David is no
longer able to speak. He refuses to condemn Absalom and thereby
deliver him up to state-sanctioned violent revenge. Ironically, his
silence in itself makes him guilty once again, since it weakens his position to such a degree that his inal demand, that Absalom should not be
killed in the battle, goes unheard. His advisors, acting on his behalf, kill
his son. So even a ruler’s silence can have violent consequences. David’s
power has reached its nadir. In this tragedy David’s silence corresponds
with the silence of God, whose will remains hidden from the king.
David the man is thrown back upon his own resources.
Jephthah too, the hero of the model tragedy of that name of 1659,
experiences the insecurity of a ruler’s position. his judge and military
leader in Israel likewise inds himself in the clutches of a fatal vow, this
time one for which he is himself responsible. To help secure victory in
a battle against the Ammonites, he promises God that he will sacriice
whatever he sees irst when he returns home. To his profound distress,
he is greeted immediately on arrival by his own daughter. he tragedy
centres on the issue of whether Jephthah is obliged to carry out the
promised act. Although his advisors point out to him the sinfulness of
human sacriice, he stubbornly holds to his intention and recognizes
too late, ater his daughter’s death, that by doing so he has not performed a service for God but has acted out of a ‘reckless enthusiasm for
sacriice’.45
Judge Jephthah, nowadays a controversial igure in Vondel studies,
illustrates particularly strikingly how violent words can turn against
their speaker.46 With his oath he has assumed a power to which he does
not measure up. he patriarchal power over the life and death of ‘the
irst in his house’, to which he lays claim through his promise, rebounds
45
WB, 8, p. 775.
See the debate on the character of Jephthah in Konst, ‘De motivatie van het ofer
van Iis’; Korsten, ‘Waartoe hij zijn dochter slachtte’; and recently Van Gemert, ‘Schuld
en boete bij Vondel en De Koning’.
46
vondel as a dramatist
131
against the ruler, inlicting a fatal wound on his soul. All is lost for
Jephthah long before he actually sacriices his daughter:
I am inished. Fortune was a long time turning
When, with the land in danger, that high-altar promise
Slipped of necessity from my sorrowful soul,
Not knowing that, to repair everyone’s sufering,
his word would irst sever my heart’s artery,
hen a daughter’s throat. Oh word, a sword, forged
From Ammon’s revenge! Oh unrepeatable vow!
How my heart leapt when Iis was born!
his bounty and treasure is now being lost
hrough the shipwreck of one single word.47
Because of the ‘shipwreck of one single word’, Jephthah has lost everything. He feels obliged to bring about the downfall of his house, which
was not at all the intention of his original promise. His oath as a perlocutionary speech act has brought disaster and he too is now at the
receiving end of its violence. His aim in making his promise was not
merely to bring about communication with God but to force Him to
act according to an extremely worldly concept of vassalage: loyalty will
be rewarded. Here Jephthah seems to be referring to the old oriental
image of God, which describes the relationship between mankind and
the gods by drawing upon political concepts, taking no account of God
as a heavenly ruler who demands personal devotion rather than bloody
human sacriice. Only the chastened Jephthah at the end of the tragedy,
who has laid aside the sword as a symbol of his power and is no longer
a political leader but merely a penitent sinner, attains this insight.
Power and Sacriice
he connection between the body as a symbol and language as a perlocutionary act leading to violence is demonstrated particularly clearly in
the act of sacriice. he body of the creature to be sacriiced – a speciic
animal, or, in the case of the dramas discussed here, one or more human
47
Vondel, Jeptha, ll. 560–69, WB, 8, pp. 800–01: ‘’t Is uit met my. de kans was lang
aen ’t keeren, / Toen, in ’t gevaer des lants, mijn droeve ziel / Die hooge altaerbelote uit
noot ontviel, / Onkundigh dat, tot boete van elcks lijden, / Dit woort my eerst de hartaêr af zou snijden, / Dan ’s dochters hals. och woort, een zwaert, gesmeet / Van
Ammons wraeck! ô onherhaelbaere eedt! / Hoe sprong mijn hart, toen Iis wiert
geboren!/ Dees overwinste en schat wort nu verloren / Door schipbreuck van een
eenigh enckel woort.’
132
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beings – is to the sacriicing community an important symbolic token,
and the words spoken during the sacriicial ritual lead directly to the
violation of its bodily integrity. According to theories propounded by
René Girard, the ofering, the scapegoat, serves to restore harmony in a
society. he aggressive sentiments of members of the community
towards one another are neutralized by the sacriice of a speciic person
who holds an exceptional position, someone excluded from the whole,
onto whom violent tendencies are projected in a collective trance. he
ritual, once completed, is sanctiied. Religion is used to mask the violent origins of every form of power and the means of sustaining it.48
he consequences of this mechanism can be seen in several of Vondel’s
tragedies.
In Gebroeders the high priest Abiathar demands the sacriice of Saul’s
seven sons to purify the land from the guilt that originates with Saul.
Representing the community, King David cannot escape his duty to
order this sacriice. For the ruler himself, as we have seen, this is a traumatic experience, but his attempts in Koning David herstelt to prevent
the sacriice of his favourite son Absalom by remaining silent are without result, since others take over the task and kill Absalom, who has
caused civil war in Israel, as a scapegoat. In Vondel’s model tragedy
Jeptha, Iis presents herself as a sacriicial lamb. By shedding her blood
she will strengthen her father’s state. Determined to depart this life as a
martyr for God and her father, she urges him to carry out the sacriice –
which only adds to the trauma experienced by the ruler Jephthah.
In other tragedies by Vondel, the act of sacriice returns as an important motif. he Amsterdam poet appears to go to great lengths in his
attempts to reveal the underlying blood mysticism of worldly power.
his was of great relevance, incidentally, to his political experiences in
his own era. In early modern times executions were staged like theatrical performances, intended to focus attention on the criminal as a
scapegoat.49 Vondel wrote two dramas that rely on such early modern
experiences: Palamedes (1625) and Maria Stuart (1646).
His tragedy Palamedes turns on the unjust conviction and execution
of one of the Greek nobles facing Troy, a man called Palamedes, at the
instigation of supreme commander Agamemnon. It is a clear case of
violentia. Vondel was alluding to a political event of his own time, the
48
49
See Girard, Violence and the Sacred.
See Van Dülmen, heater des Schreckens.
vondel as a dramatist
133
execution of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, land’s advocate of Holland (as
the Grand Pensionary of Holland was then called), a sentence he
regarded as no less unjust. Oldenbarnevelt, who had lost the struggle
for power against the other political leader of the Dutch Republic,
Stadtholder Maurits of Nassau, was falsely accused of treason and
beheaded in May 1619.50 he poet was among those who remained
loyal to Oldenbarnevelt and he made this clear in several of his writings. he execution of the land’s advocate resolved a conlict that in a
sense had an archaic root, the conlict between two characters who are
at the same level and therefore have a kind of ‘mirror relationship’
(Girard), the one wanting what the other has: power. his can be
resolved only by the sacriice of one of them.51 As Palamedes’ mortal
enemy Ulysses admits: ‘he world in no way tolerates two shining suns:
/ So no dominion permits rule by two heads in a state.’52
he play begins with a long monologue by Palamedes, who will later
be sacriiced. He discusses one ater another the false accusations made
against him by his enemies and dismisses the allegations with reasoned
arguments. he melancholy atmosphere of this early monologue makes
clear that sagacity and personal integrity are no match for the system of
power and its defences. As soon as Palamedes has inished, Vondel
introduces Megeer (the fury Megaera) and Sisyphus, who explain that
tyranny and a craving for blood are the driving forces behind human
political acts. Here, in mythical attire, the irrational forces of the political contest are revealed. Palamedes’ ratio, as the speeches of Ulysses in
the next act make clear, cannot save him from being sacriiced.
Moreover, Ulysses reminds us that Palamedes tried to prevent a political act of sacriice at the beginning of the expedition against Troy
because of his humanist inclinations. Rulers came from all parts of
Greece to unite against the city, to form as it were a political body, and
then too, as ordained by the most prominent of Greek soothsayers,
Calchas, a human sacriice was required. Iphigenia, eldest daughter of
Agamemnon, was sacriiced to atone for a past sin of her father’s, so
that the ships would be able to sail for Troy. his sacriice made the
political actions of the community possible, and Palamedes’ rationalist
On the play see the recent Meijer Drees, ‘Hoe Vondels Palamedes geschiedenis
heet gemaakt’.
51
See also Schößler, Literaturwissenschat als Kulturwissenschat, p. 183.
52
WB, 2, p. 661: ‘De wereld geensins lyd twee schitterende sonnen: / Soo duld geene
heerschappy twee hoofden in een rijck’.
50
134
bettina noak
and human opposition to it, Ulysses says, placed him outside the community for good, so that he eventually became its scapegoat.
Vondel is known to have been iercely critical of attempts to cloak
the bloody consequences of political acts in religion. In this play,
Ulysses, the Machiavellian advisor to King Agamemnon, utters a
speech the aim of which is to reveal the true intentions of the religious
leaders:
Although you have stained holiness with patricide;
Bared your sister’s shame in the sight of your brother-in-law;
Yes, even crowned the carrier of the lightning-bolt a cuckold,
Raping his spouse and cupbearer Ganymede;
It is not even noticed; if only an altar cloth
Covers these horriic deeds, then they are not sins.53
Finally, the political acts of the drama are portrayed by Vondel as a cannibalistic sacriicial meal.54 Palamedes is literally torn apart at the end
of the tragedy by a furious mob. Yet it is Agamemnon himself who, as
instigator of the entire sequence of events, drinks Palamedes’ blood
‘greedily and so diabolically’.55 he power of violent speech is broken
only in the ith act by the prophesy of the god Neptune, representing
the principle of nemesis, who predicts the downfall of the tyrant
Agamemnon and in so doing promises that righteousness will be
restored in the future.
In his drama Maria Stuart, of Gemartelde Majesteit (Mary Stuart, or
Martyred Majesty, 1646), Vondel once again ventured into dangerous territory.56 He portrays Mary Queen of Scots as a ighter for the
Catholic faith and turns his fury upon Protestant doctrine and its
preachers, whom he had already shown in an extremely poor light in
Palamedes. Like Palamedes, Mary goes to her death completely innocent. Both characters can be seen as martyrs for reasons of state, and
in Maria Stuart Vondel attacks the Kingdom of England and its
Protestant foundations. his was not well received. he play was
53
Vondel, Palamedes, ll. 531–35, WB, 2, p. 662: ‘Al hebtge ’t hayligdom met vadermoord bevleckt: / V susters schaemt ontbloot, int aensicht van u swager: / Ia self den
blixem drigh gekroont tot hoorendrager, / Verkraght syn eegemael, en schencker
Ganimeed: / Ten word niet eens gemerckt, als maer een outerkleed / Die grouwelen
bedeckt, ten strecken dan geen sonden.’
54
Korsten, Vondel belicht, pp. 131–34 and Sovereignty as Inviolability, pp. 120–23
also points to the anthropophagy motif in Palamedes.
55
WB, 2, p. 743.
56
On the tragedy and its political implications see Noak, Politische Aufassungen,
pp. 145–93.
vondel as a dramatist
135
published anonymously, but the poet did not remain incognito for long
and he was ined 180 guilders, a sum paid on his behalf by his publisher. he dichotomy in Vondel’s thinking is clearly present here as
well, this time in the form of two sisters and rivals, one of whom, Mary
Queen of Scots, is in Vondel’s view the rightful and holy queen while
the other, Elizabeth, Queen of England, is the ‘leopardess’ and ‘Herodias’
who has inherited the crown unlawfully, drinking Mary’s blood to satisfy her lust for power: ‘Elizabeth, now drink from this honest breast /
Mary’s blood, and quench that unquenched thirst.’57
Queen Elizabeth represents violentia, ordering the death of her sister, with whom she has that same mirror relationship discussed above,
in order to hold on to power. As in Palamedes, Vondel emphasizes the
cannibalistic aspect of state power. Led to the scafold like a sacriicial
animal, Mary is killed and her head held up as a symbol of triumph by
the victorious party, her blood lowing into silver goblets. Burgon,
Mary’s doctor, describes the scene:
he executioner grasps the head by the tresses,
hat head, which cannot be attached to the body by any remorse
hat bloody head of the already crowned heroine of Christ
And crying loudly: ‘God save our Queen’; […]
While everyone weeps with grief and heartfelt woe,
hat cuts through many a heart more sharply than the axe.
Still the soul plays and lives in the diamonds
Of the eyes with their ire, and glitters on all sides.
he warm and steaming blood coagulates in silver beakers.
I hardly know what I am saying, so oppressed is my heart.58
At the same time, Mary too is accorded the status of a martyr, as ‘the
crowned heroine of Christ’. he mysticism of kingship is therefore preserved by Vondel on another level, the level of the true potestas, the
holy power, where kings and queens are relections of Christ. Here the
laws of earthly political violence, which devours mankind, no longer
apply. Instead there is humility and salvation.
57
WB, 5, p. 231: ‘Elizabeth, nu drinck uit deze oprechte borst / Mariaes bloet, en
lesch dien ongeleschten dorst’.
58
Vondel, Maria Stuart, ll. 1644–55, WB, 5, pp. 231–32: ‘De scherreprechter grijpt
het hoot op by de vlechten, / Dat hoot, door geen berouw aen ’t levend lijf te hechten,
/ Dat bloedigh hoot der ree gekroonde Kristheldin, / En roepende overluit: Godt
hoede ons Koningin; […] / Terwijl een jeder weent van rouw en hartewee, / Dat scherper dan de bijl zoo menigh hart doorsnee. / Noch speelt en leet de ziel in bey de diamanten / Der oogen met haer vier, en blinckt aen alle kanten. / Het laeuwe en roockend
bloet in zilvre beckens stremt. / Ick weet naeu wat ick zegh, zoo wort mijn hart beklemt.’
136
bettina noak
Conclusion: Zungchin
he inal play in which Vondel addressed the issue of worldly power
was Zungchin of Ondergang der Sineesche Heerschappye (Zungchin or
the Downfall of Chinese Dominion, 1667), in which the poet portrays
the end of the Chinese Ming dynasty and the impending conquest of
China by the Manchus, events that had taken place in the year 1644.59
Beijing (or Peking) is besieged by the rebellious Lykungzus who has
come to seize imperial power. He has supporters in the city and at
court, so the situation faced by the last Ming ruler Zungchin is hopeless
from the start. Hostile soldiers have already iniltrated the city and the
cannon lined up along the heavily-manned walls are loaded only with
gunpowder, engaging merely in mock battles with the besiegers. In
nocturnal Beijing the collapse of imperial power proceeds like one
great sacriicial ceremony. Zungchin, ‘son of heaven’, who appears on
stage ‘in the yellow ceremonial robe’,60 is the scapegoat at the centre of
it all. For the irst time, therefore, the play concerns not the victims of
power exercised either justly or unjustly but the ruler himself, whose
sacriice is central to the play. he emperor tries in vain to ind out what
is going on in the city, who has betrayed him and which of his courtiers
have remained loyal. he dark of night and the ominous silence of a
pause in the ighting provide no answer. His faithful servants and his
eldest son cannot help him. he play has rightly been described as a
‘drama of fear’, a fear that completely paralyzes the emperor and his
followers.61
When the silence that ‘foretold a hurricane in the state’62 is over and
the night comes to an end, the enemy iniltrates not only the city but
the imperial court. he opportunity to lee is denied the emperor; only
his three sons are able to save themselves at the last moment. With
sunrise Zungchin’s anagnorisis sets in. He realizes that most of his
courtiers have sacriiced him to the enemy. He pleads in vain irst to
his faithful vice-regent Koläus, asking him to plunge his dagger into his
chest, then to the perjured court hangers-on, who likewise refuse to
oblige him. So the emperor has no choice but to prepare himself for
On the play see Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 3, pp. 449–506; Langvik-Johannessen,
Het treurspel spant de kroon, pp. 251–81.
60
WB, 10, pp. 340–41.
61
Langvik-Johannessen, Het treurspel spant de kroon, p. 281.
62
WB, 10, p. 362.
59
vondel as a dramatist
137
sacriice. In a letter written in his own blood to the victorious Lykungzus,
he orders that the traitors be punished ater his death and appeals for
mercy for his people. hen he presents his daughter with a choice
between dying at his hands or as a result of the dishonouring violence
of the enemy. Without hesitation she chooses the former. In the inal
act Lykungzus enters victorious and inquires ater the emperor’s fate.
On the orders of Chancellor Us, the gate to the orchard is opened, and
there everyone can see the corpses of the emperor and empress, who
have hanged themselves from plum trees. A maid of honour then tells
the blood-drenched story of yet another ‘daughter killing’, describing
how Zungchin stabbed Princess Pao with a dagger and how the imperial robe grew red with the blood of his child. Lykungzus hesitantly
takes his place on the imperial throne. Later, in triumph, as we learn
from the play’s dedication, he will have Zungchin’s corpse cut ‘into
strips and thin slices’.63 he transfer of power is complete.
In the past, comparisons were made between the Zungchin character and political leaders like Gijsbreght van Aemstel and Jephthah. he
plays that tell their stories share motifs such as the downfall of a city
and dominion, and the sacriice of a daughter.64 It is clear, however, that
in Zungchin the eighty-year-old Vondel deinitively rejects any positive
motivation for the political acts that take place. he fall of the ‘Chinese
Troy’ is not portrayed as a meaningful event in God’s plan for mankind;
there are no predictions here of power and wealth ater the pattern of
the closing scene of Gysbreght. In China the future will bring a series of
more or less tyrannical rulers. Lykungzus too will soon meet a fateful
end. Nor is Princess Pao’s role that of a martyr. True, her body is once
again a ‘script’ in which male violence writes its story, but in contrast to
the self-conscious Iis in Jeptha, or Ursul in Maeghden, her sacriice
serves no higher end. It is simply part of her father’s self-sacriice. In
this tragedy the language of power is silenced permanently. here are
no debates about alternative ways of acting, as was generally the case in
previous plays. As manifest symbols, Zungchin can present only the
bodies of his daughter and his wife, along with his own. he letter written in his blood, the robe spattered with the imperial daughter’s blood,
the corpses of the emperor and empress on the stage beyond the open
palace gate – all are visible signs that the language of power has been
63
64
WB, 10, p. 326.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 3, pp. 449–506.
138
bettina noak
transformed into corporality and an irreversible process involving successive acts of sacriice has set in, which will determine the future
course of history.
We have already looked at the dichotomies that typify Vondel’s
thinking and they are again clearly present in this inal tragedy. At the
imperial court, along with the Chinese characters, is the famous Jesuit
priest Adam Schall (Vondel calls him Schal), with his faithful followers,
collectively referred to as a Chorus of Priests.65 heir part in the action
is extremely limited. As an advisor to the emperor and empress, Adam
Schall provides Christian commentary on events but without becoming involved in political decision-making. Nonetheless, the Jesuits fulil
an important function, since they provide the consolatio tragoediae, the
moment of consolation for readers or audiences.66 Ater political violence – whether in the form of potestas or violentia – has been unmasked
as a bloody sacriice that ofers his actors no respite, the Amsterdam
poet presents a Christian stoic stance as a remedy against the world’s
vicissitudes. he spirit of Francis Xavier consoles the Jesuits at the end
of the tragedy and shows them the route to acceptance of divine providence. hey humbly follow his advice:
hough we see many dark clouds hanging above our heads
We give ourselves over to God’s sustenance,
With unlagging patience, out of meekness and respect.
Ater the night the light appears much more beautiful.67
Clearly as far as Vondel was concerned, only a radical step to another
level of knowledge could liberate humanity from the cycle of guilt and
sufering that characterized political acts. In opposition to human violence he sets divine mercy.
On Adam Schall see Väth, Johann Adam Schall von Bell S.J.
he concept originates with Schings, ‘Consolatio tragoediae’.
67
Vondel, Zungchin, ll. 1611–14, WB, 10, p. 390: ‘Al zienwe boven ’t hoot veel
donkre wolken hangen; / Wy geven ons aen Godts voorzienigheit gevangen, / Met
onvermoeit gedult, uit ootmoedt en ontzagh./ Het licht komt, na den nacht, veel
schooner voor den dagh.’
65
66
CHAPTER EIGHT
VONDEL’S THEATRE AND MUSIC
Louis Peter Grijp and Jan Bloemendal
Golden Age heatre and Music
Recent decades have seen a growing awareness of the use of music in
seventeenth-century theatre, in the Netherlands too.1 In 2004 Natascha
Veldhorst defended her thesis on ‘Musical Scenes on the Amsterdam
Stage in the Seventeenth Century’, in which she discussed the function
of music on stage.2 To this end she was able to make use of the results
of a number of smaller studies concerning Dutch theatre and music.3
A method for recognising songs in theatre texts (‘strophic heuristics’)
had been developed in a study that had been published in 1991: Louis
Grijp’s doctoral thesis on the ‘contrafactum’ system.4 Ater having compiled a database of song stanzas (the ‘voetenbank’, later called ‘liederenbank’), he was able to reconstruct melodies of choral odes and other
songs in plays by P.C. Hoot (1581–1647) and elsewhere.5 However, this
awareness of music as an essential part of early modern theatre was
not registered by every scholar: prior to this – and even thereater –
modern scholars made editions of sixteenth and seventeenth-century
dramas without any reference to theatre music.
In the Dutch Republic, and especially in Amsterdam, the Golden
Age was also the golden age of Dutch theatre. In the Amsterdam
1
Particularly in the Anglo-Saxon world, more attention has been paid to theatre
music at an earlier stage; see, for example, Sternfeld, Music in Shakespearean Tragedy
(1963). However, it must be said that, to his credit, Worp, Geschiedenis van het drama
en van het tooneel, 2, pp. 74–76, already devoted an important section to music; Van
Gemert, Tussen de bedrijven door?, Appendix 2 ‘Overzicht van melodieën’, adopted a
list of choral odes that she thought had a musical component.
2
Veldhorst, De perfecte verleiding.
3
For example: Rasch, ‘De muziek in de Amsterdamse Schouwburg’; Grijp and
Meeus, ‘Muziek op het toneel van de Gouden Eeuw’.
4
Grijp, Het Nederlandse lied in de Gouden Eeuw. A contrafactum or counterfact is a
song text made to the tune of an existing melody.
5
Grijp, ‘Op zoek naar de melodieën van Geraerdt van Velsen’; Hoot, Granida, ed.
Van Gemert and Grijp.
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louis peter grijp and jan bloemendal
Schouwburg (Amsterdam’s municipal theatre), which opened its gates
in 1638, a semi-professional troupe performed several times each week.
hey staged foreign plays, original tragedies, farces and ballets. Plays by
Pieter Cornelisz. Hoot, Gerbrand Adriaensz. Bredero (1585–1618),
heodore Rodenburg (1578–1644) and Samuel Coster (1579–1668)
saw reprises, while each year new plays were staged, written by Jan
Harmensz. Krul (1601/2–1644), Jan Vos (c. 1610–1667) and Vondel, to
name but a few.6
In these performances, music played an important role.7 he playwrights wrote poems that were sung, such as songs for a solo voice and
choral songs (‘reien’). hese musical choruses were sung by anonymous
characters, such as a group of citizens, soldiers, maidens or shepherds,
or even by an unspeciied ‘chorus’.8 he choral songs could have several
functions, such as to inform the audience about the events that had
taken place, to moralise about the plot, to contemplate aspects of the
play, and bridge a temporal gap.9 Usually such a chorus consisted of just
two actors. If the chorus was sung, this may have been done in two
voices. But there were also choruses which were recited, probably by
only one of the two. he solo songs were part of the action and sung by
the actors themselves. In this respect, it has to be borne in mind that all
parts were played by men, even the female ones. Until 1655 women
were forbidden to act on stage.10
Besides vocal music, instrumental music also accompanied the
action. We know this from the accounts from the Amsterdam Schouwburg that have been rather well preserved. In each performance at least
three musicians participated playing the lute, the violin and the bass.
We even know their names: in the irst years of the Schouwburg, Arent
Arentsz. Koer ‘the Flautist’ (‘de Fluyter’) played the lute, homas
Veldhorst, De perfecte verleiding, pp. 62 and 180.
Even though, under the inluence of Seneca’s dramas, music, or the singing of
choral odes became less important elements in tragedy as compared to other theatrical
events, see Veldhorst, De perfecte verleiding, p. 205, n. 48.
8
Choruses for female and ‘neutral’ groups were oten sung by boys; see Grijp, ‘Boys
and Female Impersonators’, p. 153.
9
Van Gemert, Tussen de bedrijven door?, pp. 65–94.
10
See Albach, ‘30 Juni 1655’. he problem of female impersonation before 1655
is discussed by Grijp, ‘Boys and Female Impersonators’. he Schouwburg accounts
also show that in the years between 1648 and 1651 two female singers appeared in
Vondel’s Gysbreght to sing the famous Chorus of Clares; see Grijp, ‘Boys and Female
Impersonators’, p. 133.
6
7
vondel’s theatre and music
141
Fransz. the violin and Jan Pietersz. the bass.11 From 1640 to 1644 and
from 1647 to 1649 a fourth musician came on the scene. Robert Tyndal
played the cornetto (called ‘cornet’ in the accounts). Besides these
musicians a drummer and one or more trumpeters were paid.
It is not known what these instrumentalists played exactly, but they
will have accompanied the songs and probably there were entr’actes.
Trumpets and drums may have been used to attract the audience’s
attention, and to accompany royal entrances within the plays. Another
possible scene is the watchman playing a trumpet (‘the trumpeter at
dawn’). But there are more musical ‘set scenes’ on stage: a lament
behind bars (prison scenes), the lover singing beneath the window
(aubades and serenades), the polyphonic tribute to the gods (sacriices)
and sleep scenes (‘gently murmuring, insight descended’).12
In most cases, the melodies are no longer known. Sometimes
they were indicated in the printed text (in the form of ‘to the tune of ’),
but even these were oten lacking. Hoot, for instance, let out all musical indications, to render his plays more similar to the plays by his
exemplary dramatist, the Roman philosopher Seneca. But the same
Hoot evidently had music in mind when he wrote his choruses. his
can be concluded from the stanza form of his choral odes, which
reveals that he wrote them to popular melodies from his age, such as
English and old Dutch tunes, French ‘airs de cour’ and madrigals.13
here is an interesting remark in a manuscript preface to Hoot’s
Granida: ‘he songs included in this play can be sung to their melodies
or have such a metre that melodies can easily be made for them.’14
According to Hoot choruses and other songs in theatre could be written not only to existing tunes (‘contrafacta’), but also as texts for new
compositions.15
11
Grijp, heatermuziek uit de Gouden Eeuw and Veldhorst, De perfecte verleiding,
p. 26 and p. 205, n. 47.
12
Veldhorst, De perfecte verleiding, chapters 3–7.
13
Grijp, heatermuziek uit de Gouden Eeuw; Hoot, Granida, ed. Van Gemert and
Grijp, esp. pp. 19–22. Two of Hoot’s pieces saw modern performances with the original melodies: Geeraerdt van Velsen in 1994, produced by Camerata Trajectina in the
Muiderslot, and Granida in 2009 as a kind of opera, directed by Wim Trompert.
14
‘De gesangen hier in gebracht gaen op haer wijsen ot sulcken maet datmen’er
lichtlijck wijsen op stellen kan’; quoted from Hoot, Granida, ed. Van Gemert, p. 19.
15
As a matter of fact, at least one of the eleven choruses and songs from Granida
does not seem to have been written to an existing tune, so we assume that someone has
composed new music for it.
142
louis peter grijp and jan bloemendal
Contexts of heatre and Music
he use of music in drama did not start in the seventeenth century. On
the contrary, it was as old as Western theatre itself. Already in ancient
Greek drama choral odes were sung, or characters sang a tune, accompanied by lutes, cithers or other instruments. Music also accompanied
medieval liturgical drama and medieval Dutch plays.16 It was considered an important means of inluencing audiences. Early modern literary critics were aware of this. Vossius, who in his Poeticae institutiones
compiles almost everything that was known on poetics, also writes
about music and drama.17 He mentions the fact that Aristotle had made
music one of the accessory parts of poetics and that it remained to be
characterized as non-essential.18
In the Low Countries of the sixteenth century, both rhetoricians’ drama in Dutch and Latin drama made use of music. he rhetoricians organised themselves into local chambers (resembling guilds)
that gathered once a week. here they recited refrains and other poetry
and sang songs. Occasionally they held regional contests between
chambers at which they staged plays or recited poems. Such contests
were accompanied by much ceremony – and music. In some instances
the plays and the competition songs were compiled and beautifully
printed. Only rarely did those printed texts contain musical notation.
However, there are oten other indications for music, ranging from
indications of tunes to musical stage directions and divergent stanza
forms.19
Latin drama also had its music. Roughly two forms occurred: Latin
school drama, written by headmasters for their pupils at the Latin
schools, and academic drama, written to be performed, recited or read
by scholars and students at the universities. he latter form was in
keeping with the tragedies produced by Seneca, while the former was
in keeping with the comedies by the Roman poets Plautus and Terence.
16
See, for instance, Ramakers and Van Dijk, ‘Inleiding’ in Van Dijk and Ramakers,
Spel en Spektakel, pp. 9–34, esp. p. 17.
17
Vossius, Poeticae institutiones II, 9 (‘De melodia’, on music in drama in general);
II, 16 (‘De choro tragico, item de melodia …’ , on music in tragedy); II, 28 (‘De …
modulatione comica’, on music in comedy).
18
Vossius, Poeticae institutiones II, 1, 8, p. 332; Aristotle, Poetica 1447a14–16.
19
See Veldhorst, ‘De gedrukte tekst komt tot leven’, on the printed plays of the
Vlaardingen contest of 1616.
vondel’s theatre and music
143
heir comedies, however, did not contain choral songs (although they
exhibited other musical forms). Early modern humanists reintroduced
the chorus in their school plays, probably under the inluence of classical Greek drama, Senecan tragedy, or popular songs. Moreover, the use
of choruses could give more pupils the opportunity to act in such a
play. Not all plays contained choral songs, but other ones, especially
those by Georgius Macropedius (1487–1558), abounded with such
(strophic) odes. his rector of the Latin schools of Liège, Den Bosch
and Utrecht respectively was inspired by the German humanist playwright Johannes Reuchlin (1455–1522).20 he collection of his plays,
Omnes fabulae (1552–1553), contains the irst examples of printed
musical notation in the Low Countries.
Ballet was another theatrical form that contained music – and was
even based on it. Ballet was irst recorded at the Amsterdam Schouwburg
in 1642. hereater it remains on stage, either as an independent/
separate artistic form, or as a part of a theatre play. Opera did not come
to the Amsterdam stage until 1677, initially imported from France and
Italy.21
he combination of music and theatre was a European phenomenon. All over Europe – in England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain –
plays were accompanied by music.22 In Germany the ‘Singspiel’ was a
national variant of the opera. Other theatrical events, such as Royal
Entries, Water Ballets and Fireworks, also abounded with music – see,
for instance, George Frederick Handel’s Water Music and Music for the
Royal Fireworks. Dutch theatre music was to some extent inluenced by
musical practice from abroad. he instruments used in Dutch theatres,
for instance, strongly resemble that of the English consort.23 Nowadays,
it is the subject of analysis by scholars, and performing musicians are
also engaged in rediscovering, reviving and reinventing theatre music.24
20
On Macropedius see Grijp, ‘Macropedius and Music’. Macropedius is atypical,
because he probably composed the tunes for the choral songs himself.
21
Rasch, ‘Amsterdam, 25 november 1677’.
22
See, for example, Stein, Songs of Mortals, on theatre and music in Spain; Powell,
Music and heatre in France 1600–1680 and Louvat-Molozay, héâtre et musique. See
also Veldhorst, De perfecte verleiding, pp. 14–17.
23
See Rasch, ‘De muziek in de Amsterdamse Schouwburg’, p. 186.
24
So, for instance, he Musicians of Swanne Alley, and their CD In the Streets and
heatres of London: Elizabethan Ballads and heatre Music (released by Veritas x2).
Also Camerata Trajectina, heatermuziek uit de Gouden Eeuw / Dutch heatre Music
1600–1650 (released by Globe).
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louis peter grijp and jan bloemendal
Vondel and heatre Music
Vondel considered sung choral odes as important means to move the
audience; at least this is what he tells us in the preface to his Jeptha
(1659):
But just as the Greeks cannot be denied the honour of the illustrious invention of drama, which gradually reached its zenith, so too the
performance of a sacred tragedy written in the same vein requires a
variety of itting characters, scenery and the singing of the music of
choruses, directed by a great musician like Orlando [di Lasso], so that
during the performance the audience may hear a heavenly harmony
of sacred sounds that attains to all aspects of divine choral art in its perfection in such a way that it entrances souls, as though charming them
from the body, and completely delights them with a foretaste of angelic
bliss.25
To what extent do we see Vondel’s enthusiasm for theatre music embodied in his own work? It is not easy to recognise musical passages in his
plays, as Vondel rarely indicated the tunes in the usual manner. We
could pay attention to strophic passages and look in the Database of
Dutch songs of the Meertens Institute if such stanza forms correspond
with those of melodies that were popular in those days (strophic heuristics).26 Another way of recognising them is by looking for verses
from plays by Vondel that are used as tune indications in later songbooks. A famous example is the well-known chorus song of Nuns from
Gysbreght van Aemstel (1637), ‘O kersnacht schooner dan de dagen’
(‘Christmas night, supernally bright’).27 To this melody hundreds of
new songs were written in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Such considerations induced Grijp and Meeus to develop a method of
recognising sung passages in theatrical texts, which they demonstrated
Vondel, ‘Berecht: Aen de begunstelingen der toneelkunste’, to Jeptha, WB 8, p 779:
‘Maer gelijck den Griecken d’eer van den heerlijcken vont der tooneelspelen, allengs
by trappen in top gesteigert, niet kan gelochent worden, zoo vereischt een gewijt
treurspel, op hunnen leest geschoeit, tot het uitvoeren, keur van bequame personaedjen, en toestel van tooneel, en maetgezang van reien, geoefent door eenen grooten
Orlando, om onder het speelen d’aenschouwers te laeten hooren eene hemelsche
gelijckluidentheit van heilige galmen, die alle deelen der goddelijcke zangkunste in
hunne volkomenheit zodanigh bereickt, datze de zielen buiten zich zelve, als uit den
lichame, verruckt, en ten volle met eenen voorsmaek van de gelukzaligheit der engelen
vergenoegt.’
26
See <www.liederenbank.nl>. his database contains the stanza forms of thousands of Dutch songs from the early modern period.
27
he translations of Gysbreght are by Christaan Aercke.
25
vondel’s theatre and music
145
with the example of plays by Samuel Coster.28 In this chapter we will
apply this method to the tragedies of Vondel.
Doing so, the harvest turns out to be scant, more scant than one
would anticipate. Only ten of the thirty-two plays we searched, including Vondel’s translations of Greek plays, have text parts with recognisable melodies, so contrafacta. Two other plays contain passages that are
possibly contrafacta. he richest plays with regard to music are the
famous Gysbreght van Aemstel and, more surprisingly, Jeptha (1659). In
these tragedies all choruses seem to have been sung or, in the case of
Jephta, intended to be sung.
he opening line of the Chorus of Amsterdam Virgins (‘Rey van
Amsterdamsche maeghden’) at the end of the irst act of Gysbreght
recurs as a tune indication in some songbooks printed in Amsterdam
around 1650.29 his song has the same stanza form as the aforementioned Chorus of Clarissen, sung at the end of the third act. However,
it is not clear whether it was sung to the same melody. According to the
form, the Chorus of Denizens (‘Rey van Burghzaten’) with the famous
opening lines: ‘Was ever faith more sincere / Between wife and husband clear’ (‘Waer werd oprechter trouw / Dan Tusschen man en
vrouw’), is sung to a melody of the French court composer Antoine de
Boësset (‘N’espérez plus mes yeux’). he Hymn of Simeon, sung by the
Chorus of Nuns in the third act, will have been sung to the popular
tune ‘Bedruckte herteken’ (‘Saddened little heart’).30 Finally, the Chorus
of Noblemen (‘Rey van Edelingen’) from the second act has a very simple stanza form that looks ready to be sung, but in fact only resembles
Psalm 13 of the Reformed tradition, which is a disagreeable melody in
such a Catholic play.31
28
Grijp and Meeus, ‘Muziek op het toneel in de Gouden Eeuw’, p. 122.
‘Nu stelt het puick van zoete keelen’, quoted in Amsteldamse Vrolikheyt (1647),
J.J. Steendam’s Den Distelvink. Darde Deel (1650), Vermeerderde Amsterdamsche
VREUGHDE-STROOM […] 2e deel (1654) and by Vondel himself for his version of
Psalm CXXV.
30
Van Duyse, Het oude Nederlandsche lied, vol. 2, p. 1601.
31
Later on, Vondel’s choruses from Gysbrecht were set to new music, for instance by
Alphons Diepenbrock (1892/95) and Bernard Zweers (1892). he Catholic brothers
Alberdingk hijm included several Gysbrecht choruses in their Oude en Nieuwere
Kerst-Liederen (Old and Newer Christmas Songs), published with piano or organ accompaniment ‘for choirs and catholic families’ (Amsterdam 1852): ‘O Kersnacht! schooner
dan de dagen’ (no. 69) and ‘Wij, Nederlanders, blij van geest’ (no. 82), an adaptation of
Vondel’s chorus ‘Wy edelingen, bly van geest’. In spite of the Catholic connotation these
choruses were also included in the Liedboek van de kerken (Hymnal of the Churches,
1973) of the Dutch Protestant church: ‘Wij edelingen blij van geest’ (set to music by
29
146
louis peter grijp and jan bloemendal
In Jeptha of Oferbelote (Jephta or the Sacriicial Vow, 1659) it is
the Chorus of Virgins that concludes the acts with texts that, in view of
the stanza forms, could be sung to popular melodies: ‘O Schepper ier’
(‘O proud Creator’, irst act), ‘Questa dolce sirena’ (‘hat sweet siren’,
second act), ‘Objet dont les charmes si doux’ (‘Object of which the
charms so sweet’, third act), and ‘Blijdschap van mij vliet’ (‘Joy lee from
me’, fourth act). his extraordinary richness of contrafacta – at least
for Vondel – explains the aforementioned emphasis on music in the
preface.
In the other plays, too, choral passages occur at the end of the acts.
However, Vondel oten gave them long, artfully construed stanza forms
that are not to be found in the repertoire of popular songs of his age.
Oten Vondel expands such a ‘Strophe’ (‘Zang’) with an ‘Antistrophe’
(‘Tegenzang’) and an ‘Epode’ or ‘Closing hymn’ (‘Toezang’), comparable to the strophe, antistrophe and epode of classical Greek tragedy.
In some instances, a passage in a characteristic stanza form occurs
alongside these typically Vondelian forms. his is the case in the ‘Gesang
van d’Egyptische Goden APIS en ISIS’ (‘Song of the Egyptian deities
Apis and Isis’) from Joseph in Egypten (Joseph in Egypt, 1640). his song
even has a tune indication: ‘Object dont les charmes si doux’, the same
melody Vondel would use in Jeptha two decades later. In the second act
of Salomon (1648) the Ladies-in-waiting (‘hojufers’) sing a song in a
characteristic strophe, belonging to the popular song ‘Ach ongelukkige
dag’ (‘Oh ill-fated day’). here are other plays in which one outspoken song passage occurs alongside choruses with more neutral forms:
Palamedes (1625), Lucifer (1654), Faëton (1663) and Noah (1667).32
Leeuwendalers (1647), and the translation of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex
Adriaan C. Schuurman, 1904–1998) and ‘O kerstnacht, schoner dan de dagen’, nos. 153
and 154 respectively. Johannes Verhulst (1816–1891) wrote an ‘Ouverture Gijsbreght
van Aemstel’ (1839). A century later, in 1937, Henk Badings (1907–1987) wrote a
‘Heroïsche Ouverture’ to Vondel’s “Gijsbreght van Aemstel” ’.
32
In Palamedes, ll. 167–286, the song ‘We, soldiers, in our turn do heed’ (‘Wij
Krijslien passen op ons’ beurt’) of the combined choruses of Euboeans and Ithacians,
has a rather characteristic strophe which in the songbooks oten has the indication
‘Coridon en Sylvia’; the stanza form of the Chorus of Angels (Rey van Engelen)
in Lucifer, ll. 1982–2001, betrays the tune ‘Questa dolce sirena’; the Chorus of Hours
(Rey van Uuren) in Faëton, ll. 157–222, can be sung to ‘Den lustelijken mei’; the song
of the Ladies-in-waiting (Jofers), ‘Zou het al zinken en vergaen, / Waer bleef de
zwaen?’ has exactly the same form as a tune with an unidentiied tune indication
‘Crakougie’, to be found in P. Elzevier, Den Lacchenden Apoll (Amsterdam, 1667),
printed in the same year as Vondel’s play. Possibly this tune corresponds with the popular tune ‘Quand la bergère’.
vondel’s theatre and music
147
(Koning Edipus, 1660) also contain passages that may be based on
existing melodies.33
Apart from these extremes in which all choral songs are sung or only
one single passage, there are also plays in which several musical parts
are sided by more neutral choruses, viz. Het Pascha (Passover, 1612)
and Hippolytus (1628). In Vondel’s irst play Het Pascha, two or three
sung choruses occur: (1) the ‘hymn or song of praise’ (‘hymne of
lofzang’) of the chorus of Israelites (‘Israelitische Rei’: ‘Nu zinght, nu
speelt, nu reyt en danst’; ‘Now sing and dance in chorus’) in which one
may easily recognise the popular melody ‘De lustelijke mei is nu in de
tijd’ (‘he plaisant May is now’), (2) the song ‘Hebreen speelt s’Hemels
lof ’ (‘Hebrews play the praise of Heaven’) from the fourth act, which is
quoted by Abraham de Koning as a tune indication in Achabs treurspel
(Tragedy of Achab, 1610),34 and (3) the chorus ode ‘Steenen Farao wilt
swichten’ (‘Stone Pharaoh do yield’) which is in keeping with the
reformed Psalm 38 that, during his Anabaptist period, Vondel may
have deemed suitable for a play.35 In the second act of Hippolytus (1628)
a Chorus starts to sing in the stanza form of ‘Phoebus is lang over zee’
and then turns to that of ‘Sei tanto gratioso’.36 he chorus at the end of
the fourth act, ‘Hoe draeyt Fortuyn het al’, is also written in a song-like
strophe. he melody is mentioned in the margin: ‘Het was een jonger
held’ (‘It was a young hero’).37
Let us recount what we have found so far. here are ten (or maybe a
few more) plays in which music occurs. In two of them all choruses
seem to be sung on existing melodies and in most other plays only one
or some passages. his is a relatively small number compared to the
33
Leeuwendalers, ll. 1997–2021, ‘It is a wedding in the meadow’ (‘’t Is bruilot in de
weide’), is written in an unidentiied, song-like stanza form; Koning Edipus, ll. 1301–10,
Edipus’ ‘Turn’ (‘Keer’) ‘Citheron, spel ick met mijn’ mont’ has a stanza form that, coincidentally or otherwise, its the popular songs ‘Wanneer de zon met morgenrood’ and
‘Aan watervlieten Babylons’.
34
As can be concluded from the dates (Achab 1610, Het Pascha 1612) De Koning
did not use the printed version for his contrafactum, but a manuscript. Het Pascha had
already been performed in 1610.
35
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 1, p. 52, n. 3, already mentioned the possibility that
chorus songs from Het Pascha were sung on Psalm melodies.
36
he songs start at ll. 889 and 931. hese melodies were already observed by
Bruinsma, ‘An introduction to Vondel and music’, p. 111.
37
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 1, pp. 151–52, is surprised by the exceptional mention
the tunes receive and the unconventional form of the chorus ater the second act, consisting of three clearly distinct parts. He does not have an explanation for either
phenomenon.
148
louis peter grijp and jan bloemendal
over thirty plays by Vondel we examined. he method may be one of
the reasons for this scant crop: we limited ourselves to identifying passages with formal characteristics of strophic songs. It is possible that
melodies are hidden behind the uncharacteristic songs, i.e. melodies
that belong to songs with less characteristic stanza forms. hey do exist.
Moreover, we have to consider the possibility that Vondel had other
resources for music than making contrafacta on popular melodies. His
chorus songs could have been set to music by composers.
Let us take Vondel’s Gebroeders (Brothers, 1640). he structure of the
songs in itself does not induce us to think of a musical performance.
here is, however, an (ot-cited) manuscript direction to this play indicating that the priests’ ode was sung and that instruments were played
(at least during the irst performances):
he musicians play on their wind instruments this appended composition, which was sung by priests on stage, in four parts.38
he singers were males. We know that from Vondel’s own handwritten casting, mentioning the four singers of the choruses: Barend van
Hoorn, Jacob Willems, Jan Nooseman and Jelis Nooseman. Jelis was
Joost van den Vondel, Gebroeders, t’Amsterdam, by Dominicus vander
Stichel, for Abraham de Wees, 1640. 4°. KB 392 H 28.
38
‘De speeluijden speelen op haar blaas Instrumenten dit bijgaende musijkstuk
gespeelt ende van priesteren op het toneel gesongen, met vier partijen’; see Veldhorst,
De perfecte verleiding, pp. 144–45.
vondel’s theatre and music
149
14 years old in 1640, his brother Jan 19, and the others probably in
between.39 Vondel also noted in the list of properties ‘two trombones
made of sheet metal’ (‘twe blicke basuijnen’) and ‘two other trombones’
(‘2 andere besuijnen’) as well as ‘trumpeters’ (‘trompetters’). Obviously,
the chorus had to be sung by the four singers, accompanied by four
trombones. his must have resulted in a solemn sound, quite diferent
from the usual chant by one or two voices accompanied by lute, violin
and bass. Unfortunately the sheet with the music is no longer extant.
Possibly the composition applied to the irst act, in which the chorus of
priests strides into the temple of Gibeah (ll. 153 sqq.). here Vondel
wrote:
when entering, the inal part of the chorus of the priests will be sung, and
played by the musicians40
A few verses later is written:
the presentation of the ark of the covenant and the menorah, and the
added song are spoken by the priests in this way41
Apparently, the choral song of the priests was partly sung and partly
spoken, at least if we take Vondel’s word ‘gesprooken’ (spoken) literally
(which might also be a neutral expression for ‘rendered’ here).42 he
entire choral song comprises a Chant and an Antichant, both coming
to fourteen verses, and an Epode of eight verses. It must have been an
impressive moment in the performance. his can also be inferred from
its reception. In Jan Zoet’s himoklea (1641) we see the stanza form of
the Epode from Gebroeders in a song, sung by ‘Sacriical singers’
(‘Oferzangers’) who execute a sacriice by means of which Alexander
the Great hopes to obtain a prophecy of the future.43 he situation is
similar to that in Gebroeders when King David visits the temple to ask
God’s advice. Six years ater himoklea we ind in Willem van
Heemskerck’s Hebreeusche Heldinne (Hebrew Heroine, 1657) the entire
39
See Grijp, ‘Boys and Female Impersonators’, p. 150. For a facsimile of the cast list
of Gebroeders written by Vondel himself, see Albach, Langs kermissen en hoven, p. 48;
Erenstein, Een theatergeschiedenis der Nederlanden, p. 223.
40
‘ingaende wort de toesang vande priesteren gesongen en van de speeluijden
gespeelt.’
41
‘de vertooning vande bondkist en kandelaer en de toesang word aldus van de
priesters gesprooken’.
42
he remarks quoted do not make clear which parts exactly were sung or spoken.
In both remarks only the Epode (‘Toezang’) is mentioned.
43
See Cordes, Jan Zoet, Amsterdammer, pp. 154–64, without mentioning music.
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louis peter grijp and jan bloemendal
stanza form of Vondel’s chorus of priests, including Strophe, Antistrophe
and Epode. In this case the solemn procession consists of the Chorus of
Bethulians, who carry along with them the head of a defeated enemy. It
can be concluded that the music of Vondel’s Chorus of Priests is reused
by Zoet and Heemskerck for similar, solemn situations in their own
tragedies, provided with new texts itting the situation.
he music of the Chorus of Priests has not been preserved, neither is
it known who composed it, although there are some conjectures. hese
hint at Cornelis hymansz. Padbrué (1592–1672), with whom, by 1640,
Vondel had started a fruitful cooperation, precisely at the time of his
writing Gebroeders.44 Padbrué came from a musical family and entered
the company of Haarlem city musicians (‘stadsspeelluiden’), but was
dismissed from civic service in 1635. From then on he probably supported himself as a freelance musician. Padbrué published several collections of madrigals and motets on texts by the poet Jacob Westerbaen
(1599–1670), Vondel, and others.
he poet and the composer, both Catholics, probably were friends.45
As early as 1633, Vondel wrote an amusing song for the composer in
which he invited him to set his texts to music:
O delicate hymen,
When your tongue starts to rhyme
On the ield or in the choir
You glue everything to your ear, […]46
We don’t know if Padbrué immediately answered Vondel’s call, but in
1640 Vondel’s poem De Kruisbergh (Mount Calvary) was published, ‘set
to music […] by Cornelis Padbrué’. In 1641 Vondel had its text reprinted
ater his Peter en Pauwels (Peter and Paul), without music.
Padbrué also set sections of Peter en Pauwels to music. He not only
composed music for the choral odes, but also for a selection of verses in
the action that normally were spoken. His composition became a major
work, a kind of oratorio, which was published in 1646 as De tranen
Petri ende Pauli (he Tears of Peter and Paul).47 he composer writes:
See on Padbrué NNBW 10, coll. 701–02 [Van den Sigtenhorst Meyer] and on his
friendship with Vondel, Noske, ‘Padbrué en Vondel’.
45
Sterck, Oorkonden over Vondel en zijn kring, pp. 139–40.
46
WB 3, p. 405: ‘O genoegelijcke hymen, / Als uw tong begint te rijmen, / Op het
velt of in het koor / Lijmt gij alles aan uw oor, […]’.
47
Unfortunately, two of the ive parts have been lost. On the reconstruction of the
piece, see Noske, ‘Vondel en de muziek; Noske, ‘Padbrué en Vondel’; Van Asperen,
‘Padbrué’s Tranen’. On the cd Dutch heatre Music 1600–1650 of Camerata Trajectina,
44
vondel’s theatre and music
151
Joost van den Vondel, Gebroeders, t’Amsterdam, by Dominicus vander Stichel, for Abraham de Wees, 1640. 4°. KB 392
H 28, fol. 6v–7r.
152
louis peter grijp and jan bloemendal
Our Dutch playwright, and exceptionally talented Poet, Van den Vondel
had staged this so poignantly and edifyingly, that my music was inlamed
to stage the choral odes and follow his metres and rhymes with strings and
voices, and to represent the power of and force of his style naturally and
powerfully in such a way that my notes, as they told me, touched on Your
Honour’s heart and moved it almost to tears, when Your Honour’s ears
heard the bitter laments of our Simon Peter and his companion Paul.48
Obviously Vondel had been moved almost to tears when he heard his
verses set to music by Padbrué. It is impossible that this happened at a
regular performance in the Amsterdam municipal theatre. here
Vondel’s play has never been staged, due to its Catholic character.
Perhaps Padbrué initially composed the choruses, as in Gebroeders,
and then went on to set other verses to music when it became clear that
the play would not be staged. hus it was possible to attain at least a
musical performance, though in a condensed form.
In sum, in Vondel there are several types of musical passages: contrafacta on existing melodies and music composed especially for the situation, such as in Gebroeders and Peter en Pauwels. We do not know
whether music was composed for Vondel’s songs in drama prior to
Gebroeders. One possibility is the Chorus of Nuns from Gysbreght van
Aemstel, the melody of which has sometimes been ascribed to Padbrué.
he main argument for this is in fact merely that there are no musical
sources or mention of that melody before 1638, when Gysbreght
debuted.
here is yet another way of recognising musical passages in theatre
pieces that has not been mentioned so far: so-called ‘cantat-formulas’.
For instance, in Adam in ballingschap (Adam Exiled, 1664) Adam
introduces the Chorus of Guardian Angels (Rey van Wachtengelen) as
follows:
Guardian angels, follow our track. Break into a merry song. Tell us
By turns about the origin of all things.
one of Padbrué’s choruses from De Tranen has been recorded, reconstructed by
Louis Grijp.
48
Padbrué, ‘Dedication to Symon Felt’ in Padbrué, De Tranen Petri ende Pauli:
‘Onze Neerlantsche Dichter, en zonderlingh begaefde Poët, van de Vondel had dit zoo
beweechlyck en stightelyck op het tooneel gebrocht, dat myn Zang-kunst ontvonckt
wert, om de reyen op het tooneel aen te voeren, zyn maet en rymen met snaeren en
stemmen te volgen, en de kracht en het pit van dien styl naer myn vermogen wat natuerlyck en krachtigh uyt te beelden, zulcks dat myn Nooten, zo my gezeyt wiert, uw E.
Hart raeckten, en bykans tot traenen beweeghde, als uwe E. Lief-hebbende ooren het
bitt’re traen geluit van onsen Symon Petrus en zyn mee-gezel Paulus omvingen’, cited
from Veldhorst, De perfecte verleiding, p. 214, n. 142.
vondel’s theatre and music
153
he resonance of Paradise inspires desire to sing along with you
How this universe was made so gloriously out of nothing.49
his appeal is followed by a threefold Strophe and Antistrophe (Zang
and Tegenzang) by the guardian angels, written in six typically long
Vondel stanzas of fourteen verses each, which in no way suggest a contrafactum of a popular song. We may speculate that Vondel nevertheless intended this chorus to be sung, hoping for a composer to set it to
music. On the other hand, he must have realised that a stage performance was most unlikely at that time, because ater Gebroeders the
plays that Vondel (who converted to Catholicism) wrote were no longer
staged as regularly, and ater Padbrué’s setting of Peter en Pauwels, no
music was composed for any of his theatrical texts.
One may wonder whether the composed polyphonic music in
Gebroeders (1640) marked a turn in Vondel’s relation to theatre music
from the contrafactum system to composed music,50 for which Padbrué’s
setting of Peter en Pauwels was a logical consequence. his does not
seem to be the case. On the contrary, we have observed above that even
in his later tragedies, which had become closet dramas, Vondel occasionally adopted a chorus that could be sung to a popular tune.
Six years ater Vondel’s death one of his late pieces was performed
ater all. In 1685 Govert Bidloo staged Vondel’s Faëton, Ot reuckelose
stoutheid (Phaeton, or Reckless Valour, 1663) in his own adaptation.51
his play on the overambitious son of the Sun god who wished to drive
his father’s chariot but failed, had never been performed during
Vondel’s life. It took a daring defender of Vondel’s plays to get it staged.
In Bidloo’s interpretation, Faëton became a musical-dramatic show
with music and dance, as well as pomp and circumstance and theatrical
machines. Bidloo even added musical choruses. We might say that justice was done to Vondel ater all, but there were also critics complaining that Bidloo had violated Vondel’s piece.
What about the set music scenes that Veldhorst discerned in the
plays of Jan Harmensz. Krul (1601–1646) and that she extended to
seventeenth-century drama in general – guardian and prison scenes,
49
Vondel, Adam in ballingschap, ll. 211–214: ‘Wachtenglen, volght ons spoor. het
vrolijck aen: ontvout, / By beurte op eene ry, den oirsprong aller dingen. / De galm van
’t paradijs schept lust u na te zingen / Hoe dit heelal uit niet zoo heerlijck wiert gebout.’
50
his was suggested in Grijp, ‘Muziek en literatuur’, p. 252.
51
See on this Rasch, ‘19 februari 1685’; Veldhorst, De perfecte verleiding, n. 147,
gives an interesting addition about the melodies involved.
154
louis peter grijp and jan bloemendal
serenade, sacriice and sleeping scene? he only one of these scenes to
which Vondel seems to have felt attracted is the sacriice. In Het Pascha
the Chorus of Israelites is singing during Moses’s ofering. But at this
time the musical sacriice was not yet a set scene; in fact, it was the irst
musical sacriicial scene on the Dutch stage.52 Furthermore, the famous
four-part Chorus of Priests in Gebroeders, sung when King David
enters the temple, recalls the atmosphere of a sacriice. In Jeptha the
Chorus of Virgins sings when Jephthah’s daughter has prepared herself
for sacriice – although the sacriice itself is not shown onstage. Finally
there may have been musical elements in the Mass scene in Gysbreght
van Aemstel (1637) that could also be regarded as a kind of sacriice.
But we do not know this for sure; the burgomasters protested against
the ‘display of forms of papistic superstition such as Masses and other
ceremonies’ and the play was not allowed to be performed until the
Mass scene had been removed.53
Conclusion
Applying methods such as strophic heuristics to Vondel’s drama texts,
we have found that some of his plays contain contrafacta, i.e. texts
meant to be sung to popular tunes, just as other Golden Age authors
did for their theatre plays. Unlike them, Vondel wanted only choruses
to be sung and did not write solo songs. Vondel’s production of theatre
contrafacta is not very high: we have found them in at most a dozen out
of the more than thirty plays we investigated. But it is possible that
Vondel expected his choral texts to be set to music by composers such
as his friend Cornelis hymansz. Padbrué, especially his extensive choruses composed of Strophes, Antistrophes and Epodes, written in long
ingenious stanzas. Our most striking observation is that ater Vondel’s
plays were not performed on stage anymore, he did not change his
musical policy when writing new plays: he continued to include contrafacta in some of his dramas and sometimes suggested that his choruses
should be sung. Although he must have realised that his plays would
serve as closet dramas, Vondel obviously continued to conceive of them
as being accompanied by a performance, including singing and music.
Veldhorst De perfecte verleiding, p. 137.
‘[…] verthooninghe van de superstitien van de paperije als misse en andere ceremonien’. See Sterck in WB, 3, p. 514; unsurprisingly, the ministers of the Reformed
church disapproved of theatre in general, see, for instance, Duits, ‘11 november 1621’.
52
53
vondel’s theatre and music
155
APPENDIX. Contrafacta in plays by Vondel
he numbers of volumes and pages refer to the WB-edition.
Het Pascha ote De verlossinge Israels wt Egijpten (1612)
— Act 2 (1, p. 219) Choor ‘Steenen Pharao wilt swichten’: stanza of Psalm 38
— Act 4 (1, p. 242) Den reye der Israeliten zinghen ‘Hebreen speelt s’Hemels
lof ’: quoted as a tune indication in Achabs Treur-spel (1618) by Abraham de
Koning
— Act 5 (1, p. 252) Hymne ote lof-zangh vanden Israelijtschen reye ‘Nu
zinght, nu speelt, nu reyt en danst’: stanza of ‘De lustelijke mei’
Palamedes ot Vermoorde onnoselheyd (1625)
— Act 1 (2, p. 644) Rey van Eubeërs [and] Rey van Ithakoisen ‘Wy Krijslien
passen op ons’ beurt’: stanza of ‘Coridon en Sylvia’
Hippolytus of Rampsalige kuyscheyd (1628)
— Act 2 (3, p. 230) Rey ‘Sneller vlied hy met sijn’ voet’: stanzas of ‘Phoebus is
lang over de zee’ and ‘Sei tanto gratioso’
— Act 4 (3, p. 248) Rey ‘Hoe draeyt Fortuyn het al’: tune indication in the
margin ‘Het was een jonger held’
Gysbreght van Aemstel (1637)
— Act 1 (3, p. 547) Rey van Amsterdamsche maeghden ‘Nu stelt het puick van
zoete keelen’, quoted as tune indication by Vondel himself and others
— Act 2 (3, p. 557) Rey van edelingen ‘Wy edelingen, bly van geest’: stanza of
Psalm 13
— Act 3 (3, p. 565) Rey van Klaerissen ‘O Kersnacht, schooner dan de daegen’:
quoted as tune indication for dozens of song texts
— Act 4 (3, p. 570) Rey [van Klaerissen] ‘Vergun, o God, op zijne bede’ (Hymn
of Simeon): tune indication ‘Bedruckte harteke’ (in Vondel’s Poëzy (1650), p.
574)
— Act 4 (3, p. 577) Rey van Burghzaten ‘Waer werd oprechter trouw’: stanza
of ‘N’espérez plus mes yeux’ (A. de Boësset)
Joseph in Egypten (1640)
— Appendix to the play (4, p. 247) Gesang van d’Egyptische Goden APIS en
ISIS ‘Och Apis Apis och wat haet’: tune indication ‘Object dont les charmes
si doux’
Leeuwendalers (1647)
— Act 5 (5, p. 353) Rey van Leeuwendalers ‘’tIs bruilot in de weide’: unidentiied lyrical stanza, possibly of ‘Hoe zalig zijn de landen’
Salomon (1648)
— Act 2 (5, p. 390) Hojofers ‘Nu zingt Astarte lof ’: stanza of ‘Ach ongelukkige
dag’
156
louis peter grijp and jan bloemendal
Lucifer (1654)
— Act 5 (5, p. 689) Rey van Engelen ‘Gezegent zy de Helt’: stanza of ‘Questa
dolce sirena’
Jeptha of Oferbelote (1659)
— Act 1 (8, p. 792) Rey van Maeghden ‘O Galaäd’: stanza of ‘O Schepper ier’
— Act 2 (8, p. 806) Rey van Maeghden ‘Aertsvader Josef, och’: stanza of ‘Questa
dolce sirena’
— Act 3 (8, p. 828) Rey van Maeghden ‘Toen d’oude dwinglant van den Nijl’:
stanza of ‘Objet dont les charmes si doux’
— Act 4 (8, p. 838) Rey van Maeghden ‘Laet gehoorzaemheit’: stanza of
‘Blijdschap van mij vliet’
Koning Edipus Uit Sofokles (1660)
— (8, p. 919) Edipus ‘Citheron, spel ick met mijn’ mont’: possibly stanza of
‘Wanneer de zon het morgenrood’ or ‘Aan watervlieten Babylon’
Faëton of Reuckeloze Stoutheit (1663)
— Act 1 (6, p. 43) Rey van Uuren ‘Verhefen we eenstemmigh met lofgedicht’:
stanza of ‘De lustelijke mei’
Noah of ondergang der Eerste weerelt (1667)
— Act 3 (10, p. 436) Jofers ‘Zou het al zinken en vergaen’: stanza of ‘Crakougie’
which is possibly ‘Quand la bergère’
CHAPTER NINE
VONDEL’S DRAMAS: THEIR AFTERLIFE IN PERFORMANCE
Mieke B. Smits-Veldt
he festive inauguration of the Amsterdam Schouwburg on 3 January
1638 with a performance of Vondel’s Gysbreght van Aemstel had established him as the Netherlands’ leading playwright. his play about the
dramatic downfall of medieval Amsterdam and its unsuccessful
defence against an army from Haarlem by brave city lord Van Aemstel
struck home perfectly. he cunning attack by the vengeful enemy on
Christmas night, the seizure of the Carthusian monastery outside the
city walls, the depiction of Gijsbreght’s fruitless battle to save the city,
the despair of his loyal wife, the unscrupulous killing of the nuns in the
Clarissen Convent: it appealed to everything that could enthral an
Amsterdam Schouwburg audience. he shocking reversals of fortune
faced by their forebears, the emotional dialogues and bloodcurdling
narratives, the lyrical choruses and horriic spectacles, all set in an
Amsterdam ravaged by lames, evoked memories of their own recent
conlict with Spain, but it also illed residents of Amsterdam with pride
in their city, which ater its medieval decline had now risen again in
glory. For centuries, Gysbreght van Aemstel would remain Amsterdam’s
favourite play.1 It would be staged each year (bar one) around New Year
until 1968, from 1841 always on New Year’s Day. hese were performances to which parents took their children to give them their irst
experience of the theatre.2
In the years that followed it was impossible to imagine Dutch theatre
without Vondel. He was heavily involved in the stage management and
his dramatic productivity was astonishing. In 1641, aside from
Gysbreght, ive more of his dramas were staged, all written ater
Gysbreght and all destined for lasting success: three plays telling the
1
Vondel, Gysbreght van Aemstel, ed. Smits-Veldt; Van Gemert, ‘3 januari 1638: De
opening van de Amsterdamse Schouwburg’; Smits-Veldt, ‘3 januari 1638: Opening van
de Amsterdamse Schouwburg’.
2
Albach, Drie eeuwen ‘Gijsbreght van Aemstel’, p. 95.
158
mieke b. smits-veldt
story of the Joseph of the Old Testament (one of the three translated
from a Latin play written by Hugo Grotius), a translation of Sophocles’
Elektra, and his next biblical drama called Gebroeders (Brothers, 1640),
his irst play to be written entirely in the style of Greek tragedy. In that
same Schouwburg, until 1665 when the theatre was completely renovated, a further eleven plays by Vondel debuted, six of them treating
biblical themes. However, with a couple of exceptions (Salomon in
1650 and Jeptha in 1659), these were far less popular with audiences.3
Four plays from this period were not in fact performed at all, partly
because the playwright (now Catholic) was broaching issues that were
far too ‘Roman Catholic’, and partly because there were more and more
complaints being put forward about the religious themes of Vondel’s
mostly biblical dramas. One of the four plays that were not staged, the
biblical Adam in ballingschap (Adam Exiled, 1664), would go on to
become a popular play many years later. Aside from this Vondel complained that he was being hampered by the inluential director of the
Schouwburg, Jan Vos, who gave roles in his plays to incompetent actors
and dressed them in old, threadbare costumes. In truth his deeply serious tragedies, in which words and argumentation were central, and his
never-ending call to moral relection, no longer satisied the growing
taste for visually appealing and varied spectacle – in contrast to
Gysbreght. People had also begun to demand a degree of excitement. In
Vondel’s plays the dénouement came too soon and its efect was dissipated by long discourses in loty language that audiences found hard to
follow.4 Incidentally, Jan Vos, the great master of allegorical representation, embellished Lucifer (1654) and Jeptha (1659) with spectacular
displays in mime, presumably to boost takings. Vondel himself seems
in some cases to have let room for so-called ‘tableaux vivants’ to meet
the demand for visual gratiication.5 Perhaps Lucifer might have been a
success if the Calvinist clergy had not protested so vehemently to the
burgomasters against a play that was set in heaven, but as it was the
work was performed only twice. Ater the renovation of the Schouwburg
none of the four dramas Vondel was to write between 1666 and his
death in 1679 were performed onstage.
In 1665 the Amsterdam Schouwburg acquired a deep stage with
wings. From this point on, with scenery that could easily be changed,
3
4
5
Oey-de Vita and Geesink, Academie en schouwburg.
Porteman and Smits-Veldt, Een nieuw vaderland voor de muzen, pp. 378, 528, 707.
Smits-Veldt, ‘Vertoningen in opvoeringen van Vondels tragedies’.
vondel’s dramas: their afterlife in performance
159
many plays performed there were solemn afairs, usually translations
of classicistic French works. Moreover, the theatre was now equipped
with complex machinery that made sensational efects possible. It was
on this stage, therefore, that Gysbreght van Aemstel was performed
annually, in part in the setting of the classicistic ‘Great Hall’ scenery,
with paintings and niches created by the famous painter Gerard de
Lairesse (1640–1711). Here the angel Raphael, who at the end of the
play instructs Gijsbreght to leave the city with his family and go into
exile, could literally descend from the heavens in a painted cloud,
which parted at the bottom.6 But probably not long ater 1678, when
the management of the Schouwburg was taken over by the society Nil
volentibus arduum with its French classicistic orientation, Vondel’s
texts were taken to task. he French classicists wished to avoid anything that could be implausible or ofensive. he treatment of biblical
subjects was regarded as objectionable in itself, which precluded performance of most of Vondel’s plays, as was any religious allusion, especially to the Catholic faith that the characters in Gysbreght adhere to
purely and simply because the play had been set in medieval Amsterdam.
As a result many passages in this play were omitted or altered to make
them religiously neutral, including the hymns sung in the convent. In a
stage script printed in 1729, giving the text as it had been performed
‘these many years past’, the choruses have been scrapped too. hey only
interrupted the action, and as group performances they were regarded
by Nil as illogical.7 Gysbreght was popular with actors and over the centuries the main roles were performed by the leading names of their day.
In the years before 1745 Jan Punt excelled at stylised melodramatic acting and what was known as the ‘heroic tone of Holland’, a melodious,
declamatory delivery that increasingly met with resistance in the third
quarter of the eighteenth century. Until well into that century medieval
heroes continued to be dressed in contemporary costumes, Gijsbreght
appearing in a wig, tails, and white silk stockings, his wife Badeloch in
a hoop skirt, and in an illustration from 1745 the angel loats down in
a splendid Watteau-style gown.8 he tableau vivant that depicts the
murder of the Clarissan nuns and Bishop Gozewijn, who has sought
Albach, Drie eeuwen ‘Gijsbreght van Aemstel’, p. 34.
Vondel, Gysbrecht van Aemstel (1729); Van der Haven, ‘ “Dat dan de Schouwburg
nooit op godsdienst schempe of smaal…” ’, pp. 6–14.
8
Albach, Drie eeuwen ‘Gijsbreght van Aemstel’, pp. 49–50, 54.
6
7
160
mieke b. smits-veldt
sanctuary in their convent, remained a standard attraction. his is how
it would have been presented to the audience in the eighteenth century:
ater enemy troops had forced their way into the convent and the nuns
and the bishop had been stabbed, the curtain would fall, to be raised a
few minutes later to reveal a stirring tableau of expressively posed
groups of murderers and the murdered.9
Along with the ever successful Gysbreght, Vondel’s Joseph plays survived the changed climate at the Schouwburg for several more years,
despite opposition to the staging of biblical material. Since 1653 they
had been combined into a single performance, and until 1708 audiences could enjoy the portrayal of the old Bible story of Joseph at regular intervals, from his brothers’ treachery to his dramatic confrontation
with Potiphar’s lecherous wife, his ascension to the position of viceroy
of Egypt, and his pardoning of his now humble brothers. In 1690 and
1706 Schouwburg director Jan Pluimer made several further less than
wholly successful attempts to breathe new life into the drama Batavische
gebroeders (Batavian Brothers), which had been performed a mere
three times in 1663, during the First Stadtholderless Period (1650–
1672).10 In 1663 audiences had been able to make a direct connection
between the events of their own time, when the ascent of the young
William III was seen as a real threat, and the resistance mounted by
freedom ighter Claudius Civilis and his brother to the infringement of
‘Batavian freedom’ by a Roman Stadtholder many centuries earlier. In
1690 Amsterdam had a tense relationship with the new Stadtholder
and in 1702 another Stadtholderless era began. If Pluimer had been
hoping to revive the political connotations of the play, then he failed to
ind a willing audience. Furthermore, the irst time around he hedged
his bets by providing the play with an allegorical prelude which actually paid tribute to William III.11
What did go down well was excitement, emotion, a feast for eyes and
ears, with plenty of music, song and dance. In 1684–1687 grand allegorical occasional plays and lyrical dramas that met these requirements
were a speciality of the physician Govert Bidloo (1649–1713). his
same period saw lavish experimentation with productions of French
operas, probably performed by French troupes. In 1685 Bidloo tackled
two of Vondel’s non-biblical tragedies whose content was mythological,
9
10
11
Albach, ‘De vertoning van de kloostermoorden’, pp. 331–33.
De Haas, Het repertoire van de Amsterdamse Schouwburg 1700–1772.
Smits-Veldt, ‘Vertoningen in opvoeringen van Vondels tragedies’, p. 217.
vondel’s dramas: their afterlife in performance
161
and which also, in line with classicistic rules, lent themselves well to
embellishment with spectacular and essentially implausible stage
efects. hey were Faëton (Phaeton, 1663), which tells the dramatic
story of the reckless son of the sun king crashing to earth in his father’s
sun chariot, and then Salmoneus (1657), about an arrogant king who
tries to rival the god Jupiter. Faëton had never been staged before, but
Salmoneus had been. Vondel had written the latter play to make good
the inancial blow the Schouwburg had sufered as a result of the ban
on Lucifer (1654): ater all, the heavenly scenery could be reused for
Salmoneus, despite its heathen setting. he play had met with some
success in 1657, perhaps partly because of the tableaux vivants inserted
into it. Bidloo’s solution was not static tableaux, however, but additional
scenes with songs, ballet, mime, and much use of the machinery the
Schouwburg had had at its disposal since 1665. Faëton especially
became a true showpiece. Bidloo made few changes to the main text,
but the play now opened with a Prologue in four scenes, in which several mythological and a large number of allegorical igures such as
Night, Care, Work, Alertness, Sleep, Aurora, and the Hours of the Day
portrayed the end of the night and the coming of daytime in speech,
singing, and dancing. hen the impressive decor of the Court of the
Sun was revealed. Even the lightning strike that causes Phaeton to crash
amid clamorous calamity into the River Po along with his chariot must
also have been tremendously impressive.12 Bidloo introduced additional
characters and sizeable chunks of text from his own hand into Salmoneus
as well, again interlarding the play with song and dance, performed this
time not by allegorical igures but by shepherds and shepherdesses, a
chorus of soothsayers, maidens, and suchlike. A speaking picture of an
oracle was introduced as an added attraction. As in Faëton, the fall of
the central character is portrayed in an interpolated entr’acte full of
thunder, lightning, and unceasing action, followed by singing and dancing performed by ‘wrestling Slaves’: a sensually gratifying spectacle.13
Faëton in particular was a great success in 1685 and 1686, although
not everyone was delighted. In a satirical ‘ode’ actor Hermannus
Brinkhuizen protested against what he regarded as an ignoble corruption of Vondel’s texts and asked whether Vondel had perhaps at some
12
Rasch, ‘19 februari 1655: Onder regie van Govard Bidloo wordt Vondels Faëton
opgevoerd’. Bidloo’s productions in Vondel, De werken, ed. Van Lennep, 10,
pp. 331–44.
13
Vondel, De werken, ed. Van Lennep, 7, pp. 117–30.
162
mieke b. smits-veldt
point worried that without such trappings his ‘style, and reasoning’
would displease the audience.14 But in 1715 the embellished Faëton was
put on again and it was staged fairly regularly until 1761. As late as
1810 it was performed three times.15 In 1865 Jacob van Lennep, who
had grown up to become a Vondel expert, still remembered going with
his father to see it, as an eight-year-old boy. he characters had been
shabbily dressed, he remembered. he Hours of the Day and the Night,
for example, were not wearing the beautiful robes described by Bidloo
or, in the case of Night, dark, star-spangled veils. Instead they were
played by ladies dressed in white, who wore an indication of their role
only on their belts. Even eighteenth-century directors had been
stumped by Vondel’s script: the hemelraed or ‘council of heaven’, by
which Vondel meant a gathering of all the gods of Olympus, was presented as a distinguished old gentleman with powdered wig and beard,
a kind of Geheimrat (privy councillor).16
In the eighteenth century, allegorical ornamentation of non-mythological plays was concentrated in separate tableaux vivants performed
between the acts. Such displays were still immensely popular. hus the
drama Vondel had written in his youth, Palamedes (1625), experienced
a substantial revival in the second Stadtholderless era (1702–1747),
with three allegorical tableaux vivants introduced by the dramatist
Pieter Langendijk. In 1625 Palamedes had been an indictment (in classical guise) of the execution of Grand Pensionary Oldenbarnevelt; it
paid tribute to the innocent hero, while Stadholder Maurits was pilloried. Vondel came close to being convicted by the Hof van Holland
(‘High Court of Holland’) and the play was subject to a strict ban. In
1664 it was performed for the irst time, in Rotterdam, by the travelling
players of Jan Baptist van Fornenbergh, who had achieved great success
in the Baltic states.17 A number of performances in Amsterdam followed. In this period Palamedes became part of a revived discussion
about the future of the young William III, as had Batavische gebroeders
two years before. In 1707, when the Republic went through another
period without a stadholder, Palamedes was relaunched in the Amsterdam Schouwburg, where thirty performances took place over the next
forty years. Langendijk’s tableaux, irst described in the printed edition
14
Smits-Veldt, ‘Vertoningen in opvoeringen van Vondels tragedies’, p. 217.
Amir and Groen, ‘De opvoeringsgeschiedenis van Vondels treurspel Faëton’,
pp. 442–43.
16
Vondel, De werken, ed. Van Lennep, 10, pp. 329–30.
17
Albach, Langs kermissen en hoven, p. 96.
15
vondel’s dramas: their afterlife in performance
163
of 1734, may have been included in performances as early as 1707.
Initially the imprisonment of Palamedes was portrayed as a desecration of the law by political ambition, a summary of sorts of the third
act. Justice, leeing Tyranny, has been dethroned by Ambition. As a
result Freedom has succumbed and Commonwealth, along with
Harmony, Wisdom, Alertness, and Truth, are in mourning. he second
tableau portrays the death of Palamedes, stoned by Ulysses and
Diomedes in the company of the Furies who, ater a spoken explanation, make way for Time and Truth to descend. Finally the image of
Palamedes, surrounded by his personiied virtues, was embraced by
Freedom while his enemies lie chained at his feet, whereupon Fama
lies up to heaven. Langendijk made clear in an explanatory note that
these displays actually add nothing of value to the famous play and
were purely intended to entice the ignorant to the Schouwburg.18
Meanwhile several of Vondel’s plays had really taken of in Brussels
in the Southern Netherlands, each one adapted and embellished with
colourful displays and ballets by Brussels rhetorician Jan Frans
Cammaert, who specialised in adaptations and translations from the
French repertoire. In 1746 ‘De Wijngaard’ (‘he Vineyard’) put on the
irst ever performance of Adam in ballingschap (Adam Exiled, 1664) in
the Muntschouwburg in Brussels. It would not be staged in the North
until the twentieth century. In Cammaert’s hands this tragedy about
the dramatic reversal of fortune experienced by the irst human couple
underwent a veritable metamorphosis to satisfy the tastes of a large
audience. Cut, pruned, but also provided with supplementary material,
the colourful production now opened with six scenes, each portraying
one of the days of creation, followed by a ballet, a seventh scene, and a
song in which the outcome was divulged: Michael’s victory over Lucifer
and the fall of the ‘evil’ angels. As well as ballet dancing by subterranean
spirits, triumphant devils, and ‘good’ angels in mourning, spectators
were treated to two scenes in which God descended from heaven
accompanied by a host of angels, and a inal scene in which Adam and
Eve were driven out of paradise by Uriel. In 1748 Cammaert took on
Samson, probably giving his dramaturgical imagination just as much
free rein. A single reference is all that remains, but we know from a
theatre programme that he also produced an adaptation of Salomon in
the Muntschouwburg in 1762, this time performed by ‘De Leliebloem’
18
Smits-Veldt, ‘Vertoningen in opvoeringen van Vondels tragedies’, pp. 217–18. For
Langendijk’s displays see Vondel, De werken, ed. Van Lennep, 2, Nalezing, pp. 27–30.
164
mieke b. smits-veldt
(‘he Lily Flower’). In this staging he allowed himself even more freedom than he had with Adam in ballingschap: this text too was embellished with displays and ballet and substantially rewritten.19 Unlike
Bidloo and Langendijk, Cammaert, it seems, made no use of allegory.
In the 1840s, lyrical drama, ballet, and emotive plays with a lot of
varied action had almost completely driven the classical tragedy of the
stage and the more cultivated of theatre audiences had taken light. he
time had come to raise the national theatre to a higher level by consciously promoting the classical Dutch repertoire. At least, such was
the opinion of the members of Achilles, the Amsterdam society set up
for this purpose and that emphatically presented itself as a chamber of
rhetoric. Even before its oicial founding on 18 March 1846 it had
given a public recital of a classical, early eighteenth-century tragedy,
and a little over six months later it was the turn of Vondel’s Lucifer. An
invited audience of more than ive hundred listened attentively to the
declamation of one lady and thirteen gentlemen, who spoke their parts
dressed in black dress coats, white waistcoats, and white gloves. he
most impressive among them was theatre expert, author of historical
novels and admirer of Vondel, Jacob van Lennep, whose delivery of the
lines of archangel Michael was, in spite of his hoarse voice, the best.
Van Lennep had been the heart and soul of Achilles for some time; even
before this he had recited fragments from Vondel’s dramas for the Felix
Meritis society along with a number of his friends, and now he had
been directing preparations for the recital of Lucifer for at least six
months. Later there were also performances of Adam in ballingschap
and the pastoral play Leeuwendalers, which Vondel had written for the
celebrations of the Peace of Münster. Even Gysbreght van Aemstel was
recited, in its original, complete version, refocusing attention onto
Vondel’s text, in contrast to the deicient acted versions.20
Van Lennep’s eforts to elevate the tastes of theatre audiences
made little headway at irst. Despite attempts to improve them (a royal
commission was even set up specially for the purpose), performances
of Gysbreght remained fairly unedifying – the Clarissan nuns giggled,
and the dumb show was a lop every time. he play was now being performed everywhere in various theatres in Amsterdam, – ‘embellished
with processions, ights, and Bengali lighting’ – in he Hague and
19
Cammaert, Straf en de dood van Balthassar, ed. Langvik-Johannessen and
Waterschoot, 1, pp. 20–30.
20
Schravendeel, ‘De Amsterdamse rederijkerskamer Achilles’; Van den Berg, ‘11
december 1846: Vondel in de voordracht’.
vondel’s dramas: their afterlife in performance
165
Rotterdam, and even at fairs and in the homes of distinguished
Amsterdam families.21 Ater 1860, however, more care was taken over
performances of Gysbreght, with much emphasis in realist style on the
romanticism of the medieval environment in which it was set. In 1841
an attractive new edition of the script appeared, with fourteen romantic plates by Charles Rochussen that became the model for the scenery
and costumes used in performances in the second half of the nineteenth century.22 he theatrical gestures and booming delivery that had
since become the typical thespian manner remained in vogue until the
end of the century, but in the 1890s there was increasing resistance to
traditional-realist performances and appeals were heard for purity and
restraint in acting, delivery, and staging. In 1894, on the occasion of a
new performance to mark the opening of a new municipal theatre, the
Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg on the Leidseplein, a luxury edition was
published that cautiously ushered in a new era. Alongside illustrations
by the painter Antoon Derkinderen and a series of set designs by the
architect H.P. Berlage, it included a lengthy introductory study by
L. Simons, although he still opted for the romantic, realist approach.23
With the reaction against traditional theatre and revived attention to
the power and beauty of the spoken word, other plays by Vondel were
given a chance as well. As early as 1879, on the occasion of the second
centenary of Vondel’s death, Leeuwendalers was performed at the
Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg, according to instructions from Vondel
expert Alberdingk hijm.24 But at that time this was still a fairly traditional afair, though further performances followed in 1902 and 1905.25
A truly radical reaction to baroque ostentation was the production of
Vondel’s Maeghden (Maidens, 1639) by the symbolist artist André
Jolles. In 1898 he presented a version of this drama about Catholic
martyrdom as a lyrical oratorio, in which all theatricality was deliberately eschewed. he actors in the leading roles were surrounded on
both sides by the rest of the cast and whoever’s turn it was to speak
would take a step forward.26 Jolles had them deliver their lines in sot,
Albach, Drie eeuwen ‘Gijsbreght van Aemstel’, pp. 94, 96.
Vondel, Gysbrecht van Aemstel (ill. Rochussen); Albach, Drie eeuwen ‘Gijsbreght
van Aemstel’, p. 98.
23
Vondel, Gysbreght van Aemstel, ed. Simons; Albach, Drie eeuwen ‘Gijsbreght van
Aemstel’, pp. 119–20.
24
Vondel, Leeuwendalers, ed. Alberdingk hijm.
25
Vondel, Leeuwendalers, ed. Stoett, p. 4.
26
Albach, ‘De vertoning van de kloostermoorden’, p. 334; Van der Zalm, ‘Rooyaards
in revisie’, p. 107.
21
22
166
mieke b. smits-veldt
lilting voices and in protracted tones, inspired by the recital of Verlaine
that had toured the Netherlands in 1892. In both the professional and
amateur theatre Vondel was to receive increasing attention from the
early twentieth century onwards. Joseph in Dothan was staged in
Rotterdam and in 1904 students in Utrecht performed Lucifer.
heatrical innovator Willem Royaards introduced a wholly new
style. In accordance with the ideals of the literary movement of his day
known as the Tachtigers (the Eighties Movement), Royaards was concerned above all with the beautiful sound of the verse, which needed to
be presented to audiences as art. he sober stage sets now called on
spectators to use their imaginations: no more realistically painted
backdrops but instead decorative, stylised scenery that created an
expressive space for the actors to move in. Royaards would present
three sensational productions of Vondel’s dramas, with which he also
toured Belgium. In 1908 his company ‘Het Tooneel’ (he Stage) showcased itself with a performance of Adam in ballingschap in the Paleis
voor Volksvlijt in Amsterdam. Royaards’ young wife, Jacqueline
Sandberg, played Eve in a white robe à la Botticelli’s Primavera and
delighted the audience with her beguiling, understated acting.27 It was
followed in 1910 by a production of Lucifer that did away with realism
completely. he artist R.N. Roland Holst had designed a classical structure with a backdrop of sky-blue fabric, the angels were wingless and
had been dressed in symbolic colours: light for the faithful, dark for the
renegades.28 Royaards’ third and inal Vondel production, again highly
stylised, was of Gysbreght, staged during the Dutch music festival of
June 1912. his performance in the Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg was
a prestigious afair, and the entire royal family and many dignitaries
were present. To the artistically-minded audience Vondel’s lines seemed
to resound for the irst time. Against a sober set by Frits Lensvelt, with
curtains hanging in folds and architectural forms inspired by the unfulilled designs of Berlage, the brightly coloured costumes stood out
intensely and delighted the eye with their harmony. here was huge
admiration for the way in which Royaards made his actors move and
how he grouped them, in stark contrast to the old, static productions.29
A little while later the theatrical producer Eduard Verkade adopted an
27
Van der Zalm, ‘Rooyaards in revisie’, pp. 109–12.
Van der Zalm, ‘Rooyaards in revisie’, pp. 112–15.
29
Albach, Drie eeuwen ‘Gijsbreght van Aemstel’, 121–24; Van der Zalm, ‘Rooyaards
in revisie’, pp. 115–18.
28
vondel’s dramas: their afterlife in performance
167
approach along the same lines, although in his productions of Gysbreght
he did bring out the medieval mysticism of the play.30 His pursuit of
spirituality was also expressed in a production of Maria Stuart that he
directed in 1929.
For many years musical accompaniment had been an important element in performances and it was oten entrusted to famous composers.
Ater 1774 settings by Bartholomeus Rulofs of two songs sung by the
Clarissan nuns had been included in Gysbreght. At this point a start was
also made on reciting a few choruses, which previously had been omitted. In 1839 Johannes Verhulst composed music for the play, including
a prelude, and in 1894 it was Bernard Zweers who set all the choruses
to music, sung by choirs, as well as composing a prelude to each act and
a short postlude. He also, for example, provided music to accompany
Raphael’s emergence from heaven. In his Gysbreght Royaards used
compositions by Alphons Diepenbrock performed by the orchestra of
the Concertgebouw conducted by Willem Mengelberg at the music festival of 1912. He later added music by heo van der Bijl.31 For his Adam
in ballingschap and Lucifer he signed up Hubert Cuypers. To mark the
three hundred and itieth anniversary of Vondel’s birthday in 1937,
Hendrik Badings was commissioned to compose new music for
Gysbreght and Willem Pijper for Faëton, directed by Verkade. Vondel’s
Lucifer even became the basis of a symphonic poem by Henry
K. Hadley that was irst performed during the Norfolk Festival in June
1914 and thereater several times in New York.32
Meanwhile Royaards’ touring performances had led to the rediscovery of the Catholic playwright Vondel in Catholic Flanders. his was
the period in which an ideological belief in the function of the theatre
for the masses had led to a greater focus on performances in the open
air. hus between 1921 and 1923 ‘Het Vlaamse Volkstoneel’ (‘he
Flemish People’s heatre’) performed Joseph in Dothan for a large audience with great success. In August 1922 Vondel was played on the city
walls of Sluis and Hulst, and by July 1923 the number of performances
had reached ity. Intent on international prestige, the same company
30
Albach, Drie eeuwen ‘Gijsbreght van Aemstel’, 124–27; for scenery designed by
Royaards and Verkade for performances of Gysbreght see Van Pelt, ‘Januari en februari
1922: De Internationale heatertentoonstelling’, pp. 596–98.
31
Albach, Drie eeuwen ‘Gijsbreght van Aemstel’, pp. 69–70, 102, 113, 123; Valkenburg,
‘De muziek bij Vondels Gysbreght’.
32
Hadley, Lucifer; New York Times, 21 May, 20 November 1914, and 23 July 1922.
With thanks to Karel Porteman.
168
mieke b. smits-veldt
put on Lucifer in the héâtre des Champs Elysees in Paris in 1927.33
Later there were even productions in the Koninklijke Schouwburg of
the relatively neglected plays Noah (in 1930) and Peter and Pauwels, as
well as Adam in ballingschap (in 1936).34
In the 1930s Vondel was staged regularly by both professional and
amateur companies. In the years ater the Second World War, however,
dissatisfaction gradually increased in the professional theatre world
with a choice of repertoire that was regarded as conservative. In
October 1969 this led to united resistance by opponents of the old
guard in what was known as the ‘Aktie Tomaat’ or the ‘Tomato
Campaign’. Even before this, in 1968, the Amsterdam theatre company
‘De Nederlandse Comedie’ had replaced the annual Gysbreght performance with a production of another seventeenth-century play, De
Spaansche Brabander by Bredero, breaking the age-old tradition for
good. Vondel was no longer performed, until he was resurrected at the
end of December 1979 by director Hans Croiset. With a remarkable
production of Lucifer Croiset dispelled the prevailing view that Vondel’s
plays were dated or impossible to stage, and he gained a large audience
by doing so. In dress suits and bowler hats, the rebellious angels
mounted a kind of ‘revolution of oicials’ in heaven, which they traversed using swings and rope ladders. For the irst time people were
able to understand the despair of Lucifer at having to choose between
the assertion of his own rights and absolute obedience to God. he
script, adapted and abridged by dramatist Guus Rekers, was now delivered in a normal speaking voice, and the text acquired a surprising
clarity as a result. hese productions of Lucifer heralded a series of new
interpretations of Vondel plays, for which Croiset used those six
texts that had already been performed at the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1983 he produced Adam in ballingschap based on an
interpretation that was against the grain and that did not meet with the
acclaim of everyone, with scenery depicting Paradise as made up of the
ruins of civilization. He presented Adam and Eve as survivors of a
genial but dictatorial culture in which frenetic eforts were made to
maintain the hold of religion and the power it confers. Ater they have
bitten the apple the true situation becomes clear to them for the irst
33
Opsomer, ‘Mei–juni 1927: Het Vlaamsche Volkstooneel (VVT) en de opvoeringen van Lucifer en Tijl in Parijs’.
34
Benoy, ‘1938: Joris Diels verlaat de Koninklijke Nederlande Schouwburg te
Antwerpen’; Peeters, ‘22 augustus 1909: Openluchtvoorstelling van Philoktetes’.
vondel’s dramas: their afterlife in performance
169
Scene from Vondel’s Gysbreght van Aemstel in an eighteenth-century
performance. he angel Raphael appears unto Gijsbreght and his family. Illustration in J. v. Vondel, Gysbrecht van Aemstel, treurspel. Gelyk
het op den Amsterdamschen Schouwburg vertoond wordt. Amsterdam,
Izaak Duim, 1745. Royal Library, he Hague, 448 L 21.
170
mieke b. smits-veldt
time and they go on to make the best of a world in ruins.35 his was
followed in 1987 by Faëton, in which a connection was suggested
between Phaeton’s fall in his father’s sun chariot, which results in the
disruption of nature, and today’s ecological disasters.36 Ater productions of Gysbreght van Aemstel (1988) and Joseph in Dothan (1996) that
were true to the original scripts, although with cuts,37 Croiset announced
in 1997 that he was planning a production of Jeptha. he outcome,
however, was a fairly loose adaptation by Benno Barnard: Jeta en de
Semitische liefdes (Jephtha and the Semitic Loves, 1998). In this production Jephtha, leader of a Jewish tribe, does not sacriice his daughter
but forces her into an arranged marriage against her will, which results
in her suicide. His actions do not stem from a conviction that he must
fulil his promise to God; his dilemma arises from doubt as to whether
he can break his promise without losing prestige and power. Barnard
ultimately made a connection between Jewish tribal conlict and the
contemporary dilemma as to what attitude Jews should take towards
their enemies.38 hen, in 1998, together with Marcel Otten, Croiset
staged an equally free adaptation of Leeuwendalers and inally in 2001
he produced another Lucifer, this time true to the original. he production was tighter than the 1979 version, with an emphasis on maintaining a grip on possessions and power and on the fear of strangers
(supporters of Lucifer as opposed to newly created mankind), in which
references to modern-day xenophobia can be detected.39
Vondel’s Gysbreght (along with Adam in ballingschap and Joseph in
Dothan) has inspired other directors too in its freely modernised form.
An opera version by Rob Zuidam of Adam in ballingschap had its premiere in Amsterdam in June 2009 and the American singer Claron
McFedden shone as a charming and assertive Eve. he opera was based
on Vondel’s original script. Clearly the work of the great playwright of
the seventeenth century is still capable of rejuvenation.
35
Heijer, ‘Vondels verzenparadijs bloeit op de puinhopen’; Rekers, ‘Adam in
ballingschap’.
36
Heijer, ‘Faëtons val met de zonnewagen als een ecologische ramp’.
37
De Kock, ‘15 december 1979: Het Publiekstheater speelt een opmerkelijke Lucifer’,
pp. 806–07.
38
Stronks, ‘Jephta als eigentijdse vader van een eigentijdse dochter’.
39
Habbema, ‘Croiset maakt theater van Vondel’.
CHAPTER TEN
BETWEEN DISREGARD AND POLITICAL
MOBILIZATION – VONDEL AS A PLAYWRIGHT
IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN CONTEXT: ENGLAND,
FRANCE AND THE GERMAN LANDS
Guillaume van Gemert
Introduction: Outlines of Non-Dutch Vondel Reception
In Daniel Georg Morhof ’s Polyhistor literarius, philosophicus et
practicus, the great manual of education and inventory of contemporary learning, irst published in 1688, Vondel’s name is not mentioned at all; only those ‘Dutch’ authors who made their mark in Latin
Poetry are listed under the heading Poetae recentiores, such as Hugo
Grotius, Daniel Heinsius, Janus Dousa, Caspar Barlaeus and Constantijn
Huygens.1 Morhof, however, deinitely must have known Vondel: in his
Unterricht von der Teutschen Sprache und Poesie from 1682, a history of
German language and literature, as well as an introduction to poetics
and a survey of other Western European literatures, he not only repeatedly quotes from Vondel’s Aenleidinge ter Nederduitsche dichtkunste
(Introduction to Dutch Poetry), but also characterizes him as perhaps
the most outstanding Dutch playwright of his era.2 As regards the
French- and English-speaking countries a similar acquaintance with
Vondel cannot be perceived for the same time period: in Louis Moréri’s
Grand dictionaire historique (1674), for example, he is not itemized at
1
Morhof, Polyhistor, literarius, 1 (1732), pp. 1059–72.
Morhof, Unterricht von der Teutschen Sprache und Poesie, p. 135: ‘Die Schauspiele
sind bey ihnen [the Dutch] zur Vollkommenheit gebracht. Insonderheit hat die Stadt
Amsterdam ein grosses daran gewandt. Da haben sich in grosser Menge gefunden/
welche umb den Preiß hierinne gestrietten. Vor andern hat Jost van Vondel sich hierinnen hervor gethan/ von dessen Comoedien und Tragoedien gantze grosse Tomi heraus
gekommen […]’ (‘hey [the Dutch] perfected drama. he city of Amsterdam was a
particularly signiicant contributor to this process. Many authors were to be found
there striving for the prize for drama. Joost van den Vondel excelled above all others in
this regard, his comedies and tragedies having been published in exceedingly hety
volumes’).
2
172
guillaume van gemert
all, not even in later editions that appeared in the early 18th century;3
and the irst French Vondel appraisal can be found in an anthology,
compiled in 1822, which also presented translations of Gysbrecht van
Aemstel and Lucifer, the irst Vondel plays ever rendered in French.4
Vondel is reckoned here to be ‘le Virgile de la Hollande’,5 and it is suggested that the straightforwardness of his plays could substantially have
swayed the main orientation of Dutch playwriting during his lifetime
towards France rather than towards England or Spain:
Ultimately Dutch theatre should greatly be indebted to Hoot and Vondel,
because they recognized that the classical theatre of antiquity was highly
preferable to English, Spanish or Italian playwriting; and although their
plays ran contrary to actual trends, it is due to their straightforwardness
that newer Dutch theatre caters more to Corneille and Racine than to
Shakespeare and CalderÓn.6
From the English side during the 17th and 18th centuries there
seem only to have been some sporadic references of minor relevance;7 that is to say, a secondhand quote from a letter of Hugo Grotius
by John Dunton (1659–1732)8 and casual mention in a biographic
3
Cf. Moréri, Le grand dictionaire historique and Supplément aux anciennes éditions
du Grand dictionaire historique.
4
Chefs-d’oeuvre du théatre hollandais, 1 (1822), pp. 101–98 and 199–07 respectively.
5
Ibid., p. xiii.
6
Ibid., p. 96: ‘Enin, le théâtre hollandais doit à Hoot et à Vondel une grande reconnaissance de ce qu’ils ont su distinguer combien les pièces de l’antiquité étaient préférables à celles de l’Angleterre, de l’Espagne ou de l’Italie; et quoique leurs pièces soient
contraires au goût actuel, c’est à leur simplicité que les Hollandais doivent l’avantage
d’avoir, dans leurs pièces plus modernes, suivi Corneille et Racine de préférence à
Shakspeare [sic!] et Caldéron.’
7
For these references I am greatly indebted to Dr. Helmer Helmers.
8
Dunton, Young-Students-Library, pp. 51–53: ‘he most noble part of the Criticks,
if we may believe those who make a Profession of it, is that which teacheth us to judge
of Authors to discern their true Works, from those which are Suppositious, to distinguish their stile, to ind out the defects thereof, and to remark the faults they commit.
For that Reason, we shall place here the Judgment that Grotius hath made of divers
Books both Ancient and Modern. […] Justus Vondel. his famous Flemish Poet published in 1638 a Tragedy, which is acted once a year at Amsterdam, entituled Gisbrecht
van Amstel. He dedicated it to Grotius, who makes this judgment thereof in a Letter to
Vossius the 28th of May the same year: Vondel did me a kindness in dedicating unto
me (as to a man who hath some gust of these sort of things) a Tragedy whose subject is
noble, whose order is excellent, and expression ine, &c. It is a folly not to have in a
subject of 300 years, the customs of that time represented. hus is that those of Geneva
in a Frenck Edition of Philip de Comines, have observ’d every where, where the Author
saith that the King heard Mass, that he was at the Lords Supper’. For Dunton see:
ODNB, 17, coll. 366–67.
vondel’s reception abroad
173
article9 as well as in the travelogue of Andrew Becket (1749–1843),10
although some of them may aptly illustrate the contemporary English
perspective on Dutch culture. One of the irst more comprehensive
English statements to Vondel might date back to the traveller and
diplomatist John Bowring (1792–1872).11 In his Sketch of the Language
and Literature of Holland, which appeared in print in 1829, he mainly
categorizes Vondel negatively, comparing him with Shakespeare and
Milton, although he acknowledges him to be the most famous Dutch
poet:
He revels in all the aluence of language – clothes all his thoughts in
poetical expression – but those thoughts are not thoughts of the sublimest range, nor have they much in them of the music of philosophy.
He – a Shakspeare [sic!] of a lower order – overlows equally with beauties and defects. […] Compare him with Milton, – for his Lucifer gives
the fairest means of comparison, – how weak are his highest lights compared with those of the bard of Paradise; and how much does Vondel sink
beneath him in his failures! Now and then the same thought may be
found in both, but the points of resemblance are not in passages which do
Milton’s reputation the highest honour. […] Vondel has rather been
judged of by extracts, which are in every body’s mouth in Holland, than
by any entire piece of composition, or by the whole of his writings; and
undoubtedly he would sink very rapidly if the test of criticism were
applied to the mass of his works.12
Vondel’s contemporary renown abroad, in other European countries, is
mostly in accord with the extent of his reception there, in terms of
translation of his writings into the respective vernacular, of their adaptations and of referring to them by individual foreign authors. On the
whole one must still agree to the conclusion Hendrik Diferee already
drew in 1929 implying that contemporary translations only emerged in
9
Aikin, General Biography, 6 (1807), col. 225 (in voce: Lescaille, Catharine): ‘She
surpassed her father in the beauty of her verse, and obtained the applauses of Vondel
and other celebrated poets of her country’.
10
Becket, Trip to Holland, 2 (1786), pp. 43–44: ‘Apropos of poets, said I, pray is there
a living one to be found in Holland? Not that I know, returned Monsieur de M–; a
Dutch versiier is a rara avis indeed. here has been none of any repute, I think, since
the days of Vondel. Vondel, continued he, was really a good poet; and he has suiciently proved by his writings, that the Dutch language (however grating to the ear of
an Englishman) is by no means deicient in harmony and sweetness of numbers’.
11
For Bowring see: ODNB, 6, coll. 987–90.
12
Bowring, Sketch of the Language and Literature of Holland, pp. 38–40.
174
guillaume van gemert
the German Lands, and otherwise interest in Vondel outside of the
Netherlands was not perceptible until the early 19th century:
We hear nothing more about translations of Vondel’s plays in the 17th
century [except from those into German]; there is no reference to French
or English ones at all, although it is a matter of fact that his tragedies as
well as his poems must have been known in England in the 17th century
and were read and sometimes studied there by men of letters and historians. […] During the 18th century not one translation of Vondel’s works
was published outside of the Netherlands, at least as far as we have been
able to establish through thorough research, or rather: have not been able
to establish. Yet the 19th century, perhaps pre-eminently the age of
revived interest in art, literature and their history, amply compensated
the deiciencies of its predecessors which had considered Vondel to be
doomed to die.13
Diferee’s optimistic hope – that future research might bring up some
further indications of foreign dealings with Vondel in early modern
times – was not fulilled during the past eight decades. In the meanwhile, on the other hand, the contextualizing of individual agents of
reception could much more be diferentiated.
German References to Vondel and his Political Mobilization in the
German Lands During the Seventeenth Century
All over Europe not one single poem composed by Vondel as a lyricist
was translated from Dutch into another vernacular during his lifetime.
Some of his plays, by contrast, were, but only into German, as highlighted by Diferee. he latter’s stand should, however, be modiied
insofar as it would be better to characterize them as adaptations.
Whereas the irst translations into French did not appear any earlier
13
Diferee, Vondel in den vreemde, p. 5: ‘Meer vernemen wij niet over vertalingen
van Vondel’s toneelwerken in de zeventiende eeuw; van fransche of engelsche vertalingen wordt nergens melding gemaakt, ofschoon als zeker mag worden aangenomen, dat
zoowel de treurspelen als de gedichten van Vondel in de zeventiende eeuw in Engeland
bekendheid verwierven en daar door literatuur- en historiekenners werden gelezen en
soms bestudeerd. […] Gedurende de achttiende eeuw verscheen in het buitenland
geen enkele overzetting van Vondel’s werken, althans voor zoover ons op grond van
een uitvoerig onderzoek bekend werd, wellicht beter gezegd: onbekend bleef. Doch de
negentiende eeuw, bij uitstek misschien de eeuw van de herlevende belangstelling in
kunst en literatuur en hare geschiedenis, haalde de schade van haar voorgangster, die
onzen Vondel zoo goed als ten doode had opgeschreven, ruimschoots in.’
vondel’s reception abroad
175
than 1822,14 and whereas it was almost at the same time (that is to say,
in Bowring’s Batavian Anthology from 1824) that English-speaking
people were able to acquaint themselves with selected sections from
Vondel’s Gysbrecht (1637), Lucifer (1654), Adam in ballingschap (Adam
Exiled, 1664), Palamedes (1625) and Batavische gebroeders (Batavian
Brothers, 1663) in their vernacular,15 in the German Lands at least four
plays were published as early as the second half of the 17th century,
explicitly deriving their origin from Vondel. French as well as English
references to Vondel, from the very beginning in the early 19th century, had a purely antiquarian focus. hey were initiated at a time when
the concept of ‘world literature’ was prevalent, and were therefore predetermined by comparative approaches. In the German Lands, on the
contrary, Vondel the dramatist had already gained signiicant topicality
during his lifetime, irstly because of the speciic value appertaining to
the respective translations or adaptations, and secondly on account of
his cultural-strategical importance as a representative of Dutch literature. For in the German Lands Dutch literature as such has got an
exemplary function because of its perceived unifying potency, that
Vondel’s colleague poet Pieter Cornelisz. Hoot already attributed to it.
He, as is well known, considered literature to be the precursor of political unity,16 inasmuch as centralized unity came to fruition in the Dutch
Republic with its pivotal principles of proportionate and localised
sovereignty.
France and England in the 17th Century were more or less centralistic unitary states. he German Lands, by contrast, constituted a
patchwork of hundreds of de facto autonomous and self-governing
entities, mostly mini- or microstates. Nearly all of them strived for
unity, with the political nation as its inal objective, transcending the
cultural nation as an intermediate step. On the pathway to this ideal the
14
Chefs-d’oeuvre du théatre hollandais, 1 (1822), pp. 101–98 and 199–307
respectively.
15
Bowring and Van Dyk, Batavian Anthology, pp. 125–152.
16
Hoot, ‘Over de Waardigheidt der Poëzy’, p. 573: ‘Om dit te bewaarheeden, daag
ik het getuigenisse van U allen, die zelve beleet hebt en ondervonden, welken dienst de
Hollandtsche Poëzy, toen zy noch maar op ’t ontknoopen van de tonge en in ’t haaperen
van haar kindtsheit was, deezen Vaderlande, in ’t verstooten van de Tyranny en ’t
stichten der vryheit beweezen heet’ (‘To underpin this, I call on all those as witnesses
who experienced and sensed the favour Dutch poetry did our country when she was as
yet untying her tongue in her earliest childhood, in expelling tyranny and in establishing freedom’).
176
guillaume van gemert
Netherlands was looked up to as a shining example, and literature was
considered to be an excellent vehicle through which to create the desiderated cultural community. Martin Opitz’s programmatic Buch von der
deutschen Poeterey (Book of German Poetry) from 1624 and the poetic
reform he initiated conirm this very convincingly. he initial spark
might have provided the intense and vivid consciousness of close linguistic ainity of German and Dutch, still embedded in an overall panGermanic thinking.17 It was supplemented with strong admiration for
the neighbouring country’s continuous rise into the rank of global
power, although formally it still was part of the Holy Roman Empire.
Finally, the Dutch way of tackling the problem of sovereignty might, in
times of increasing territorialism of an absolutist character, have
appealed to Germans as a temporary compromise, until national unity
was fully attained. In England and France, however, such cultural political aspects did not carry any weight in dealing with the Netherlands,
and neither did any other similarities – in fact rivalry prevailed. his
might have been the very reason why there, that is to say in England
and France, was scant reception of contemporary Dutch literature, and
hardly any discussion of Vondel’s plays.
By contrast, Opitz and his poetizing contemporaries in the German
Lands in the 1620s and the early 1630s assigned to Dutch programmatic anthologies like the Zeeusche Nachtegael (he Nightingale from
Zeeland, 1623), the hronus Cupidinis (Cupid’s hrone, 1620) and
the Bloem-Hof van de Nederlantsche Ieught (Flower-Garden of Dutch
Youngsters, 1608) an almost exclusive exemplarity, particularly to a collection of Dutch poems from 1616 entitled Nederduytsche Poemata
(Dutch Poems) and written by Daniel Heinsius, native of Ghent and a
renowned professor of philology at Leiden University.18 A man of letters like Heinsius would normally have written only Latin verses, but
using his mother tongue for poetic purposes, however, he enhanced
the Dutch language, as he did the German language indirectly, because
of its close relationship to the former. Purely because of this, Opitz was
able to praise the ‘Gentscher Schwan’ (swan from Ghent) for ultimately
having ‘vnsre Muttersprach in jhren werth gebracht’ (‘elevated our [i.e.
the German] mother tongue to its rightful standing’).19 As a playwright
Vondel was not involved in these very beginnings of German Baroque
17
18
19
See, for example, Bornemann, Anlehnung und Abgrenzung, pp.103–13.
Ibid., pp.1–93; Van Gemert, Niederländische Einlüsse, pp. 9–83.
Opitz, Teutsche Poemata, p. 25.
vondel’s reception abroad
177
literature. he early German Baroque poets already preferred lyrics,
and, apart from that, up to the year 1635 Vondel did not publish any
major theatre plays, except for Het Pascha (Passover, 1612), Hierusalem
verwoest (Jerusalem Destroyed, 1620) and Palamedes (1625).
Nevertheless, like Jacob Cats, whose works were translated into German
up until the 1720s,20 he has to be ranked among the few Dutch authors
who were continuously received in the German Lands even during the
second half of the 17th century, and among them he was probably the
only dramatist.
he German interest in Vondel’s plays can sometimes be explained
by a personal and profound familiarity with his poetical works, as in
the case of Andreas Gryphius, who translated the Gebroeders (Brothers,
1640) in 1641 or 1642, presumably during his stay in the Netherlands.21
Otherwise all Vondel’s plays that were translated into German could be
related to key German political issues, such as the legitimization and
limits of princely power or the subjects’ relation to absolutist sovereignty. Such themes gained increasing currency in the second half of
the 17th century, when absolutist territorialism was becoming irmly
established – in this context it should be remembered that the most
relevant guide to territorial sovereignty, Veit Ludwig von Seckendorf ’s
Teutscher Fürstenstaat (Princely Territorial State in Germany), appeared
in 1665 – and the execution of Charles I Stuart caused a stir all over the
German Lands. It is precisely this political mobilization that renders
the German versions adaptations rather than translations in the proper
sense of the word, this pertaining speciically to the three tragedies that
were published in the 1660s and 1670s: irstly Elias Heidenreich’s Rache
zu Gibeon (Revenge on Gibeon, 1662), like Gryphius’s Sieben Brüder
(Seven Brothers) going back to Vondel’s Gebroeders; secondly Christoph
Kormart’s Maria Stuart oder Gemarterte Majestät (Mary Stuart or
Martyred Majesty, 1672), which has its origins in Vondel’s Maria Stuart
of Gemartelde Majesteit (1646) and inally Constantin Christian
Dedekind’s Simson from 1676, going back to Vondel’s Samson of Heilige
wraeck (Samson or Holy Vengeance, 1660). Apart from the political factor, German reception of Vondel in the 17th century might also have
been facilitated by the rich tradition of biblical theatre plays in the
20
Van Gemert, Niederländische Einlüsse, pp. 85–153.
Kiedroń, Andreas Gryphius und die Niederlande, p. 34; Gryphius, Die Sieben
Brüder, p. x.
21
178
guillaume van gemert
German Lands22 as well as by the steady establishment of martyr tragedy there from the 1650s onwards.
Vondel’s Gebroeders as an Apprentice Piece of Imitatio Cautiously
Reinterpreted by Young Gryphius
Die Sieben Brüder Oder Die Gibeoniter (Seven Brothers or the Gibeonites)
was the irst dramatic work Andreas Gryphius (1616–1664)23 wrote,
being at the age of 25 and still a student at Leiden University.24 During
the following decades he was to develop into the most eminent playwright of German Baroque literature. His translation of Vondel’s
Gebroeders,25 therefore, could be considered an apprentice piece, preparation for his own dramatic writing in the future, which was partly
inluenced by Vondel too.26 Gryphius’s German version enjoyed some
popularity, since it was performed in Breslau in 1652 up to ive times,27
as is substantiated by historic evidence. In print, however, it did not
appear earlier than in the 1698 posthumous edition of the complete
works. It is versiied and adhered closely to the original; Gryphius’s
main contribution was to add a large number of stage directions.28
However, he was obliged to draw frequently on paraphrases and sometimes even on downright Batavisms.29 He has no major problems translating Vondel’s complicated idioms as well as his elaborate clauses, and
his skill is undeniable. his is shown by his rendering of Michol’s long
monologue in Act III, in which she begs her former husband David to
show mercy to her foster sons:
Mijn uitverkoren heer, of schoon Bathseba nu
Onze echte plaets verwarmt, en meer vermagh by u
Dan Michol; laet nochtans u niet zoo veer verrucken,
22
See Van Ingen, ‘Übersetzung als Rezeptionsdokument’, p. 152.
For Gryphius see Flemming, Andreas Gryphius; Szyrocki, Andreas Gryphius;
Wentzlaf-Eggebert, Andreas Gryphius; ADB, 10 (1879), pp. 73–81; NDB, 7 (1966),
pp. 242–46.
24
For the time the translation was written, see Plard, ‘Sieben Brüder’, pp. 305–06.
25
Joost van den Vondel, Gebroeders. Trevrspel, WB, 3, pp. 797–878.
26
A more recent outline of the debate on the Gryphius-Vondel relationship is to be
found in Kiedroń, Andreas Gryphius und die Niederlande, pp. 59–87.
27
Plard, ‘Sieben Brüder’, p. 317.
28
Ibid., p. 306.
29
For Gryphius’s way of translating and reinterpreting Vondel’s Gebroeders cf. Plard,
‘Sieben Brüder’; Van Ingen, ‘Übersetzung als Rezeptionsdokument’, pp. 147–53.
23
vondel’s reception abroad
179
Dat heilooze Amoreen, door uw gezagh, verdrucken
Dit bloed, waer over ick zelf moey ja moeder sta,
In Zuster Merobs plaets; dit gaetme veel te na.
’K heb Zuster, toen de dood haer bed begon te dreigen,
Gezworen, deze vijf te koestren, als mijn eigen,
En houze oock voor de mijne, indien dit baeten kan;
En zoo ick moeder ben, weest ghy ’er vader van.30
In Gryphius’s German translation ‘Euch in dem Herzen spielt’ largely
complies (in terms of meaning) with ‘Onze echte plaets verwarmt’, as
do ‘nicht so sehr verlencken’ with Vondels ‘niet zoo veer verrucken’ and
‘O übergrimme Pein!’ with ‘dit gaetme veel te na’. In point of directness
and perspicuity Gryphius almost surpasses the Dutch original; only
‘Amor’ as an occasional collective designation for the Amorites might
easily lead to misunderstandings:
Mein auserkohrner Herr/ ob schon Bethsabes Bild
Euch in dem Hertzen spielt/ und höher nunmehr gilt
Als Michal/ laßt dennoch euch nicht so sehr verlencken/
Das Amor auf eur Wort mög’ unbarmherzig kräncken/
Diß Blut/ worüber ich soll Muhm und Mutter seyn/
An Schwester Merobs Platz. O übergrimme Pein!
Ach Schwester/ als ich dich sah’ mit dem Tode ringen/
Schwur ich die fünf als mein’ als eigen aufzubringen/
Auch halt ich sie als mein/ und wo dis helfen kan/
Und Michal Mutter ist; blickt sie als Vater an.31
In Vondel as well as in Gryphius David is the central igure who has to
decide between reasons of state and humanity.32 Gryphius, however,
30
Vondel, Gebroeders, ll. 811–820: ‘My beloved Lord, although Bathseba now / is
warming up our [former] marital bed, and has greater inluence on you / than Michol;
still do not let yourself get carried away so much, / that godless Amorites, by your
authority, are allowed to erase / this kinship, whose aunt I am, still even better, for
whom I act as a mother, / in my sister Merob’s place; this afects me very deeply. / As
death was impending and approached her bed, / I swore to my sister, I would foster
these ive, as if they were of my own blood / and actually regard them as mine, as far as
it beneits them; / and because I am their mother you should be a father to them.’
31
Gryphius, ‘Sieben Brüder’, p. 101 (Act 3, ll. 222–231): ‘My beloved Lord, although
Bathsheba’s image / is juggling in your heart and ranks above Michal now, don’t let
yourself get carried away so much, / that Amor [i.e. the Amorites], by your word, is
allowed to violate ruthlessly / this kinship, whose aunt and mother I am, / instead of my
sister Merob. Oh cruel painful torture! / My dear sister, as I saw you lie dying, / I swore,
I would foster these ive, as if they were of my own / and even regard them as mine, as
far as it beneits them; / and because Michal is their mother, look upon them as a father.’
32
For the political signiicance of Vondel’s Gebroeders within the Dutch context cf.
Korsten, Vondel belicht, pp. 93–112; Sovereignty as Inviolability, pp. 92–109. See also
Langvik-Johannessen, Zwischen Himmel und Erde, pp. 114–32.
180
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expanded the original by a longish prologue, in which Saul’s ghost
speaks from eternity, and as such this embedded the play more intensively in a metaphysical context. Here reference is made to the punishment heaven imposed on Saul’s descendants, and here David is
apostrophized as the righteous, who is endeavouring to expiate the
blood guilt. Rather than mitigating the inevitability of his decision, this
seems to intensify the pressure that weighs on him:
I already hear that Heaven speaks its sentence
and that the judge’s trumpet of punishment is announcing nothing but
murder and woe.
Go on, Righteous! Go on!
And inveigh severely against this murder.33
he epilogue, which is an expansion as well, is to serve as an undisguised warning to all those who misuse the divine right of kings:
hus our house shall perish for the sake of David’s throne!
hus David’s fame shall originate from my downfall!
hus those are broken down
who are revolting against the King of Heaven!
Man! Look upon me as in a mirror;
What has beaten me is threathening you.34
hus, already in Gryphius’s translation the factor of politicization can
be found that in the later German occupations with Vondel was to
become more and more important.
Heidenreich’s Politicization of Gebroeders as a Warning to
Unrighteous Rulers
Some twenty years ater Gryphius was concerned with Vondel’s
Gebroeders, the play was once more submitted to a German-speaking
audience, in 1662, by the lawyer David Elias Heidenreich (1638–
1688),35 who was promoted to be a councillor at Weißenfels court later.
33
Gryphius, ‘Sieben Brüder’, p. 77 (Prologue, ll. 81–84): ‘Ich höre schon den Himmel
Urtheil sprechen/ Und des Richters Straf-Trompete lauter Mord und Weh ausblasen/
So fahre fort/ Gerechter! Fahre fort/ Und eifre scharf um diesen Mord.’
34
Ibid., p. 129: ‘Also muß unser Haus vor Davids-hron vergehen! / Also muß
Davids-Ruhm aus meinem Fall entstehen! Also werden die zerbrochen/ Die des
Himmels-König pochen! / Mensch! O spiegel dich an mir/ Was mich schlug/ daß
dreuet dir.’
35
For more information about Heidenreich see: ADB, 11 (1880), p. 302; Krispyn,
‘David Elias Heidenreich’; Killy, Literatur Lexikon, 5 (1990), pp. 117–18.
vondel’s reception abroad
181
He decided in favour of a version in prose. he impact thereof can be
observed in comparing his translation of Michol’s beseeching pledge
for mercy in Act III with that of Gryphius, already quoted:
Mein außerkohrner König; Wie wol der Bethsabe Schönheit in E.M.
Hertzen nunmehr höher geachtet wird/ als die verlassene Michol/ so
beliebe E.M. dennoch sich nicht so sehre verlencken zu lassen/ daß Sie
auf der Amoriter Wort das Blut/ darüber ich Muhme und an Schwester
Merobs Statt Mutter bin/ so grimmig halten wolte. Ich schwure meiner
Schwester/ als sie mit dem Tode range/ die Printzen/ als Kinder aufzuziehen; E.M. sehe sie doch nun als Vater an […].36
From the wording it can be concluded that Heidenreich must have
known Gryphius’s translation,37 which might surprise, inasmuch as the
latter had not been published hitherto. All in all he deals quite freely
with the original text, by expanding, shortening or reshuling it, in
order to suit the taste of the audience or to adapt it to the local, viz.
speciically German, conditions.38 He characterizes the outcome as
reshaping according to rational criteria (‘vernüntige Ausmusterung’).39
In general he efectuates a striking revitalization of dramatic action by
distributing it across a greater number of characters, by intensiied
dialogizing and by inserting extensive, fairly vivid stage directions. He
does not shy away from theatricality and sensationalism in the least,
since he is staging the preparations for the execution40 and the gallows,
on which hang the seven princes.41 All this can easily turn into the grotesque, as is apparent from the scene in which the Gibeonites argue
about the exact number of Saul’s children, or from the end of Act IV,
when all princes, already on their way to the gallows, cry with one
voice: ‘Now then, dearest mothers, farewell, we’ll see you in eternity’
(‘Nun hertzgeliebten Mütter gute Nacht bis zu der Ewigkeit’).42 On the
other hand the deletion of all choruses (‘Reyen’) without any substitution
36
Heidenreich, Rache zu Gibeon, pp. 51–52: ‘My beloved King, although Bethsabe’s
beauty in Your Majesty’s heart ranks above abandoned Michal now, Your Majesty may
deign not let hyself get carried away so much, that hou on request of the Amorites
would act so cruel against this kinship, whose aunt and mother I am, instead of my
sister Merob. Oh cruel painful torture! I swore to my sister, as she lay dying, to bring up
the princes as my childeren; Your Majesty may look upon them now as a father.’
37
See: Krispyn, ‘David Elias Heidenreich’, p. 283.
38
For Heidenreich’s translation cf. Van Ingen, ‘Übersetzung als Rezeptionsdokument’,
pp. 144–48; Krispyn, ‘David Elias Heidenreich’, pp. 283–86.
39
Heidenreich, Rache zu Gibeon, p. 103.
40
Ibid., p. 94.
41
Ibid., p. 99.
42
Ibid., p. 84.
182
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strongly reduces the emotional factor. In particular Heidenreich’s modiications at the play’s end are instructive. Here there is no efort towards
reconciliation as in Vondel, where David concludes by providing his
assurance that he will concede to Saul and his descendants digniied
graves. By contrast, there is explicit focus on the inconsolably wailing
widow Rispe, and in a specially attached epilogue Benajas emphasizes
that the vengeance of heaven will be upon unrighteous rulers and their
posterity:
Regard, curious eye, this mirror of the instability of human happiness!
What a vile and shameful fall of an illustrious house this is! Oh slippery
throne! Oh unstable scepter! […] Pitiful, however, it is that children must
recompense for their parents. […] Look at it as in a mirror, you bloodthirsty rulers! Take it as a mirror, you tyrants! Let it be a mirror to all
those who become arrogant! You, pale corpses, did not abet the murder
at Gibeon at all, but nevertheless it has been bloodthirstily revenged on
you. Really, with you boundless arrogance led into utter ruin. Although
you were not, you could have got tyrants, because the apple does not fall
far from the tree. Spilled and shed blood inally falls to earth, but it cries
to heaven. hinking of the righteous vengeance of heaven makes me
shudder. For it does not spare the heirs, and their heritage only will be
punishment. Since their property will be taken away from them, along
with their honour. Cursed tyranny! Beware of tyranny, you mighty of the
world. When the lightning that punishes this vice does not hit you, it will
catch your ofspring. For God is righteous and just. He humiliates and
exalts. He shall make the house of David green and lourish forever!43
In this way Heidenreich’s adaptation ampliies the didactic charge
in Vondel’s Gebroeders and strengthens its actuality. he ‘mirror’ function of biblical and historical occurrences is expressly underlined and
43
Ibid., p. 102: ‘Betrachte doch neugieriges Auge diesen Spiegel der Vnbeständigkeit
Menschlichen Glückes! Welch ein schnöder und schmählicher Vntergang ist dieser
eines so durchleuchtigsten Hauses! O schlüpferiger hron! O unbeständiger Scepter!
[…] Erbärmlich ist es gleichwol/ daß die Kinder die Eltern entgelten müssen. […]
Spiegelt euch ihr Blut-dürstigen! Spiegelt euch ihr Tyrannen! spiegelt euch/ die ihr
anfanget groß zu werden! Ihr blassen Leichen habt den Mord zu Gibeon am wenigsten
befördert/ noch dennoch traf euch die Rache des Blut-Dursts. Der unmäßige
Gebrauch des Groß-werdens muste sich erst in euch vollends zu Grunde stürtzen. Ihr
kuntet nicht Tyrannen seyn/ doch aber etwan werden/ weil Stamm und Apfel sich auf
einem Platz inden. Gestürtztes und vergoßnes Blut fällt ja wol endlich auf die Erde/
doch rut es Himmel-an. Die Haut schauert mir/ wann ich die gerechte Rache des
Himmels darüber erwege. Sie schonet keiner Erben/ deren Erbtheil nichts al Strafe.
Denn das Gut sampt der Ehre wird ihnen genommen. Verluchte Tyranney! hütet euch
davor/ Ihr Grossen der Welt. Trit euch nicht das Wetter/ das dieses Laster ahndet/ so
wird es doch der nach Euch kömmt empinden. Gott ist immittelst gerecht. Der erniedriget und erhöhet. Der lasse das Haus David ewig grünen und blühen!’
vondel’s reception abroad
183
the political factor is additionally emphasized by positioning David’s
decision in the metaphysical context of the vanity of all earthly things.
Since early modern absolutist sovereignty was also justiied metaphysically, the warning must have been addressed to all ‘modern’ Machiavellian rulers too.
Kormart’s Restyling of Vondel’s Maria Stuart Into a Constitutional
Discourse on the Interrelation of Rulers and Subjects
In his Maria Stuart: Oder Gemarterte Majestät from 1672,44 the German
adapter of Vondel’s Maria Stuart of Gemartelde Majesteit (Mary Stuart,
or Martyred Majesty, 1646),45 the Dresden lawyer Christoph Kormart
(1644–1701),46 is operating in a somewhat similar way to his predecessor Heidenreich. He wrote his version, as is highlighted on the title
page, to stimulate and to accommodate a Leipzig students’ theatre
company (‘Auf Anleitung und Beschafenheit der Schaubühne einer
Studierenden Gesellschat in Leipzig’).47 his seems to imply here as
well as in Heidenreich the abandonment of alexandrine verses in favour
of prose sentences, together with revitalization of action. he latter is
mainly achieved by increasing the number of characters acting onstage,
and by changing overly long monologues into dialogues.48 Vondel’s ive
acts are reduced to four and Kormart’s extensive stage directions are
crucial to understanding the piece. Mary’s execution is shown onstage,
but it is precisely here that the scene threatens to tip over into mere
theatricality. Kormart deals very freely with Vondel’s original play in
order to achieve what he calls ‘real performance’ (‘reiche Vorstellung’),
setting it in opposition to the lack of dynamics with which he reproaches
Vondel, although he appreciates him very much:
Frequent departure from the admirable Dutch poet’s arrangements has
been made, and his compostion has only been followed in part, courting
44
A irst edition must have been published in 1672, as reveals the digital catalogue
of German 17th Century imprints VD17 (www.vd17.de) (cf. VD17 7:710193N).
It could not be consulted. herefore, the edition here quoted from is the second one,
from 1673.
45
Joost van den Vondel, Maria Stuart of Gemartelde majesteit, WB, 5, pp. 163–240.
46
Johannes, Christophorus Kormart; Killy, Literatur Lexikon, 6 (1990), pp. 498–99.
47
Kormart, Maria Stuart, title page.
48
For the way Kormart translated and adapted Vondel’s play see Van Ingen,
‘Übersetzung als Rezeptionsdokument’, pp. 133–39; Van Gemert, Niederländische
Einlüsse, pp. 67–74.
184
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the afections of a diferent audience, who crave real performance and
not simple appearence on stage.49
Nevertheless, didacticism was Kormart’s primary concern; compared
to Vondel he reinforced didactic impact. At the same time he fundamentally changes the play’s orientation, no longer focussing on Catholic
Mary as a martyr for her faith’s sake, but rather on her opponent Queen
Elizabeth, who as an acting character is inserted by Kormart himself
and who has to decide between ethico-moral principles and reasons of
state. Vondel is convinced that Mary’s Catholicism and the defence of
her hereditary rights against the bastard Elizabeth led to her undoing:
For two reasons an axe was driven into her lesh,
because of her hereditary right to the Crown and her Catholic life.50
Kormart toned down the references to Mary’s martyrdom considerably
and totally erased the fact of Elizabeth’s illegitimacy. In reality both
Dutch original and German adaptation are concerned with the limits
of absolutist princely power.51 In Vondel this is directed towards the
question of the extent to which the divine right of kings as a legitimation of absolutist sovereignty may protect against demands for accountability by subjects and ultimately against execution:
De hemel zalfde my, en riep door zijn genade
Marie tot dien troon, als met zijn eige stem.
’k Bezit rechtvaerdighlijck, en houde alleen van hem
Mijn’ troon en kroon te leen, en wilze met mijn leven
En bloet oock hem alleen gehoorzaem wedergeven.
Hy heet Elizabeth niet boven my gestelt.
Laet Parlement en Raet en Ketterdom gewelt
Te wercke stellen, als geweldenaers en stroopers,
Die in een moortspelonck, gesterckt met overloopers,
Den allervroomsten Vorst vast knevelen met kracht;
’k Gedoogh het tegens recht: ’t is buiten hunne macht,
49
Ibid., fol. A6v–A7r. Due to the pages not being numbered in the preface (‘Vorred’),
the citations have here been indicated by means of the signatures of the sheets: ‘Von des
vortrelichen Holländischen Poetens Vertheilungen ist man in vielen abgewichen/ und
nur zum theil seinen Aufsatz nachgefolget/ indem man sich nach anderer Zuschauer
Zuneigung richten müssen/ welche reiche Vorstellung und nicht blosse Autritte des
Schau-platzes begehren.’
50
Vondel, Maria Stuart, p. 168: ‘Byschrit Op d’abeeldinge van Koningin Maria
Stuart’ (‘Inscription on the portrait of Queen Mary Stuart’): ‘Twee punten hebben haer
de bijl door ’t vleesch gedreven / Haer erfrecht tot de Kroon, en haer Katholisch leven.’
51
For the underlying political ideas in Vondel’s tragedy cf. Noak, Politische
Aufasungen, pp. 155–73. See also Kipka, Maria Stuart im Drama der Weltliteratur, esp.
pp. 119–39.
vondel’s reception abroad
185
Dat ick geen Koningin (zy doen hun beste) sterve;
Hoewel mijn staet wat glimps in ‘t oogh der menschen derve.
[…]
Noch houdt het Koningsdom zijn’ luister onbedorven.
De Koningen des Rijcks zijn meer dan eens gestorven
Een doot, zoo eerelijck voor ’t Koningklijck geslacht,
Als schandelijck voor ’t volck, dat in die boosheit lacht:
Wat wonder is het dan, zoo weder een verwoede
’t Getal der Koningen van Engelantschen bloede
Vermeere met mijn lijck? ’t is Engelants manier:
Dat schatte noit het bloet der Koningen zoo dier,
Of plengde ’t milt, en maeide, als met een dolle zeissen,
De telgen van den stam, die recht hadde iet te eischen,
Te vorderen, uit kracht van tijtel, op dees kroon.52
Kormart’s rendering of these verses shows – as, incidentally, is further underlined by his explicit reference to Gryphius’s tragedy
Carolus Stuardus in his ‘Preface to the Gentle Reader’ (‘Vorrede An
Den Hoch-geneigten Leser’)53 – that in his eyes Mary is at best just a
martyr for the ideal of absolutist monarchy. At the same time he reduces
Vondel’s poetic exuberance in favor of prosaic directness lacking any
emotionality:
Wir wollen alles mit Gedult leiden. Der Himmel salbete uns zu dieser
Crone/ und diesem wollen wir Gut/ Blut und Leben als ein Lehn willigst
wieder überreichen. Es mag aller Ketzer Reich am hetigsten wüten und
52
Vondel, Maria Stuart of Gemartelde majesteit, ll. 668–80 and 683–93. Cf. Vondel,
Mary Stuart or Tortured Majesty, pp. 63–64: ‘For Heaven has anointed me, has called
through grace / For Mary Stuart’s rule, with God’s own voice, it seemed. / So, I alone am
justly chosen, and to Him / Alone I owe my crown and throne and will render / hem
unto Him alone, together with my life. / He did not place Elizabeth above myself. / Let
her Parliament, her lords, and her heretics / Resort to violent means; just so, cutthroats
and / Bandits, with traitors gathered in their gruesome den, / Will fetter even the most
devout of princes. / I’ll sufer it! though it’s unjust. But what’s beyond / heir might,
though they try, is that I die not a Queen, / Although my state lacks lustre in the eyes
of some. / […] / Yet the prestige itself of Monarchy survives! / his realm has witnessed
more than once its monarchs die / In ways that brought much glory to the kingly
race / And much disgrace to the rejoicing, guilty throng. / What wonder is it then, if yet
another mob / Increases with my corpse the count of slaughtered Kings / Of English
blood? Is’t not the English custom / To hold the blood of Kings of very little worth? /
hey’ve spilt it lightly, and trimmed like crazy reapers / All branches from the trunk
that were, because of birth, / Entitled to demand the right to rule this realm.’
53
From Gryphius’s play he is quoting here in his ‘Preface to the Gentle Reader’
(Kormart, Maria Stuart, fol. A6r) the verses (1657 edition: Act I, ll. 181–88; 1663 edition: Act I, ll. 213–20), in which Mary’s ghost appears to King Charles, who is already
sentenced to death, and complains that in England princes are sentenced by their subjects, although they owe responsibility only to God. See Gryphius, ‘Ermordete Majestät.
Oder Carolus Stuardus’, pp. 8 and 80.
186
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toben/ so soll es nicht diesen himmlischen Glantz verdunckeln. […] Und
dennoch muß das Königliche Recht ungeschändet bleiben/ obgleich der
eusserliche Schmuck hingerissen wird. Was kan eine unrechtmäßige
Beschuldigung der Tugend schaden? Und so endlich viel Königliche
Geschlechter in diesem Reiche also ihr Grab gefunden/ wie kan es uns
wunder nehmen/ daß ihre Anzahl von grausamen Wüterichen durch
unsern Tod vermehret wird? Es ist der Britten Frevel/ die Wurtzeln
Königliches Stammes auszurotten.54
Instead he explores what might be the prince’s scope of action if he
were compelled to act contrary to natural law and kinship obligations
in order to protect the interests of state:
We abhor in general the violence of severe regimes, and in particular the
fact that a new heresy may lead on to cruel persecution that sheds our
poor subjects’ blood. Nevertheless popish zeal is stirring sisterly blood
and, in spite of our mansuetude, tries in blind malice to rise to the throne.
We, however, are fully aware of the penalties the law imposes on such
criminals, and she herself can read the compassionate admonition to
desist from her wickedness, from the letter we sent to her. But we really
are in doubt if we should leave the execution of the sentence to a court
that, in common with us, seems to lay hands on kingly Majesty. Due to
our princely dignity we are publically acting in front of all mankind, but
we are mortal. We eschew shedding sisterly blood. We don’t want our
reputation with posterity to be damaged by the allegation as if we would
have founded our throne upon her precious blood. Should not love defeat
severity? Because we are used to deliberating extensively even on minor
issues of governance, we do not wish to leave any salutary remedy untried,
before we swing the deathsman’s sharp axe.55
In general, however, Mary represents to Kormart the instability of
all earthly things and especially of princely power which operates
continuously between the poles of Fortune and Virtue, as is evident
54
Kormart, Maria Stuart, p. 68: ‘We will bear it all with patience. Heaven has
anointed us to the crown and to Heaven we willingly will give back, as a ief, property,
blood and life. he realm of all heretics may rant and rave, but it cannot darken the
splendour of Heaven. […] Nevertheless the kingly rights must remain inviolate,
although their external attributes will be torn away. How could unjust accusation afect
virtue? And inally, because so many royal houses found their graves here in this realm,
it is not surprising that the number of cruel tyrants should increase owing to our death.
To eradicate the roots of royal lineage is a peridy of the Brits.’
55
Ibid., pp. 39–40: ‘Wir hassen ja in allen Stücken die Gewalt scharfer Regierung/
absonderlich/ daß nicht durch neue Ketzerey eine abscheuliche Verfolgung mit unserer
armen Unterthanen Blut erreget werde: Und gleichwol suchet der Päbstliche Eifer in
vondel’s reception abroad
187
from Mary’s great monologue in Act IV, immediately prior to her
execution:
All those who rely on the wheel of blind Fortune and beseech its glamour
for godlike protection should come and see here that their place is unstable and that they must fall from the height of honour losing all glory of
life. Should we, Kings, in such a state be called gods on earth and rulers
of the world, when the power of the sceptre and the foundations of the
throne so easily break down by a single strike? Everything in the world is
subject to transience, therefore, even a crowned Majesty does not escape
from human fortuities. Constant hatred has come into the world in conjunction with virtue and wickedness has darkened mankind’s heart so
much that it is willing to do anything wrong and that, in its blindness, it
is itself the cause of death.56
Because Fortune here, despite all eforts of virtus, leads into perdition,
Mary, in the end, turns out to be an example of pernicious Machiavellianism.57 On the whole, however, Kormart’s play is overburdened
with ideas and therefore appears to be inconsistent. All in all, it can
only have functioned as a closet drama.
Schwesterlichen Blute zu toben/ und sich bey unserer Santmuth in verblendeter
Boßheit auf diesen hron zu erheben. Wir erwegen zwar wohl/ was auf solche
Verbrecher in unserm Gesetze für Strafe erfolget/ und sie selbst kan das mitleidende
vermahnen von ihrer Boßheit aus unsern an sie gestelleten Schreiben abnehmen. Aber
wir zweifeln billig/ ob wir die vollziehung der Strafe einem Gerichte überlassen/
welches sich mit Uns an einer Majestät zu vergreifen scheinet. Wir an Fürstlicher
Hoheit sind in dieser Welt allzu ofenbahr aller Menschen Augen vorgestellet/ und
begehen. Wir scheuen uns Schwesterliches Blut zu vergiessen. Wir wollen nicht gerne
den Ruhm bey der Nachwelt verliehren daß wir unsern hron mit so theuren Blute
gegründet. Solte denn nicht die Liebe der Schärfe obsiegen? Wir/ so allezeit gewohnet/
auch den geringsten Sachen des Regiments langsam Raths zu plegen/ möchten hier
auch wohl die Gelegenheit wünschen/ alle heilsame Mittel noch zuvor zu versuchen/
ehe wir das scharfe Richtbeil auhieben.’
56
Ibid., pp. 122–23: ‘Wer nun auf des blinden Glückes Rad sich zu vertrauen
gedencket/ und seinen Glantz für göttliche Beschirmung anbetet/ der komm und lerne
allhier/ wie er so wanckend sitzen/ und von dessen Ehren-Gipfel mit Verlust aller
Lebens-Pracht fallen muß. Wer wil uns Könige in solchen Stand auf dieser Erden
Götter/ und dieser Welt Beherrscher nennen/ wann des Scepters Macht und des
hrones Grundfeste also zerbrochen durch einen Schlag dahin fällt? Wie alles in dieser
Welt der Veränderung unterworfen/ also kan sich auch nicht eine gekröhnte Majestät
den Menschlichen Zufällen entziehen. Es ist der stete Has mit der Tugend auf diese
Welt gekommen/ und eine Boßheit hat der Menschen Hertzen also verblendet/ daß es
zu allen Unrecht fertig stehet/ und gantz blind ohne Liebe der Tugend ihm selbst eine
Ursache des Todes ist.’
57
For the interrelation of virtus and Fortune cf. for example: K.-H. Gerschmann,
‘Machiavellismus’ in Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, 5 (1980), coll. 579–83.
188
guillaume van gemert
he Transformation of Vondel’s Samson into a Politically Inspired
Musical Tragedy on the Perils hat hreaten Absolutist Princes
Similarly extensive, though less in content than in form, were the
changes made by the Saxon poet and court musician Constantin
Christian Dedekind58 (1628–1715) in adapting Vondel’s Samson of
Heilige Wraeck59 (Samson or Holy Vengeance, 1660) for a German audience; in his Simson, ein Traurspiel zur Music eingerichtet (Samson, a
Tragedy Arranged for Music) from 1676, he transformed the biblical
tragedy into a musical one.60 On the whole he follows Vondel’s storyline, but due to the frequent changes of metre Dedekind’s play must
in formal terms be qualiied as more vivacious. he lyrical momentum
has been intensiied by the fact that again and again arias have been
inserted. Vondel’s choruses, his ‘Reyen’, have been transformed into
real choirs. Moreover his single chorus, that of the Jewish women,
which ends every act, is split up into four diferent others, viz. that of
the people of Gaza, that of the Ekron prophetesses, that of the people of
the tribe of Dan (‘Daniter’ i.e. ‘Danites’) and that of the Dagon temple
singers. he number of acting characters has thus increased. As it did
by his introducing of allegorical characters such as Chesed (Piety),
Tickveh (Hope), Mauz (Strength), Taef (Idolatry) and Aenemunah
(Superstition); he really needed them, for his music drama lacks the
very dynamics that enabled Vondel to highlight psychic processes by
action or dialogues. And last but not least, he brings to the stage
Simson’s mistress Delila, who in Vondel was only mentioned in the
summary, but did not really act. Here she mourns ater him, who was,
as she says, her most outstanding lover, and depicts herself as a victim
of intrigues. hus sexuality is openly exposed, though dressed in the
image of the chivalrous game of jousting, and can the seduction of the
ruler Simson more strongly be pronounced:
Es hat mich das Gerichte/
wie vohrmahls mein Verlangen/ nicht betrogen;
58
For more information on Dedekind see ADB, 5 (1877), pp. 11–12; NDB, 3 (1957),
pp. 550–51; Killy, Literatur Lexikon, 3 (1989), pp. 10–11.
59
Joost van den Vondel, Samson of Heilige Wraeck. Treurspel, in WB 9,
pp. 173–239.
60
For Dedekind’s adaptation of Vondel’s Samson see: Van Ingen, ‘Übersetzung als
Rezeptionsdokument’, pp. 139–43.
vondel’s reception abroad
es hat/ vom Bache Sorek/
mich heute herein gezogen/
den Gazaritischen Triumf zu schauen/
und Simson/ der durch mich kahm üms Gesichte/
beim Sieges-Prachte ahnzusehen.
Zwahr mihr ists leid daß ihm so weh geschehen;
allein/ was kann man nicht mit Gelde erkaufen?
Geld machet keinem Grauen;
eine Hand voll Gold bezahlt wohl ein paar Augen/
wänns einen andern schmerzet.
Das Gold kann Augen bländen/
wann die Gelegenheit man hat in Händen.
Denn sie ist zuergreifen
weil sie vohr Augen stehet/
sie/ die nicht wiederkehret/
wänn sie einmahl verschmähet/ uns entgehet.
Aria.
Wie gabst du dich so blohs?
du stärker Löwen-Zäumer!
so bald in meiner Schohs
du wardst ein Liebes-Träumer.
So bald sich kühlt’ an mihr dein Bluht/
so bald erlag dein Helden-Muht.
Wo ander’ in Gefahr/
daß sie die Krat verlühren/
da hieltest du dich gahr
daß kein’ Unkrat zuspühren.
Hingegen wiche Stärck und Muht
von dihr/ durchs Haar und nicht durchs Bluht.
Wänn ich in einer Nacht/
Zwölfmahl rief aufzusizzen;
Zwölf-mahl Qwartal gemacht/
und dich so ot ließ schwizzen:
dennoch erhieltst du/ muntrer Knecht/
ein ungeschwächtes Reuter-Recht.
Dahrüm beklag ich dich/
dem ich so wohl behaget/
dem keinen Lanzen-Stich
mein Ring iemahls versaget/
daß du/ durch mich/ verlohrst die Krat/
und kahmest in Gefangenschat.
Mich selber klag’ ich an/
daß ich so falsch gehandelt;
Denn meine Renne-Bahn
hat keiner so bewandelt.
189
190
guillaume van gemert
Ich sage daß es keiner kann
du bist der bäste Ritters-Mann.61
his kind of commitment to sexuality does not really match to Vondel;
it is quite obviously a remnant of an older tradition of German Samson
plays, in which Delila necessarily has to be presented as a seductive
harlot in order to reduce Samson’s own culpability.
Altogether, a diferent perspective shines through: Simson’s tragic
situation as a ruler is lent considerably more emphasis. Above all,
Vondel’s Samson was, fairly traditionally, a preiguration of Christ.62 In
the German Lands, however, his story must have been read quite differently. Simson here embodies the perils to which rulers and in particular absolutist monarchs are exposed, viz. the perils of being misled
or even seduced by their conidants. At the same time, however, there
is hope: as the Lord’s Anointed the prince will, if he feels remorse and
regret, regain divine assistance and defeat his people’s enemies.
Samson’s fate by this means becomes a case study on the balancing act
that absolutist Principality implies, as is indicated by the dialogue, in
fact a meta-discourse, between the Prince and Princess of Gaza on the
importance of the theatre for the princely self-relection and (absolutist)
61
Dedekind, Simson, fol. A5r–A5v (due to the pages not being numbered, the citations have been indicated by the signatures of the sheets): ‘Rumour did not mislead
me, / as formerly did not lust; / It now brought me up to here, from the Brook of
Sorek, / to view the Gazarites’ Triumph / and to see too in the triumphal procession /
Simson, who, because of me, lost his eyesight. / I do, admittedly, regret that so much
grief befell him, / but is not everything to buy for money? / Nobody is horriied by
money. / A handful of gold recompenses a pair of eyes, / especially when it hurts somebody else. / Gold can blind eyes, / when you have caught the opportunity. / You should
catch it / when it is before your eyes, / since it does not arise again / and it disappears when it has been missed./ Aria. / How did you expose yourself, / You strong lion
tamer? / As soon as you were in my lap / You became a love dreamer. / As soon as your
blood cooled itself on me / As soon did your courage subside. / While others were in
danger / Of losing their strength / You stayed completely so / hat no weakness could
be found./ But your strength and courage would leave you / hrough your hair rather
than blood. / When I in the course of one night / asked you to mount twelve times, /
And go all the way twelve times / and let you sweat so oten, / Even then, you cheerful
Knight, / you kept up your unlagging Rider-right. / hat’s why I mourn for you / To
whom I gave such pleasure / Whose ierceful lancet stab / Was never refused by my
ring, / hat you, through me, lost your strength / And came to be imprisoned. / I accuse
myself / For being so false to you; / For no one ever ran / on my course like you did. /
I would maintain that no one can: / You are the best rider-man.’ For translation of the
Aria I am greatly indebted to Dr. Rudoph Glitz (Amsterdam University, Department of
English).
62
For Vondel’s intent in Samson see Langvik-Johannessen, Zwischen Himmel und
Erde, pp. 188–207.
vondel’s reception abroad
191
governance as such, which features in Vondel at the very beginning of
Act III and, as compared to Dedekind’s version, reveals implicitly as
well as explicitly many underlying principles of his way to adapt:
Tooneelspel heet voorheene ons meer dan eens bedrogen
Met schijn van waerheit, en niet ongeluckigh: want
Zoo wort de deught met vreught den vorsten ingeplant,
Al ’t weereltlijck beloop naer ’t leven afgeschildert,
Door spreeckende schildry. men ziet een hof verwildert,
Verwart, en overendt, gevert met prinssenmoort.
Daer wort van schennisse en wraeckgierigheit gehoort.
Men ruckt gekroonden, en gezalfden, van hun stoelen.
Hartstoghten, onderlinge aen ’t barrenen, aen ’t woelen,
Ontvouwen zich, gelijck de verwen, met de naelt
Of schietspoel net geleght, en daer geen meester dwaelt
Van wel te schicken, zijn tapijtwerck geestigh tekent,
Dat wie ’t bespiegelt dit een overeenkomst rekent
Van hemelsch ooghmuzijck. hier geet de bloem van spreuck
En hemelval een’ geur, een’ liefelijcken reuck,
Die meer dan wieroockgeur, en schaelen, hun behaegen.
Tooneelspel sticht een’ staet, verschoont geen lastervleck,
En smet in heiligh, noch onheiligh, elx gebreck
Wort, zonder iemants naem te quetsen, aengewezen.
Tooneelspel wort alleen van dommekracht misprezen,
Die recht noch reden volght. toneelspel leent een’ schat
Van wijsheit by de naelt van Menis, Zonnestadt,
De hooge rijxschool der befaemde Egyptenaeren,
Die op de wolcken treên, en kost noch arbeit spaeren,
Om vrou natuur, van lidt tot lidt, geheel t’ontleên.
Zoo zamelden zy al wat kenbaer is by een,
Een’ schat van wijsheit, opgestapelt van veele eeuwen.
Het snaterbecken van alle aexteren en spreeuwen
Verblut geen speeltooneel. is eenigh vorst belust
Op spel; wie meer dan wy? dit’s u, mevrou, bewust.63
63
Vondel, Samson, ll. 668–698. Joost van den Vondel, ‘Samson, of Heilige Wraeck,
Treurspel 1660: Samson, or Holy Revenge’ in Kirkconnell, Invincible Samson, pp.
77–142. See pp. 102–103: ‘he drama has beguiled us more than once / Ere this with
masterly pretence of truth / And not unhappily: if inculcating / True virtue blent with
pleasure for our lords / And painting, to the life, the way o’ the world / hrough speaking pictures. Men behold a court / Confused, upset, unruly, overthrown / By the sad
death of princes. hen they hear / Of outrage and revengefulness. Men drag / Crowned
and anointed monarchs from their thrones. / Passions that burn and move are blended
there / Like colours which a needle on a loom / Quaintly portrays; a master dramatist /
Can in imaginative tapestry / So well portray that he who contemplates it / Vows ’tis
divine eye-music. Here the lower / Of apophthegm in heavenly valleys yields / A fragrance and a perfume past compare, / More pleasing to the gods than frankincense /
192
guillaume van gemert
In Dedekind the verses are usually shortened, the heroic alexandrine is
exchanged in favor of a richer variation of metric forms and the rhyme
pattern, insofar as it can be determined at all, is much more complicated. On the other hand the imagery is systematically reduced.
Moreover the princely characters have got names – they are called now
Rodeam and Saradi; further the dialogue has shited into the second
scene of Act III and was formulated more concisely. More speciically,
it focussed on the heatrum Vitae Humanae-metaphor, which Simson
seems to embody up to a high degree:
Die Schau-Spiele haben uns/ zu guhtem Glükke/
vohrdessen/ unterm Scheine
der Wahrheit/ ot betrogen;
Wihr sind dahrüm den’nselben wohlgewogen/
denn sie sinds/ die den’n Fürsten/
lugs von der zahrten Jugend/
den Glanz und Schein der Tugend/
mit Freude und Lust/ recht einzuplanzen wissen.
Der ganze Wällt-Lauf wird/ wie nach dem Leben/
dahrinnen abgerissen.
Mann sieht den Hoof verwildert;
mit Fürsten-Mord gefärbet;
da wird von Rache und Gräuel-Taht gehöret;
da wird ein Reich/ das andern ahngeerbet/
durch Meuterei zerstöret.
Man stürzt Gesalbte herab von ihren Troonen;
beraubet sie der’r Kroonen/
und jagt sie fort ins Elend;
Man hört auf Laster schänden/
und keines Männschens schohnen/
wer der auch sei. Man sieht der Tugend lohnen.
Schau-Spiele geben/ ohne iemand zunännen/
uns männiglichs Gebrächen
auf klährste zuerkännen.
Sie werden nuhr vernichtet/
Upheaved to them in golden bowls and censers. / he drama ediies a state; it brooks /
No stain of calumny or idle scorn / On holy or unholy. Each one’s fault / Is marked
without disclosing any name. / Drama is not despised but by the churl / Whose dull
soul follows neither right nor reason. / Surely the drama grants a store of wisdom /
Upon the stage of Heliopolis, / By the obelisk of Memphis, and the famed / Egyptians’
national dramatic school / Who tread the clouds and spare not cost nor labour / To
anatomize Dame Nature, limb by limb. / So have they gathered into one the sum / Of
all things knowable, a treasury / Of wisdom garnered up by many ages. / he drama
feels no mute embarrassment / If human starlings chatter in disfavour. / All princes
take much pleasure in the stage. / Who more than we? ’Tis known to thee, milady.’
vondel’s reception abroad
193
von denen die der Weisheit nicht verplichtet.
Sie borgen ihre Künste und Wissenschaten
bei denen weisen Griechen/
welche an der Klugheit haten/
wie am Magnet ein Staal/ und nuzbahr fünden/
in allem die Natur wohl zuergründen.
Wo Fürsten ein belieben
zu solcher Lehr-Ahrt tragen/
so wird/ wie gnug bekannt/ uns nachgeschrieben/
daß sie uns ot gereiche zum Behagen.64
Even Simson’s apotheosis, Dedekind has appended, conirms that the
biblical hero’s perennial exemplarity is to be found primarily in his
political actions, including his victory over the Philistines ater the
humiliation they had caused him:
Now we take, just as he wished,
his body to his father’s bosom.
Simson, who won high renown,
can boast in his outstanding victory.
Simson’s fame will endure for all posterity
until the end of the earth.65
Contemporary German Vondel-Reception Apart from Translations and
Adaptations: Travelling heatres and the Gryphius-Vondel Relation
Already during his lifetime Vondel enjoyed some renown in the German Lands, and not only through translations and adaptations of his
64
Dedekind, Simson, fol. C7r–C7v: ‘Drama formerly has, for our beneit, / under the
guise of truth / deceived us many times. / We therefore are heartily inclined to it /
because it is able properly to implant in princes / straight from their earliest childhood
/ the glory and the splendour of virtue / in a pleasant and delightful mode. / he whole
course of the world / is drawn into it from life./ here you can see the court being brutalized / and blood coloured by murder of princes. / here you can hear about revenge
and cruelties. / here a kingdom that was bequeathed to others / is destroyed by mutiny.
/ he anointed are thrown down from their thrones, / bereaved from their crowns / and
banished into exile./ You can hear there vices being blamed and nobody being spared,
/ whoever he may be. You see there virtue being remunerated. / Drama reveals, without
naming somebody, / many men’s deiciencies. / It is despised / only by those who do not
rely on wisdom. / It obtains its skills and knowledge / from the wise Greeks / who stuck
to philosophy / as iron does to the magnet, and considered it useful / to explore, in
every respect, nature thoroughly. / When princes take pleasure / in this kind of didacticism, / it is, as is well known, written about us / that it oten brings us intense joy.’
65
Ibid., fol. F8v: ‘Nuhn/ wihr bringen/ nach Verlangen/ diese Leich’ ins Vaters
Schooss. / Simson/ der sich machte grooss/ kann mit sondrem Siege prangen. / Simsons
Nach-Ruhm soll bestehn / bis die Wällt wird untergehn.’
194
guillaume van gemert
plays; there were, aside from people’s private reading, two other ways in
which a German auditory, indirectly, could have taken note of (aspects
of) Vondel’s plays. Firstly Dutch travelling theatres crossing the northern parts of the German Lands might have acted as intermediary.
Although they generally popularized and also mostly improvised, they
could have transferred some Vondel topics into the German-speaking
countries. Because texts of their performances are not extant, it cannot
be determined if plays about Lucifer, about the destruction of Jerusalem
or about the biblical Joseph, given in German cities like Hamburg in
1654, in 1666 and in 1678 respectively, ultimately trace back to Vondel.66
Secondly in original works by German authors too there can occasionally be found some traces of a preoccupation with him. In particular
the playwright Andreas Gryphius certainly knew more of Vondel’s
works than the tragedy Gebroeders that he translated and from which
he borrowed a few short sections in his Leo Armenius (Leo the Armenian) and in Catharina von Georgien.67 His Carolus Stuardus (Charles
Stuart) could, to some extent, have been written as a counterpart to
Vondel’s Maria Stuart, although there is no evidence of any immediate
inluence. By contrast, modern scholarship is in full agreement on the
fact that in his Gelibte Dornrose (Beloved Sleeping Beauty) – which,
together with Das Verlibte Gespenst (he Enamoured Phantom), constitutes a ‘Mischspiel’ (‘hybrid play’) – there are unmistakable echoes of
Vondel’s Leeuwendalers.68 A more far-reaching inluence cannot be
conirmed, even though Gryphius’s supposed reliance on Vondel has
been the subject of intensive discussion in recent decades: putative references are too vague to speak of any kind of inluence.69 In such cases
Gryphius might at best have had recourse to collectanea, brought
66
Junkers, Niederländische Schauspieler, pp. 159–61, 211, 226, 238, 245.
Kiedroń, Andreas Gryphius und die Niederlande, pp. 69–72.
68
See Kollewijn, ‘Gryphius’ “Dornrose” und Vondels “Leeuwendalers” ’; Krispyn,
‘Vondel’s “Leeuwendalers” ’; Kiedroñ, Andreas Gryphius und die Niederlande,
pp. 81–84.
69
he extent of Vondel’s inluence on Gryphius has been discussed in scholarship
for over a century. See (for instance): Kollewijn, Über den Einluß des holländischen
Dramas; Kollewijn, ‘Über die Quelle des Peter Squenz’; Flemming, ‘Vondels Einluß’;
Haerten, Vondel und der deutsche Barock; Weevers, ‘Vondel’s Inluence’; Hechtle, ‘Joost
van den Vondel’; Pott, ‘Holland-German Literary Relations’; Rens, ‘Over het probleem’;
Verhofstadt, ‘Vondel und Gryphius’. In 1993 Stefan Kiedroń, ater a critical evaluation,
concluded that only in a few cases could speciic inluence be conirmed and that
Vondel mainly served for Gryphius as an intermediary of ideas of the philosopher
Justus Lipsius, cf. Kiedroń, Andreas Gryphius und die Niederlande, pp. 59–87. See also
Van Gemert, Niederländische Einlüsse, pp. 102–05.
67
vondel’s reception abroad
195
together over time for later use, if required. Howsoever it may be
perceived, all this was deinitely not of any profound signiicance for
his plays.
England, France and Latinity
he question of whether Vondel could have inluenced contemporary
England, and especially whether his Lucifer (1654) might have been of
immediate signiicance to Milton’s Paradise Lost, has been discussed in
scholarship with an intensity similar to that found in the case of
Gryphius. In spite of their large number, the relevant studies, published
over more than one century,70 did not succeed in inding any concrete
relations; the overall similarity may be explained through the common
use of the biblical creation story as the main source of inspiration.
hus, ater more than a hunderd years, there is still full consensus on
the conclusion Moolhuizen drew in 1892 in his Utrecht thesis:
In generalities Milton and Vondel align with each other, in details they do
not. Every matching that occurs is due to the fact that both poets draw on
the same source: both of them follow the biblical story. None of them
needs the other as an example. heir artistic autonomy and their high
level allowed each of them to go his own way […].71
To some extent Moolhuizen’s statement could be criticized. By asserting that, on account of their extraordinary poetical abilities, Milton
and Vondel would not have needed each other, he wrongly applies present standards of originality to early modern literature. Furthermore,
he does not take account of the diferent religious backgrounds of both
poets, which could have hampered reception. Neither does he consider
the political impact of their works. His denial of an English reception
of Vondel in early modern times, however, and more speciically of a
Milton-Vondel relation, can be the subject of unquestioning consent.
70
See, for example: Edmundson, Milton and Vondel; Müller, Über Miltons
Abhängigkeit von Vondel; Moolhuizen, Vondels Lucifer en Miltons Verloren Paradijs; De
Vries, Holland’s Inluence, esp. pp. 288–91 and 294–96; Mody, Vondel and Milton;
Davies, he ‘Samson’ heme, esp. pp. 177–204; see also Van Dijkhuizen and Helmers,
Chapter 19, ‘Religion and Politics’, in this volume.
71
Moolhuizen, Vondels Lucifer en Miltons Verloren Paradijs, p. 121: ‘In algemeenheden komen Milton en Vondel overeen; in bijzonderheden niet. Dat er overeenkomst
is, komt hier vandaan, dat beide dichters uit eene en dezelfde bron putten: beide volgen
den Bijbel. Zij behoeven elkanders voorbeeld niet. Zij waren zelfstandig genoeg en
stonden hoog genoeg om elk zijn eigen weg te gaan […].’
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Almost as scant as the English contemporary concern with Vondel
was the French, although here some more concrete indications can be
found, since the Dunkirk poet Michael de Swaen (1654–1707)72
referred to Vondel several times by criticizing his highly artiicial style
and his intricate reasoning.73 He, however, cannot be considered as an
exponent of French Vondel reception: he was a Dutch-speaking poet of
Flemish provenance, who became a French subject because his native
city was annexed to France in 1662, but he himself nevertheless continued writing in Dutch.74 His preoccupation with Vondel therefore
remained without relevance for French culture.
It might surprise that as a playwright in the 17th century Vondel was
not received in contemporary European Latin literature. To be sure,
this is partly due to the fact that he himself did not write in Latin and
therefore, especially abroad, must have been considered not to be a
member of the respublica litteraria or a poeta doctus. his does not necessarily imply that he would not have participated in the intellectual
climate of learned society. It is supposed that for his Jeptha (1659) –
next to its immediate source, George Buchanan’s Jephthes, sive votum
(1554) – he could have had recourse to the Neo-Latin Jephtias of the
German Jesuit Jacob Balde75 (1604–1668), which was published some
years earlier in 1654.76 As yet it has not been possible to conirm this in
detail. It is, however, obvious that the common biblical source could
have led to similarities. Translations of works by Vondel into Latin
seem not have appeared earlier than in the second half of the 18th century, but they then no longer functioned in a social setting and were
primarly the intellectual gimmicks of schoolmen.77
Conclusion
In his lifetime, Vondel’s European reception as a playwright and as a
poet in general was fairly limited. his may partly be explained by the
72
For his life see: Sabbe, Leven en werken van Michael de Swaen, esp. pp. 3–7.
Ibid., pp. 69–71.
74
See hys, ‘Vondel en Frankrijk’, pp. 294–97; hys, Vondel et la France, pp. 39–46.
75
Westermayer, Jacobus Balde (1604–1668); ADB, 1 (1875), pp. 1–3; NDB, 1 (1953),
p. 549.
76
Führer, Studien zu Jacob Baldes ‘Jephtias’, pp. 174–75.
77
Cf. (for example) Justi Vondelii Joannis metanoe-angeli sive Poenitentiae praeconis,
libri sex versibus latinis redditi. Auctore C.F. de Rees. Hagae Comitis: apud Eustachium
de Haan, 1761. A second edition seems to have been appeared in 1766 in Amsterdam.
73
vondel’s reception abroad
197
then relatively small spread of knowledge of Dutch outside its own language area, which might, apart from in the German Lands where a
related language was spoken, have hampered reception everywhere.
But also thematic and content-related aspects, as well as Vondel’s reputation, might have counteracted a broader European noticing of his
works. He just did not deal primarily with catchy issues of everyday life
that were didactically exploitable, as Jacob Cats did. He did not acquire
European prestige, as Hugo Grotius did. And he did not hold a scholarly rank such as that held by Daniel Heinsius. And inally, his
Catholicism too – which he confesses, like many converts, openly and
in a militant way – could have prevented his plays gaining wide appeal.
In most instances of adaptation of Vondel outside the Netherlands in
the seventeenth century, his plays are even more politicized than in
their original form. In his highlighting the political factor, Vondel may
have been a child of his time that vehemently discussed key political
events all over Europe such as the execution of Charles I Stuart.
However, his speciic approach outside of the Dutch Republic somehow must have had added value for the respective domestic production
of literature.
Conspicuously, contemporary Vondel reception outside the Dutch
Republic was limited to the German Lands, where language ainity
facilitated accessibility and where the Netherlands at that time functioned as a role model, especially in the ield of cultural politics. It is
conspicuous too that, apart from the Silesian Gryphius, who had lived
in the Netherlands himself, reception was mainly in Saxonia. A similar
climate of pragmatic interconfessional tolerance to that in the Dutch
Republic may well have prevailed,78 being an appropriate basis of reception. German Vondel reception during the 17th century was anything
but comprehensive and did not really care about proximity to the
Dutch original. As a specimen of the European impact of contemporary Dutch literature, however, it could be instructive.
During the 18th century there are no traces to be found of any more
intensive concern with Vondel outside the Netherlands, and in the 19th
century foreign interest in him is mostly antiquarian in focus; it mainly
manifests itself within the context of the then new concept of world
literature, which competes with the older, politically connoted one of
national literature. Again, in Germany alone Vondel is now received in
78
Böttiger, Geschichte des Kurstaates und Königreiches Sachsen, 2 (1831),
pp. 159–220.
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a diferent way: here he was contemporized during the so-called
‘Kulturkampf ’ (cultural struggle) and its backwash, when in confrontation with the Bismarck regime he was positioned by German Catholics
as an exemplar of an outstanding level of culture achieved by a
Catholic.79 A thorough monograph on his life and works, written by
the Jesuit literary historian Alexander Baumgartner80 (1841–1910),
appeared81 and a complete edition in German translation even seems
to have been planned.82 Now too the long-standing kinship between
the Germans and the Dutch is emphasized, and the German Vondel
lobby, personiied by Lina Schneider83 (1831–1909) as its igurehead, is
strongly supported by Dutch kindred spirits such as Jozef Albert
Alberdingk hijm84 (1820–1889). Once emancipation of the German
Catholics was achieved, Vondel lost currency in Germany, as he did
mutatis mutandis in the Netherlands. he German edition of his complete works never got beyond the beginnings. Although recently
Vondel has increasingly been translated once more, especially into
English, this does not imply renewed contemporization, but is merely
due to comparative, philological or cultural interests. All in all, Vondel
has since been enshrined, within the Netherlands and outside its borders, in the pantheon of classical authors, and he shares their fate fully;
that is to say, he is revered in awe, but hardly ever read by the mainstream public.
79
See Van Gemert, ‘Germanje groet U’, esp. pp. 68–69.
On him see NDB, 1 (1953), p. 666.
81
Baumgartner, Joost van den Vondel, sein Leben und seine Werke; see also Van
Gemert: ‘Germanje groet U’, pp. 82–84.
82
Diferee, ‘Vondel in den vreemde’, pp. 11–13; Van Gemert, ‘Germanje groet U’,
pp. 76–82.
83
De Beer, ‘Levensbericht van Lina Schneider’; Van Gemert, ‘Germanje groet U’,
pp. 84–91.
84
Van der Plas, Vader hijm.
80
PART II
APPROACHES AND DRAMAS
CHAPTER ELEVEN
NEW HISTORICISM – HIERUSALEM VERWOEST (1620) AND
THE JEWISH QUESTION*
Jürgen Pieters
Hierusalem Verwoest and its Critics: ‘A Mere Religious Play’?
Hierusalem verwoest (Jerusalem Destroyed) has never been a favourite
among Vondel scholars, and that is putting things mildly. Despite the
author’s own enthusiasm for it,1 Vondel’s second play (1620) has deinitely not been greeted with much critical acclaim throughout the past
century and a half. he modern standard of the text’s reception seems
to have been set by Jacob Van Lennep. In his introduction to the play in
his edition of De Werken van Vondel (1855), Van Lennep expressed his
admiration for the poet’s distinct linguistic virtuosity in Hierusalem
verwoest. his clearly marked a welcome step forward, he thought, in
comparison with Het Pascha (Passover), Vondel’s irst play which was
published eight years earlier. But at the same time, Van Lennep seems
to have been a bit disappointed by the new play’s lack of dramatic
power.2 With respect to the latter, he considered the comparison with
Het Pascha less advantageous. Although still clearly rooted in the Dutch
late medieval tradition of ‘het rederijkersspel’ from which Vondel
would soon break away, Het Pascha was much more of a real play than
Hierusalem verwoest, Van Lennep felt. He concluded, therefore, that it
would be better to characterize Vondel’s second dramatic opus as a
‘tragic song’ (treurzang) rather than a ‘tragedy’ (treurspel).3
Both ingredients of Van Lennep’s mixed feelings about the play
return in the summary treatment that Hierusalem verwoest is given in
* he author wishes to thank Mike Keirsbilck for his invaluable bibliographical help
in the preparation of this text and Lise Gosseye for her assistance with the English
translations of Vondel’s verse.
1
Of his earliest writings, he only includes Hierusalem verwoest in the 1644 edition
(Verzamelt door B.D.L.B. t’Amsterdam, gedrukt bij Jacob Lescaille. Voor Joost Hartgers)
of his Verscheide Gedichten. Cf. Van Lennep, ‘Kritisch overzicht’, p. 757.
2
Van Lennep, ‘Kritisch overzicht’, p. 752.
3
Van Lennep, ‘Kritisch overzicht’, p. 752.
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jürgen pieters
most of the important histories of Dutch literature of the modern era.
Kalf, Te Winkel and Knuvelder, to give only those three examples, all
seem to agree with Van Lennep. Compared to Het Pascha, Hierusalem
verwoest is indeed a step forward as far as the development of Vondel’s
budding mastery of the Dutch language is concerned, both Kalf and Te
Winkel write,4 but the characters are lacking in personality, Kalf
claims.5 According to Knuvelder, on the other hand, dramatically
speaking the play as a whole, on account of its largely emblematic purposes, is not very gripping.6 Te Winkel concurs, by means of what any
reader of Hierusalem verwoest will ultimately consider a serious understatement: ‘there is more dialogue than action’ in Vondel’s second play.7
here is, to be frank, hardly any action at all in Hierusalem verwoest.
he play opens post medias res, one could say, ater the real action has
taken place, the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the later
Roman emperor Titus in 70 AD. he play’s irst four acts are almost
entirely taken up by post factum descriptions of the town’s bloody siege
and by comments on the event by members of both the victorious party
(the Roman leader, Titus, for instance, and his second in command,
Librarius) and those who are let defeated (the daughter of Sion, for
instance, a personiication of the Jewish people, and the Jewish priest,
Phineas, whose monologue opens the third act). In true Senecan fashion,8 each of the irst four acts is rounded of by the lyrical ruminations
of a group of characters: no action there either. here are ive ‘Reyen’ in
all in Hierusalem verwoest, representing the diferent parties in the military conlict: Roman soldiers, Jewish women, ‘Jewesses in general’,
4
Kalf, Geschiedenis der Nederlandse Letterkunde, 4, p. 267; Te Winkel, Ontwikkelingsgang, 3, pp. 270–71.
5
Kalf, Geschiedenis der Nederlandse Letterkunde, 4, p. 267.
6
Knuvelder, Handboek, 2, p. 323.
7
‘[E]r [is] meer dialoog dan handeling’: Te Winkel, Ontwikkelingsgang, 3, p. 271.
8
In the interlude between Het Pascha and Hierusalem verwoest, Vondel discovered
Seneca, of whose Troades he made a prose-translation together with P.C. Hoot and
Laurens Reael, probably in the winter of 1622–1623. Seneca’s play deals with the
destruction of Troy and its impact on the female population of the city: the analogy
with Hierusalem verwoest is obvious, since most of the play’s action is taken up by the
attempt of the women of Jerusalem to prevent the daughter of Sion from being taken to
Rome as part of the war booty. Vondel’s Amsteldamsche Hecuba (1625) is a translation
of the play in rhyming verse. I will not deal with the Senecan inluence in Hierusalem
verwoest, given the extensive treatment of the subject in Smit, Van Pascha to Noah, 1,
pp. 61–63. Smit’s chapter on the play (Van Pascha tot Noah, 1, pp. 61–96) is still the best
general introduction to it. Other good introductions to the play can be found in
Molkenboer, De jonge Vondel, pp. 627–57 and Konst, Fortuna, Fatum & Providentia,
pp. 127–35.
new historicism – hierusalem verwoest
203
‘Courtly ladies in waiting’ (Staet Jonfren) and Christians.9 he latter
group, who on account of the Roman victory will be allowed to settle in
Jerusalem, are addressed in the ith act by the angel Gabriel. In his long
monologue, which takes up most of the ith act, he explains God’s
ways to both the Christian settlers and the Amsterdam audience of
Vondel’s play. I will come back to Gabriel’s speech later in this chapter.
In the two most recent literary histories to date, the critical fortune
of Hierusalem verwoest has not made a turn for the better. In Nederlandse
literatuur, een geschiedenis (1993), the play does not even receive a separate mention at all, whereas in Een nieuw vaderland voor de muzen
(1560–1700), their contribution to the seven-volume Geschiedenis van
de Nederlandse Literatuur (2008), Karel Porteman and Mieke SmitsVeldt grant Hierusalem verwoest one single sentence, a dismissive one
at that: Vondel’s second play, the authors believe, is ‘nothing but a religious play about God’s deliverance of vengeful justice to sinners, in a
Christian aemulatio of Seneca’s Troades’.10 As the title of this chapter
suggests, I intend to dispute this qualiication as well as the slightly
condescending judgment that it seems to entail. Of course, the play is
religious to the bone, like most of Vondel’s work, but as I hope to make
clear, a closer look at the historical moment in which Hierusalem verwoest was written, may enable us to relate the Christian message that it
tries to convey to the political actuality of Vondel’s Amsterdam in a
new and, hopefully, exciting way.
he Historical Method: From Old to New
While there is much to be said in favour of Van Lennep’s general appreciation of Vondel’s play, it is not the purpose of the present chapter to
add to the aesthetic criticism of Hierusalem verwoest that he inaugurated. Rather, what I wish to do is to relate the play to a set of historical
circumstances to which it can be read as a response. My aim is not to
pin down the meaning of Vondel’s entire text to what traditional historical scholars would have called its original context of production,
but to indicate within it one speciic discursive thread that enables us to
see the text as participating in the complex historical moment to which
9
Cf. Van Gemert, Tussen de bedrijven door?, pp. 235–36.
Porteman and Smits-Veldt, Een nieuw vaderland, p. 231: ‘[…] niet meer dan een
religieus spel over Gods wrekende gerechtigheid over zondaren, in een christelijke
aemulatio van Seneca’s Troades.’
10
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it belongs. At large, the text’s historical moment is that of the closing
years of the Twelve Years’ Truce and the atermath of the tragic execution of Oldenbarnevelt, a moment of great political and religious instability. As we will see shortly, Vondel’s second play has been repeatedly
connected to this historical background, but in my view not in a very
satisfactory manner, or at least not on the basis of suicient textual
evidence.
My aim, obviously, is in line with the reading method this chapter is
meant to exemplify, the New Historicism. A word of caution is in order,
however. What I am here presenting is not a full-ledged New Historicist
analysis of Hierusalem verwoest. Such an ambition would require more
space and, admittedly, more archival study than I have been able to
pursue so far. My ambition is more modest, but it does nevertheless tie
in with the critical agenda of New Historicism, in the sense that, on the
basis of a number of speciic textual markers, I wish to situate Vondel’s
text in a dialogical framework of other texts whose presuppositions it
borrows and elaborates upon. Instead of taking an allegorical approach
as previous historicist readings of Hierusalem verwoest have done,
I have opted for a more literal reading and taken the Jews in Vondel’s
play for what they represent: Jews. In doing so, the historicist bias
behind my reading of the play has directed me towards the question of
their actual treatment in Vondel’s Amsterdam and to Hugo Grotius’s
Remonstrance Concerning the Order that Needs to Be Imposed on the
Jews in the States of Holland and Westvrieslandt (Remonstrantie nopende
de ordre dije in de landen van Hollandt ende Westvrieslandt dijent gestelt
op de Joden, 1615). Without wanting to suggest an explicit intertextual
relationship between Vondel’s play and the text by Grotius, I want to
argue that both texts participate in a shared ideology with respect to
the Jewish Question, an ideology that I would describe in terms of a
‘missionary tolerance’: their presence is tolerated, for several reasons –
primarily economic ones, but also ultimately anticipation of their longawaited conversion to Christianity.
To be sure, a full-ledged New Historicist analysis of Vondel’s play
would require a more extensive reading of Vondel’s text in connection
with a broader corpus of co-texts. However, I hope that what follows
may ultimately serve as the irst step towards a more exhaustive treatment of the subject along the lines presented here. New Historicist
analyses are generally meant as corrections of a number of presumably
lawed characteristics of more traditional historicist readings: (a) their
positivism (their tendency to anchor texts in a set of facts that are
new historicism – hierusalem verwoest
205
treated as indisputable rather than historical representations that can
be seen from diferent perspectives); (b) their ‘monologism’ (their tendency to take contexts as monoliths of which the literary text is subsequently seen as a simple illustration); (c) their idealism (their tendency
to venerate literary authors as beings endowed with more historical
insight than other living beings).11 It would not be too hard, I think, to
come up with examples of traditional historicist readings of texts by
Vondel that it this description. In what follows, I intend to counteract
these three tendencies, by (a) construing historical facts (in this case,
the presence of the Jews in Amsterdam anno 1618–1619) as a matter of
dialogical dispute; (b) regarding the background of Vondel’s play as an
unstable and multifaceted artefact that contains a force ield that cannot be reduced to a simple formula; (c) treating Vondel not as a straightforward champion of political correctness (‘toleration’, ‘moral rectitude’)
but as a historical agent who like any other historical agent in his time
did not have the freedom to transcend the discursive boundaries of
his age.
he Political Actuality of Hierusalem verwoest: the Dedication
to C.P. Hoot
From what I have said so far about the critical reception of Hierusalem
verwoest, one might be led to conclude that there is very little about
which critics tend to disagree with respect to Vondel’s second play.
However, such a conclusion stands in need of immediate qualiication.
he most important bone of contention among scholars who have
written about Hierusalem verwoest seems to be that of the play’s presumed ‘topicality’: the question, more speciically, of how Vondel’s
dramatization of what to him and his contemporaries was ater all a
story from a distant past, relates to the major political event of the year
that precedes the play’s composition, the execution of Johan van
Oldenbarnevelt on May 13th 1619. It is well known that the history of
Oldenbarnevelt’s inal days is the subject of the play Vondel wrote ater
Hierusalem verwoest, Palamedes (1625). Yet according to some critics,
Vondel’s outrage at the scandalous ‘murder’ of the Raadpensionaris by
11
A good survey of the basic principles of the reading method can be found in
Brannigan, New Historicism and Cultural Materialism. See also Pieters, Moments of
Negotiation and ‘In denkbeeldige tegenwoordigheid’.
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jürgen pieters
Stadtholder Maurits (the term is Vondel’s) can be distinctly felt in
Hierusalem verwoest, especially in the play’s opening monologue by
Josephus (a character representing Flavius Josephus, the Jewish-Roman
historian, writer of the Antiquitates Judaicae and of the Bellum Iudaicum
from which Vondel took some of the historical materials for his play)
and in the dedicatory epistle to C.P. Hoot, ‘Councillor and former
Burgomaster of the globally famous Merchant City of Amsterdam’
(HV, p. 77).12
Albert Verwey, for one, felt quite sure that, much in the same way as
Het Pascha could be read as a ‘laudatory poem on the secession from
Spain’, Hierusalem verwoest had to be seen as ‘Vondel’s response to the
beheading of the Pensionary’.13 Written in 1927, Verwey’s comment can
be taken as an echo of the lengthy exposition that C.R. De Klerk in the
Kultuurbeschouwende inleiding to his edition of Het Pascha and
Hierusalem verwoest (1911) devotes to what he considers to be the reasoning behind Vondel’s dedication of the latter play to former burgomaster Hoot.14 he play in itself, De Klerk admits, scarcely contains
any immediately visible traces of the politically turbulent moment of
its composition. his is hardly coincidental, he feels, since the time
was deinitely not ripe for a direct attack against those Vondel would
have considered responsible for Oldenbarnevelt’s end: the Stadtholder
and his political entourage, in the irst place, as well as the orthodox
Calvinist preachers whose party had prevailed at the Synod of
Dordrecht of 1618–1619. It is a well-known fact that the impact of the
Synod was not limited to religious issues. he theological dispute
between Remonstrants and Contraremonstrants also involved diferences of meaning with respect to the political organization of the
Republic and foreign policy.15 he Contraremonstrants were generally
12
‘Raed en ouwd Burgemeester der om des weerelds ommeloop wyd beroemde
Koopstad Amsterdam.’ In what follows, I will draw on the text as it appears in the second volume of De werken van Vondel in the ten-volume edition from the ‘maatschappij
voor goede en goedkoope lectuur te Amsterdam’ (‘company for well-written and wellpriced reading material in Amsterdam’). References are given parenthetically as HV,
followed by the page number (for the paratextual materials) or the line number (for the
text of the play itself).
13
‘[L]ofzang op de losmaking van Spanje’ and ‘Vondels antwoord op de onthoofding
van de Advocaat’: Verwey, Vondels vers, p. 37.
14
De Klerk, Kultuurbeschouwende inleiding, pp. lii–lxxxii.
15
See, for instance, Rowen, he Princes of Orange, p. 46. For a clear survey of
the political and religious struggles of the moment see Israel, he Dutch Republic,
pp. 399–477.
new historicism – hierusalem verwoest
207
in favour of a heavily centralized state in whose organisation the
Church would play a central role, more central at least than the one it
had in the federation of semi-independent states that made up the
young Dutch Republic.16 In the political force ield that structured the
irst decades of the Republic, their position automatically seemed to
entail the support for the Stadtholder, whose role, they believed, needed
to become that of a quasi-monarch, whose absolute power it was to
decide upon what was best for all his subjects, not just including their
religion but even predominantly their religion. In his political struggle
against Oldenbarnevelt, spokesman for the States and staunch supporter of the federalist organization of the Union, Maurits will have
been aware that the outcome of the Synod in favour of the Contraremonstrants would ultimately strengthen his own power and possibly
even secure him the position of supreme sovereign.
he outcome of the political struggle between Oldenbarnevelt
and Maurits is well-known, as is the fact that it illed Vondel with pure
rage, a rage which according to De Klerk he could not express in
Hierusalem verwoest. However, by dedicating his play to former burgomaster Hoot, Vondel did make it perfectly clear whose side he was on.
Both in his political ambitions and in his continued plea for religious
tolerance, Hoot could be considered an ally of Oldenbarnevelt and
Grotius, the two most memorable victims of the political outcome of
the Synod of Dordt. Between 1588 and 1610, C.P. Hoot, father of the
famous poet, was several times elected as one of the burgomasters of
Amsterdam, on whose ‘city council’ (‘vroedschap’) he served in diferent capacities from 1584 until his death in 1626.17 On the occasion of
his death, Vondel composed a touching sonnet (‘Klinckdicht’) in which
he urged his fellow citizens to always remember Hoot as an ‘irreproachable’ (‘onbesproken’) enemy of ‘proit and thirst for power’ (‘baet
en staetzucht). In Het Roskam (Currycumb, 1630), one of his iercest
satirical poems, dedicated to Hoot’s son, the famous poet and Sherif
(‘Drost’) of Muyden, Vondel addressed the former burgomaster as ‘dear
burgomaster’ (‘beste bestevaer’) and ‘Mirror of virtue’ (‘Spiegel van de
16
For a good survey of the political organization of the States making up the
Republic, see Méchoulan, Amsterdam ten tijde van Spinoza, pp. 58–59.
17
For an intellectual biography of Hoot see Van Gelder, Levensbeschouwing. For a
brief survey of Hoot’s activities on the ‘Raedt’ of the Amsterdam ‘Vroedschap’ see
Elias, De vroedschap van Amsterdam, I, p. 147. In the introduction to his book, Elias
gives a succinct description of the city’s political organization. See also Burke, Venetië
en Amsterdam, passim and Méchoulan, Amsterdam ten tijde van Spinoza, p. 64.
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jürgen pieters
deugd’), an avatar of moral rectitude and hence a true counterexample to those who were now in charge of the city and whose politics of
blind self-interest, Vondel felt, might bring an end to Amsterdam’s
prosperity.
hroughout his career, Hoot had always taken a irm stance against
those Vondel gradually came to consider his worst enemies, the
Calvinist preachers whom the poet also targeted in other memorable
satires.18 Hoot’s resistance to the ‘Predikanten’ (preachers) was, unsurprisingly, based on a mixture of religious, moral and political considerations. He abhorred their intolerance of dissenters on the basis of the
very principles that earned him the nickname of Cato, but his untiring
resistance to the preachers was also a matter of political conviction.
heir continued plea for more authority for the Church in State matters
ultimately threatened to bring down the good fortune of Amsterdam,
Hoot felt, the economic success of which he considered to be the result
of the sound and pragmatic organization of the City and the fact that it
was ruled by merchants and for merchants. His no doubt justly famed
tolerance was equally grounded in an economic rationale, as Busken
Huet already shrewdly noted in his trenchant portrait of Hoot in Het
Land van Rembrandt.19 However, by the time of Vondel’s dedication
of Hierusalem verwoest, the man’s power had already waned considerably. On 3 November 1618, two months ater the imprisonment of
Oldenbarnevelt, Hoot famously stood up to Stadtholder Maurits when
the latter came to a meeting of the Amsterdam city council to sack
those regents of the City of Amsterdam who were less supportive of his
cause.20 Maurits, however, seems not to have been duly impressed by
Hoot’s protest.
Vondel’s Play and the Jewish Presence in Amsterdam
Apart from the dedicatory epistle, some critics have also perceived
references to the Oldenbarnevelt case in the very text of Vondel’s
play. According to Sterck, some of the lines of Josephus’s opening
Cf. Van Gelder, Levensbeschouwing, pp. 124–29.
Huet, Het land van Rembrandt, 3, pp. 161–66. As Méchoulan puts it: ‘Vrijheid en
tolerantie zijn commerciële imperatieven, dat wil zeggen categorische imperatieven
voor het stadsbestuur.’ (‘Freedom and tolerance are commercial imperatives, i.e. categorical imperatives for local government’, Amsterdam ten tijde van Spinoza, p. 57)
20
Cf. De Klerk, Kultuurbeschouwende inleiding, pp. lxvii–lxx. See also: Calis, Vondel,
pp. 118–19.
18
19
new historicism – hierusalem verwoest
209
monologue of Hierusalem verwoest would not have been out of place in
Palamedes.21 In his brief analysis of the play in Vondels Vers, Verwey
quotes the irst twelve lines of the play in which the theme of
God’s revenge on the Jews is immediately introduced and he feels
sure that these lines could only have been provoked by the imprisonment and the execution of Oldenbarnevelt.22 Molkenboer, in
his famous study of the writings of De jonge Vondel (he young
Vondel), even detects in Josephus’s irst speech ‘allusions suggesting
that the poet even thought of the overconidence of those preaching
predestination’.23
However, as I suggested earlier, not every reader of Hierusalem verwoest agrees with De Klerk, Verwey, Sterck and Molkenboer. In his
analysis of the play in the irst volume of his classic Van Pascha tot
Noah, W.A.P. Smit is quite emphatic: ‘I am truly convinced that any
political allusion to Oldenbarnevelt is wholly foreign to Hierusalem
verwoest’, he writes, ‘even in the Josephus monologue’.24 he play, Smit
goes on to write, contains no immediate references to the political
actuality of its moment of production; it ‘only contains BiblicalChristian symbolism’.25 Having repeatedly and closely read the play’s
opening monologue, I tend to side with Smit on this speciic issue. To
be sure, Vondel will no doubt have been thinking about some kind of
poetical means with which to call for revenge in the immediate atermath of the horrendous events of May 1619, but it is hardly clear why
he would want to choose this speciic story about God’s revenge on the
Jews to air his dissatisfaction with the outcome of the political struggles
in the Republic in general and in Amsterdam in particular. In 1625,
it was clear to every reader that Palamedes was in fact about
21
Sterck, ‘Het leven van Vondel’, p. 3.
‘Door welke gebeurtenissen anders dan door de vervolging van de Remonstranten
en de gevangenneming en dood van Baernevelt, kon hij gedreven zijn tot zulk een
spanning, overspanning bijna, van gekrenkt rechtvaardigheidsgevoel.’ (‘What events,
other than the persecution of the Remonstrants and the arrest and death of Barnevelt,
could compel him to such a strain, overstraining almost, of aggrieved sense of justice.’)
Verwey, Vondels Vers, p. 38.
23
Molkenboer, De jonge Vondel, p. 640: ‘toespelingen die het vermoeden wekken
dat de dichter zelfs aan de overmoed van de Praedestinatie-predikanten gedachten
heet (ll. 25–26)’.
24
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 1, p. 94: ‘Ik ben ervan overtuigd, dat in werkelijkheid
iedere politieke allusie op Oldenbarneveldt aan de Hierusalem verwoest ten enenmale
vreemd is, ook in de Josephus-monoloog’.
25
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 1, p. 94: ‘uitsluitend drager van een Bijbels-Christelijke
symboliek’.
22
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Oldenbarnevelt: the eponymous hero is the classical exemplum par
excellence of a wise leader unjustly convicted, and that is precisely what
Oldenbarnevelt was in Vondel’s view. In the case of Hierusalem verwoest, any historical analogy between what could be seen on the theatrical stage or read on the page of a printed literary text and what
happened on the political stage is much harder to determine, unless
one takes the phenomenon of the analogy in a very lexible (and possibly even blasphemous) sense of the word and considers the killing
of Christ by the Jews as a historical parallel to the murder of Oldenbarnevelt by the Contraremonstrants.
Still, this does not mean that Hierusalem verwoest ‘only contains
Biblical-Christian symbolism’. Vondel’s use of this Biblical motif has an
actual bearing on the moment of its production. In the remainder of
this chapter, I want to follow a diferent ‘contextual’ trail that allows us
to connect Vondel’s text in a more direct manner to the historical circumstances in which it was produced. I want to relate Hierusalem verwoest to a question that seems immediately relevant to the historical
materials that Vondel drew upon in his play and that was clearly in the
air at the time when he wrote it, even if less spectacularly so than the
Oldenbarnevelt case.
On 13 December 1619, the States of Holland decided that in future
it would be let to the cities within the Assembly to decide upon their
own regulations with respect to the treatment of their Jewish inhabitants. A ‘national’ policy with respect to the Jews turned out not to be
feasible at the time, possibly also on account of the fact that the Jewish
question kept dividing the Calvinist and more libertarian factions
within the States. he only general rule that the States decreed was that
Jews should not be compelled to wear any distinguishing mark, as was
the case in diferent European states and regions.26 As far as the city of
Amsterdam was concerned, the decision of the States enabled the city
council to continue the moderately liberal policy it had been adopting
for some years. Given the steady rise of the number of Sephardic merchants in the Republic (and in Amsterdam, in particular), the Jewish
Question seems to have been a not wholly unimportant one during the
Twelve Years’ Truce.27 he Truce had resulted, among other things, in
a major economic boom, to which the growing number of Jewish
merchants had contributed signiicantly. In contrast to their Dutch
26
27
Huussen, ‘he legal position of the Jews’, p. 34.
Meijer, ‘Inleiding’, p. 47.
new historicism – hierusalem verwoest
211
colleagues, the Sephardic Jews had an immediate access to the interesting markets related to the Spanish and Portuguese colonies.28 If only on
economic grounds, therefore, most Dutch policy-makers seem to have
found it reasonable to welcome members of the ‘Jewish Nation’ in their
midst, even if their presence was greeted with serious hostility by other
groups within society, the reformed clergy in particular. ‘Provocations
and oppositions aside’, Hsia notes in one of many surveys of the matter,
‘the Jewish community lourished because of the protection of the
regents, who ignored most of the complaints of the Reformed clergy’.29
his should not lead us to conclude, however, that Amsterdam was a
true heaven on earth for the Jews.30 In 1614, ive years before the decision to which I just referred, the question of the increasing number of
Jews living in the Republic was already occupying the members of the
States of Holland. According to Meijer, the direct occasion may have
been one or two cases of apostasy, Christians suddenly converting to
the Jewish faith.31 he States asked two prominent lawyers to drat a
recommendation with respect to the Jewish question: the Calvinist
Adriaen Pauw, Pensionary of Amsterdam, and the Arminian Hugo
Grotius.32 Of their responses, only that of Grotius seems to have survived; his ‘Remonstrance Concerning the Order Needing to be Imposed
on the Jews in the States of Holland and Westvrieslandt for the Jews’
(1615) has been taken by many historians of the period to be a typical
product of the treatment of the Jews in the irst two decades of the
seventeenth-century Republic: ‘liberal on some points, reactionary on
others’, to borrow the terms used by Jonathan Israel.33 Indeed, Grotius’s
text strikes the contemporary reader as a bizarre mixture of philosemitism and antisemitism. he text opens with a number of historical
arguments that are traditionally directed against the toleration of
Jews.34 In that context Grotius provides us with examples of ‘the general
28
Van Rooden, ‘Jews and religious toleration in the Dutch Republic’, p. 134.
Hsia, ‘Introduction’, p. 3.
30
For a survey of four diferent Christian perspectives on Jews in the seventeenthcentury Republic see Abicht, Geschiedenis van de Joden van de Lage Landen, pp. 72–75.
31
Meijer, ‘Inleiding’, p. 48.
32
Huussen, ‘he legal position of the Jews’, pp. 32–33.
33
Israel, European Jewry in the Age of Mercantilism 1550–1750, p. 64. Nellen (Hugo
de Groot, p. 99) describes the text as ‘tolerant’.
34
hey are characteristically (and backed by Biblical authority) described as ‘stubborn, uncircumcised of heart, murderers of the prophets, scum’ (‘hardtneckinghe,
onbesneden van harten, prophetenmoorders, addergebroet’), De Groot, Remonstrantie,
p. 109.
29
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irreconcilable hatred of the Jews towards the Christians’,35 taken from
the Talmudic compilation ‘Abodazara’ and the Bible, but also from stories involving the supposed cruciixion of Christians by Jews. Over and
against those stand two arguments in support of their presence, Grotius
concludes, arguments ‘that perhaps ought to outweigh the former’:36
one is economic (their presence is advantageous for the material prosperity of the common good), another religious. It is the latter that is of
interest to my reading of Hierusalem verwoest, since the logic behind
this part of Grotius’s ‘Remonstrance’ ties in, I believe, with the emblematic message of Vondel’s play.
Grotius’s ‘Remonstrance’
‘It is obvious that God wants them to stay somewhere’, Grotius writes in
his ‘Remonstrance’, ‘so why not here’, he wonders.37 he logic behind
the former sentence is clear: the history of the dispersal of the Jews
shows that God remains willing to protect this people, despite the hideous fact that they are responsible for the killing of His Son. God’s lasting protection seems to be accounted for in Grotius’s text by means of
a single axiom: ‘habent primordium veritatis’, ‘theirs is the origin of
truth’.38 his, Grotius feels, is what distinguishes the Jews from the heathens and from other heretics: ‘he heathens have false Gods. he
Muhammadans have a false Prophet. he Jews in a certain sense have
the right God and the right Prophets. he bulk of their faith we share,
and the rest of what we believe, we prove from the scriptures they
believe in.’39
As Steven Nadler points out in his brief discussion of the
‘Remonstrance’ in Rembrandt’s Jews, Grotius was later to return to the
idea that the Jewish faith was not so completely diferent and contrary
to that of the Christians; their faith, Grotius writes in De veritate
religionis Christianae (On the Truth of the Christian Religion, 1627), is
35
Ibidem, p. 109: ‘den generaelen onversoenlijcken haet van de Joden tot de
Christenen’.
36
Ibidem, p. 110: ‘dije misschijen de voorgaende behooren te overweegen’.
37
Ibidem, p. 113: ‘T’ is kennelick dat Godt wilt dat zij ergens blijven’, ‘Waerom dan
hijer nijet’.
38
Ibidem, p. 112.
39
Ibidem, pp. 111–12: ‘De Heijdenen hebben valsche Goden. De Mahumetisten een
valsche Profeet. De Joden hebben eenichsints den rechten Godt ende de rechte
Propheten. De substantie van haer geloof gelooven wij mede, ende t’ gunt wij meer
geloven, bewijsen wij vuijt de schriten dije zij geloven.’
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213
‘the stock onto which [the Christian faith] was grated.’40 In other
words, Judaism contains the germ of a truth God intended to ind fulilment in the Christian faith. he iconic moment of that fulilment is,
obviously, the arrival of the New Jerusalem and its blessing at the
Second Coming of the Saviour. In the ‘Remonstrance’, Grotius more
than once calls upon Saint Paul to support the religious grounds of his
plea for toleration of the Jews. Paul’s conception of the Judaic Law, as
Michael Grant has noted, is perfectly in line with the logic of preiguration and fulilment that sustains his inluential reading of the Bible. he
Mosaic Law does not suice for those who are seeking God’s justiication, Paul writes in Romans, chapter 3: more is needed, and that more
can be found in the true faith of the Christian.41
he same logic underlies Paul’s conviction, referred to by Grotius,
that the Second Coming will also entail the ultimate conversion of all
Jews to the Christian Faith. As a Jew himself, Paul knew that the members of his former race were also anxiously awaiting the coming of the
Messiah,42 but it was only by becoming a Christian that he felt he could
see the true message of God. In line with his own personal experience,
Paul therefore saw it as a duty of all Christians to facilitate the eventual
conversion of the Jews. In his ‘Remonstrance’, Grotius refers to the
Pauline ideal as follows:
Moreover, the apostle Paul has stated emphatically that a general conversion of the Jewish People is still to come, to which end God appears to be
miraculously saving the Jewish nation in itself and apart from other people, to prove to them when the time has come the certainty of his promises. All Christians have to strive for this particular and general
conversion, which cannot take place if the Jews are cut of from conversation with Christians, because how can they believe without hearing or
hear without preaching?43
In the 34th article of the regulation that Grotius proposes in his
‘Remonstrance’, the question of the conversion of the Jews returns as
40
Quoted in Nadler, Rembrandt’s Jews, p. 20.
Grant, Saint Paul, p. 50.
42
Grant, Saint Paul, p. 51.
43
De Groot, Remonstrantie, p. 110: ‘Hijerenboven seijt den Apostel Paulus uijtdruckelijck, dat noch eijndelijck een generaele bekeringhe van het Joodtsche Volck is
te verwachten, tot de welcken eijnde Godt oock schijnt de Joodtse natie wonderbaerlijck te bewaeren op haer zelven ende afgesondert van alle andere menschen, om daer
aan t’sijnen tijde te bethoonen de seeckerheijt van zijne beloten. Tot dese particuliere
ende generaele bekeringhe moeten alle Christenen haer best doen, t’ welck nijet en can
geschijeden indijen men den Joden afsnijt de conversatie van de Christenen: Want hoe
sullen sij geloven zonder gehoor ote hooren sonder predicatie?’
41
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follows: ‘If a Jew is converted to the Christian religion, he will not be
troubled or harmed because of this by the Jews, upon pain of banishment from the land and coniscation, or also corporal punishment
should the occasion call for it.’44 In contrast to the inverse movement of
conversion – Article 33: ‘A Christian that converses to Judaism will be
banished from the land’45 – the Christianization of Jews is a goal worth
striving for.
At least part of the apparent philosemitism of the more liberal
defenders of the Jewish presence in Amsterdam at the time seems to
have been driven by the Pauline desire to convert. As Steven Nadler
among others has shown, the Jewish fascination of prominent intellectuals like Scaliger and Vossius, of preachers like Cornelis Anslo, and
artists like Rembrandt was related to the idea that Amsterdam could be
seen as the New Jerusalem to the millenarian belief that the Second
Coming was nigh. he conversion of the Jews, Nadler writes, was supposed to facilitate the inauguration of God’s kingdom of earth, and the
concomitant restoration of the Temple of the New Jerusalem. he
inluence of millenarianism was ‘nowhere more [inluential] than in
the Netherlands’, Nadler claims.46 Without wanting to assert that
Vondel actually shared those beliefs, I would like to point out three loci
around or in Hierusalem verwoest that can be connected to the discursive ield I have sketched in the preceding paragraphs: the sonnet
addressed ‘Aende Ioodsche Rabbynen’ (‘To the Jewish rabbis’) that
immediately precedes the play, the speech by Josephus that opens Act
I, and a passage from the monologue by Gabriel in Act V.
Vondel’s Dream of a New Jerusalem
Let me start by quoting the irst locus in full:
All your priests were drunk with happiness,
as Jesus hung suspended from the cross
44
Ibidem, p. 119: ‘Indijen een Jode hem quaeme te bekeeren tot de Christelijcke
religie, den selve sall ter saecke van dijen bij de Joden nijet mogen eenigh hinder
ote letsel aengedaen werden, op peijne van bannissement vuijt de landen ende coniscatie, ote oock strafe aen den lijve, ingevalle de gelegentheijt van de saeck zulckx
meriteerde.’
45
Ibidem, p. 119: ‘Een Christen, dije hem tot het Jodendom zoude mogen begeven,
zall werden gebannen vuyt de landen.’
46
Nadler, Rembrandt’s Jews, p. 92.
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215
Cruciied, logged, spat at and mocked,
Because he was served the Cup of bitterness:
Little did they think that Justice, who above
In Heaven’s golden lap, balances the scales,
values Innocent blood over ine Ophirian gold,
and counts the sighs of Truth cast aside
But when the day arrived that God had chosen
To avenge the crime of that God-forsaken City
And the people who thought they were safe on the holy threshold:
hen they plainly saw which plagues sin brought along,
And that for the wicked no walls or temple worshipped sanctimoniously
could be used for defence against the wrath of God.47
he characterization of those addressed in the irst line of the sonnet is
typical and, therefore, anything but philosemitic: the Jews are explicitly
marked as the murderers of Christ, ‘the murderers of prophets’, to borrow the term used by Grotius in his ‘Remonstrance’.48 However, this is
not the only reason why God would want to inlict his vengeance on
them, the poet seems to suggest. he wickedness of their ways also
manifests itself in a number of other stereotypical characteristics of
their race: their hunger for material wealth (l. 7), their hypocrisy (l. 14)
and the stubborn conviction that they are the truly elect, and hence safe
from God’s wrath (l. 11). At the same time, the poet’s abundant use of
evaluative markers, causally connected with the divine revenge mentioned in lines 10 and 12, opens up the suggestion that if these people
were to mend their ways, God would deinitely not act towards them in
the way that he has.
he title of Vondel’s poem begs the straightforward question of the
identity of its addressees. Whether or not ‘Rabbynen’ is taken as a
generic noun for all Jewish rabbis, the Jews of the City of Amsterdam
did in fact have diferent rabbis. As it happens, several sources stress the
47
Vondel, Hierusalem verwoest, p. 100: ‘De Rey uws Priesterschaps was als van
blyschap droncken / Doen Iesus hingh aen ’t hout met ermen uytgestreckt, / Gekruyst,
gegeesselt, en bespogen, en begeckt, / Om dat hem was den Kelck der bitterheyd
geschoncken: // Zy dachten luttel dat Rechtveerdigheyd, die boven / In ’s Hemels gulden schoot de weeghschael recht op houd, / ’tOnschuldigh bloed meer schat als ijn
Ophirisch goud, / En telt al ’t zuchten vande Waerheyd hier verschoven. // Maer als de
dagh aenbrack die God beschoren had / Tot wraeck van ’t schelmstuck van die
Godvergeten Stad / En ’t volck dat veyligh dacht te staen op heyl’ge dremp’len: // Doen
zaghmen baer wat zonde al plagen met zich brocht, / En dat de Boosheyd tot geen
borstweer strecken mocht / Geweld van muren nog schijnheyligheyd van Temp’len.’
48
De Groot, Remonstrantie, p. 109.
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fact that in the years 1618–1619 there was a great deal of commotion
between three diferent congregations of the Amsterdam Sephardics,
which ultimately even led to a trial.49 he case will have been known to
the original audience of Hierusalem verwoest, who will no doubt have
been reminded of it by Vondel’s insistence (both in the summary of the
play that precedes the sonnet ‘Aende Ioodsche Rabbynen’ and in the
play itself) that Titus’s victorious siege of Jerusalem was in part caused
by internecine strife among three diferent factions.50 Vondel derived
this detail, like so many others, from Flavius Josephus’s he Wars of the
Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem. hough he also made
use of other historical accounts of the event,51 it is clear that the work
by Josephus was his main source, if only because the author igures as a
character in the play.
his brings me to the second locus that I would like briely to focus
upon: the monologue by Josephus with which the play opens (HV, ll.
1–150). Being the irst to speak in Hierusalem verwoest, Josephus sets
the tone of the play. In the irst part of his monologue (HV, ll. 1–38) he
addresses the city of Jerusalem twice, accounting for its fall on the basis
of the ‘vanity’ (‘hooghmoed’) and ‘sins’ (‘zonden’) of its inhabitants
(HV, l. 36). In an efort to further legitimize the divine act of revenge,
he also addresses Daniel, whose insight ‘into the sea of God’s mysteries’
(‘inde zee van Gods geheymenissen’, HV, l. 26) had enabled him to
prophesy the fall of the city. As of l. 39, Josephus moves on to his own
personal history. Flavius Josephus was born Joseph Ben Matthias, a
Jewish priest from a prominent family, who on his mother’s side apparently descended from the Maccabeans. He was originally involved as a
Jewish military leader in the Revolt that began in 66 A.D. and was
49
Cf. Nadler, Rembrandt’s Jews, pp. 150–51. See also Van Roorden, ‘Jews and
Religious Toleration in the Dutch Republic’, p. 134.
50
See, for instance, Vondel’s own summary of the play: Hierusalem verwoest, p. 97,
ll. 20–21. he detail returns in the opening speech of Josephus, Hierusalem verwoest, ll.
109–11, where he names the three ‘traitors of the city / Whom Heaven had elected as
his bride’ (verraders van die stad / Dien d’Hemel als zyn bruyt zich uytgelezen had).
his is in accordance with Josephus’s own reading of the event. As Meijer and Wes put
it, Josephus makes clear to his readers that the Jewish resistance to Rome was provoked
by a number of blinded rebels who refused to see that God’s alliance was with the
Romans – a conclusion Joesphus himself had reached earlier. (Meijer and Wes, ‘Flavius
Josephus en de Joodse geschiedenis’, p. 39).
51
He mentions them at the end of his brief summary: Hierusalem verwoest, p. 99:
Hegesippus’s Verwoesting van Jerusalem, the Chronica by Eusebius, and Louis Carrion’s
Antiquarum lectionum commentarii tres (1576). In the preface ‘To the reader who loves
poems’ (Aenden Gedichtlievenden lezer) he also mentions, apart from Josephus and
Hegesippus, Carolus Langius. (HV, p. 85).
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217
captured by the Romans at the siege of the town of Jotapata in the summer of 67.52 In Hierusalem verwoest, Josephus refers to his miraculous
survival at the hands of the Romans, and considers it due to the graciousness of the Roman emperor Vespasian, whose family name
(Flavianus) he came to adopt (HV, ll. 55–56). As of 69, Josephus served
under Vespasian’s son Titus. He even seems to have negotiated with the
Jews during the siege of Jerusalem, to no avail, as he puts it in Vondel’s
play. (HV, ll. 91–92)
In several historical accounts, Josephus is seen as a traitor to his people,53 but in the logic of Vondel’s play, he presents himself as a convert,
one could say, one who gradually came to see the truth of God, whom
he calls upon to show mercy for the people of Judea, now that He has
delivered them into the hands of heathens:
O Father! have mercy on Judea: cast your eyes down,
you who tame the waves, the lightning and the storm,
Tame the enemy’s rage, and cool and extinguish the ire
hat burns within the ferocious warriors,
So that no other disaster may strike Isaac’s descendants
who you have put to the mercy of the Heathens.54
he inal lines of the historian’s opening speech can be read as an anticipation of the play’s inal act, which shows the fulilment of Josephus’s
plea for mercy and hence conirms the correctness of his conversion.
At the beginning of Act V, a group of Christian settlers strike up a conversation with a Roman soldier, representative of the ‘Heydenen’
(‘pagans’) to whom Josephus refers at the end of his opening monologue. Simeon, one of the Christians, identiies himself to the soldier as
a member of
A peaceful people that always awaits Jesus Christ
the Saviour of the souls: who was villainously accused and heinously
murdered
by the Godless Jews.55
52
Cf. Wes and Meijer, ‘Flavius Josephus en de Joodse geschiedenis’, p. 32.
Cf. Wes and Meijer, ‘Flavius Josephus en de Joodse geschiedenis’, p. 33.
54
Vondel, Hierusalem verwoest, ll. 145–50: ‘O Vader! haers erbermt: slaet ’t aengezicht eens neder, / Die ghy de baren temt, de blixems, en ’t onweder, / Temt ’s vyands
razernye, en koelt, en lescht den brand / Die van ’t woest kryghsvolck heet geschroockt
het ingewand, / Dat Isacx overschot geen ramp meer op zich lade, / Dewijl ghy ’t nu
beveelt der Heydenen genade.’
55
Vondel, Hierusalem verwoest, ll. 2060–62: ‘Een vreedzaem volck, dat steeds op
Iesus Christus hoopt / Der zielen Heyland: dien de Goddeloze Ioden / Zoo schelms
betichten, en zoo schandelijcken dooden.’
53
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he Roman soldier turns out to be no mere heathen, but an instrument
of God’s providential wisdom. He encourages the Christians to settle in
Jerusalem and serve their Saviour under the protection of Rome:
Sow this land, plant a vineyard, build huts there,
and serve your Christ: we will guard you,
and all those who are not Godless followers of the Jews
we will welcome, and the land will be freely available to them.56
he Roman soldier’s words of welcome serve as a prelude to the coming
of the angel Gabriel, who in a long speech that takes up most of Act V
and that is addressed both to the Christian settlers onstage and to
Vondel’s audience, living in what many of them will have seen as the
New Jerusalem, explains the place of Jerusalem’s fall in God’s larger
providential design. Gabriel’s speech – my third locus – contains a literal reference to ‘the New Jerusalem’. he destruction of the city should
cause no wonder, Gabriel points out from the beginning of his speech,
since it was prophesied by Daniel (HV, ll. 2118–19). Gabriel also points
to the First Coming of the Messiah and his prediction, written down in
Matthew 23 (one of Vondel’s two epigraphs57) that the Temple would
one day be destroyed (HV, l. 2126). In fact, that prediction is here
invoked as a proof of the identity of the Saviour, ‘the Hero and Saviour
of all / the great Siloa’,58 whose killing by the Godless Jews can therefore
be only taken as a just cause for divine revenge.
he relationship between the old and the new Jerusalem is a preigurative one, Gabriel seems to suggest, a relationship of completion and
fulilment. In the central part of Gabriel’s speech, Vondel structures
that relationship around the contrast between the Mosaic Law and the
Word of God. Deriding the inhabitants of the old Jerusalem for allowing themselves to be blinded by material riches and earthly power, he
appeals to the New Christians to turn their eyes upward and bask in the
special light of the New Jerusalem:
56
Vondel, HV, ll. 2089–92: ‘Bezaeyt dit ackerland, plant wijngaerd, bouwter hutten, /
En uwen Christus dient: wy zullen u beschutten, / En al die ’t Ioods geslacht niet godloos hangen aen / Ons zullen wilkom zijn, ’t land zal haer open staen.’
57
Matthew, 23:38: ‘Behold, your house is let unto you desolate’. he verse is part of
Jesus’s speech against the hypocrisy of Jewish scribes and Pharisees (‘Rabbis’) who are
scolded by Christ for their ‘blind’ love of outward splendour. he second epigraph is
the famous ‘sunt lacrimae rerum’ passage in Book I of the Aeneid (l. 462). In Virgil’s text
Aeneas’s tears are provoked by a mural that he sees in a Carthaginian temple, representing battle scenes from the Trojan wars.
58
Vondel, HV, ll. 2130–31: ‘den Held en Heyland aller menschen, / De groote Siloa.’
Siloa means ‘the One who has been sent’.
new historicism – hierusalem verwoest
219
So let the fools brag and boast
of things that are but wilted lowers:
Fly away from the vanity, from earth to heaven:
climb to where Jesus is worshipped by the Angels:
where the host of Angels that never tires of cheering and jumping,
dreams of nothing but to praise him:
where the Elders skilfully strike their lyres:
where all the torches, stars, Sun and Moon,
are but darkness when compared to him
who ills ininity and shines upon everything:
where the New Jerusalem has a diferent glow:
where all the streets are golden and all the gates pearly:
there the Majesty of the Trinity is
a Temple to those in heaven on all sides: where all the diamonds
lose their splendour: where God is common to all,
and a thousand years are like one of our days.
Who will then doubt that the (Mosaic) Law with all its celebrations,
burning incense, slaughtering and sacriicing of animals,
cleansing, and whatever else the service involves:
is but darkness, compared to that which has more splendour?
Who will embrace the shadows as Truth?
Or choose Moses’s glow over Christ’s golden rays?59
Gabriel’s rhetoric of contradiction will be clear: the law of Moses leads
one into darkness, whereas the shining example of Christ will ultimately allow his followers to reach God’s light. Furthermore, the law of
Moses is concerned with the outward spectacle of religion, whereas the
Word of God is directed towards the purely spiritual.
Criticism of this sort in fact rehearses Saint Paul’s conviction
that, rather than take away man’s appetite for sin, the Mosaic Law provoked the very thing that it was supposed to curb or forbid.60 Paul’s
59
Vondel, HV, ll. 2161–82: ‘Laet dan de dwazen gaen brageren en hoogh roemen /
In dingen, die slechts zyn verwelckelijcke bloemen: / Vlieght ghy uyt d’ydelheyd nae
boven van bene’en: / Klimt op daer Iesus word van d’Eng’len aengebe’en: / Daer ’t heyrschaer nimmer moe, met juychen, en met springen, / Droomt nergens anders af als van
hem lof te zingen: / Daer d’Ouderlingen op haer herpen kunstigh slaen: / Daer alle
tortzen, daer de sterren, Zon, en Maen, / Zijn enckel duysternis, ten opzien van den
genen / Die ’t end’loos Rond vervult, en niets laet onbeschenen: / Daer ’t nieuw
Ierusalem heet gants een ander schijn: / Daer al de straten goud, de poorten peerlen
zijn: / Daer ’s Dryheyds Majesteyt verstreckt aen alle kanten / Der Hemel-lieden Kerck:
daer alle diamanten / Verliezen haren glans: daer God zich maeckt gemeen, / En
duyzend jaren zyn als onzer dagen een. / Wie zal nu twijf ’len dat de wet met al haer
feesten, / ’Twieroocken, ’t slachten, en ’t opoferen der beesten, / De reynigingen, en
wat dienst daer meer aen kleet: / Is donckerheyd, by ’t geen dat schoonder luyster
heet? / Wie zal de schaduwen omhelzen voor de waerheyd? / Of kiezen Moses glans
voor Christus gulde klaerheyd?’
60
Cf. Grant, Saint Paul, pp. 46–48.
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conversion, like that of Saint Augustine ater him, involved the turning
away from things earthly to things heavenly. he belief of the Jews, with
its seeming obsession with materiality and outward splendour, is far
too earthly, Gabriel seems to suggest, and it leads to idolatry, the wrongful attribution of divine characteristics to merely human beings or
objects.
O Bride of my King, chosen Church,
Turn your eyes freely away from the dazzling shield,
which your high priest launted once a year,
as if he were no longer human but deiied completely:
the glow that dazzled you is extinguished,
those services are over: Look: the Jewish priests are plundered
they are standing there naked without their robes and mourn the
treasure
and the gold, that Israel had devoted to its church.
If you’re looking for a Priest, leave behind this ephemeral land,
go towards the stars, there you will ind your Saviour,
Not adorned with silk or silkworm’s spinning, no,
His robe is but light from top to bottom.
Behold the halo of pure lames and radiance
that circles his Majesty, and see the sweet Cherubs
and Seraphs descend to
gaze upon the beautiful countenance of the Heavenly Groom:
they laugh sweetly and continue to gaze at him:
follow them as they lead the way: let go of the dead Priests,
and lay them to rest: do no longer lend your ear to Moses’s mouth
But to Christ’s lips: embrace the New Covenant.
Do not mix lead with gold. Have less appreciation for the sign [the Old
Covenant]
than for the life [the New Covenant] to which it points.
his tragedy that has been played so bloodily and so long,
and that has ended now with the Jews’ demise,
expresses the justice and severity
of God who seeks revenge for evil and bad deeds,
and displays this destroyed descent
as a beacon to everyone.61
Vondel, HV, ll. 2193–2220: ‘O Bruyt van mynen Vorst, verkorene Gemeente, /
Keert vry uw aengezicht van ’t vlammigh borstgesteente, / Daer uwen Phenix me’
gingh brallen eens om ’t jaer, / Als of hy niet meer mensch, maer gants vergodet
waer: / Die glanssen zijn gebluscht waerom ghy stond verwondert, / Die diensten
hebben uyt: ziet Levi eens geplondert / Zoo naeckt staen zonder kleed, en treuren om
den schat, / En ’t goud, dat Israël zijn Kerck geheylight had. / Zoo ghy een Priester
zoeckt versmaed dit dritigh Eyland, / Gaet nae de sterren toe, daer vindy uwen
Heyland, / Niet opgesmuckt met zijde, of wormgespinsel, neen, / Zijn kleed is enckel
61
new historicism – hierusalem verwoest
221
he last six lines of this quotation echo the subtitle of Vondel’s play as
printed on the title page of its irst edition: ‘Tragedy: Presented onstage
for the Jews to consider, to admonish the Christians’ (‘Treurspel. Den
Joden tot naedencken, den Christenen tot waerschouwing als op het
tooneel voorgestelt’). he historical example of God’s providential
wrath should be taken as a warning to everybody, Gabriel stresses, and
it should also be taken as an example of the right remedy for it: embracing the New Covenant that is the subject of the eighth verse of Paul’s
Letter to the Hebrews. Christ is the mediator of the New Covenant,
Paul writes, whose necessity is clear. It is the breaking of the Old
Covenant (the Mosaic Law as written down in the Torah) that provoked the necessity of a new, more perfect one, embodied in Christ:
7: For if that irst covenant had been faultless, then should no place have
been sought for the second.
8: For inding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the
Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with
the house of Judah:
9: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day
when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt;
because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not,
saith the Lord.
10: For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel ater
those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write
them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me
a people:
11: And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his
brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to
the greatest.
12: For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and
their iniquities will I remember no more.
13: In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the irst old. Now that
which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.
licht van boven tot bene’en. / Ziet wat een ronde kringh van louter vlam, en stralen /
Omzweet zijn Majesteyt. ey ziet eens neder dalen / Die zoete Cherubijns, en
Seraphynen om / ’t Schoon aenschijn door te zien van’s Hemels Bruydegom: / Zy loncken lodderlijck, en blyven op hem staren: / Volght haren voorgangh: laet de doode
Priesters varen, / En rusten in het graf: leent niet meer Moses mond / Maer Christus
lippen ’t oor: omhelst het nieuw Verbond. / Vermengt geen goud met lood. waerdeert
het beeld geringer / Als ’t leven daer ’t op heet gewezen met de vinger. / Dit treurspel
dat hier is gespeelt zoo bloedigh langh, / En nu besloten met der Ioden ondergang, / U
Gods rechtveerdigheyd en strengheyd uyt gaet drucken, / Die wraecke neemt van ’t
quaed, en alle booze stucken, / En tot waerschouwingh van een ygelijck persoon / Stelt
als een baecken dit verdelght geslacht ten toon.’
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jürgen pieters
Gabriel’s Christian imperative (‘embrace the new Covenant’, ‘omhelst
het nieuw Verbond’) is directed at all those attending or reading
Vondel’s play, members of the Jewish nation included, much in the
same way that God’s dictum that he will from now on be merciful to
those who have not been righteous to him is also potentially directed at
everybody. he plea in Gabriel’s speech, like that underlying Paul’s letter to the Hebrews, is a plea for conversion, the plea that would eventually facilitate the Second Coming of Christ and the restoration of God’s
lasting Kingdom on earth in the New Jerusalem which Amsterdam was
taken to be, not only by the Mennonite denomination with which
Vondel has oten been associated, but by many of the reformed creed.
As I hope to have made clear, Hierusalem verwoest contains distinct
traces of the theological discourse that centres upon the idea of the
New Jerusalem and the opposition between the Jewish Law and the
Christian Faith.62
But, as its subtitle suggests, the play is also meant as a warning to the
good Christians among Vondel’s audience, for all those who wanted
Amsterdam really to become the New Jerusalem, for the author himself even. In a city so abundantly aluent, any warning on the blinding
efects of material wealth will have sounded healthy to many Christian
ears, some of Vondel’s most self-declared enemies included. Seen in
this light, the Jews in Vondel’s play (not unlike those in his age) can be
said to function like Shylock in Shakespeare’s he Merchant of Venice:
they serve, at least in part, as the bad conscience of the good Christians
whose counterpart they are meant to represent and whose deepest anxieties (including those about themselves) they are supposed to ward
of. he deepest of those fears, as James Shapiro has shown,63 also runs
through Hugo de Groot’s (or Grotius’s) Remonstrance: the idea that
Christians would turn into Jews and become part – either willingly or
not – of the circumcised race. ‘On November 8, 1616’, Arend Huussen
writes, ‘representatives of the “Jewish Nation” were warned and
instructed as follows:
62
It would be worthwhile, I think, to consider the two other texts that Vondel collected in one volume together with Hierusalem verwoest in the light of these indings:
the epic poem De heerlyckheyd van Salomon and the De helden Godes des Ouwden
Verbonds, a series of illustrated poems on the Old Testament prophets.
63
Shapiro, Shakespeare and the Jews.
new historicism – hierusalem verwoest
223
– to refrain from any spoken or written attacks against the Christian
religion;
– not to attempt to convert Christians to Judaism or to circumcise
them;
– to have no sexual intercourse with either married or unmarried
Christian women, including prostitutes;
– to live in conformity with the general legislation of province and city,
especially the burgomasters’ order of May 1612 forbidding the construction of a synagogue.64
It is true that Vondel’s play seems to show no immediate trace of the
fear that is addressed in the second and third items of this set of regulations. But, as I hope to have made clear, it does participate in a discourse that propagates the best possible solution for the alleviation of
this fear: the ultimate conversion of all Jews to Christianity, which
would remove the necessity of this speciic sort of policy in the irst
place.
Conclusion
What, then, makes this New Historicist reading of Vondel’s play so different from traditional readings of the play? he diference, I would
argue, lies primarily in the conceptual presuppositions on which it is
based. An ‘Old’ Historicist could have come up with the exact same
indings about the historical relationship between Vondel’s text and the
Jewish Question, but would, probably, have made use of them in a different way. A New Historicist analysis, like the above one, continues to
seek the fundamental heterogeneity of every historical context. here is
no single ‘context’ to which this play can be related univocally and
hence no single historical ‘reason’ as to why the play is what it is. By
teasing out the historical signiicance of a number of potential references to the ideology of the New Jerusalem, I have tried to make clear
that Vondel’s play participates in this speciic discursive context and
that a more concrete historical analysis of this context sheds interesting
new light on Hierusalem Verwoest. his is not to suggest, of course, that
the entire play can be reduced to a mere illustration of the historical
64
Huussen, ‘he Legal Position of the Jews in the Dutch Republic’, p. 33.
224
jürgen pieters
discussion on the Jewish presence in seventeenth-century Amsterdam,
nor that Vondel’s is an important voice in that discussion. My analysis
does suggest, though, that certain loci in Vondel’s play gain in meaning
when considered against this speciic background. It also suggests that
it is worthwhile to consider this text as more than a straightforward
and somewhat boring relection on questions of mere religion. By
inserting Vondel’s representation of this piece of ‘mere’ religious history in the concrete political and ideological context of its production –
a strategy that has deined the reading method of New Historicism in
more than one way – I hope to have made clear the text’s broader cultural relevance, both in terms of its historical moment and of our analysis of that moment.
CHAPTER TWELVE
POLITICS AND AESTHETICS – DECODING ALLEGORY IN
PALAMEDES (1625)1
Nina Geerdink
Allegory, Politics and Aesthetics
Many of Vondel’s plays were part of the politico-religious controversies
of his days. Palamedes (1625) was part of these controversies in a
remarkable manner. he play is about the betrayal of the Greek
army commander Palamedes, but was immediately recognised as
an allegory of the execution of the former Advocate of Holland Johan
van Oldenbarnevelt (1547–1619) in 1619. As is evident from several handwritten keys, throughout the seventeenth century it was in
vogue to decode the play as a narration of the real-life drama of
Oldenbarnevelt. In historiography too, Palamedes has been regarded as
an allegory. he focus, however, has been speciically on the allegorical
meaning of the play and the attempt to conceal this meaning. Such
an approach does not consider the complex function of allegory.
By means of a historical formalist analysis of the play, I hope to show
how the allegorical layer is more than a thinly veiled political statement. Allegory functions within the renaissance culture of coding and
decoding on both a political and an aesthetical level, and Palamedes is
a good case in point.
he history of Palamedes’ reception shows how literary historians
have felt the urge to choose between politics and aesthetics. hey
wanted to decide whether Palamedes was foremost a tragedy, or a political pamphlet. Contemporary reactions show how the irst readers
of the play seem to have opted for the latter. However, the implied
dichotomy between politics and aesthetics did not exist. Contemporary
1
I would like to thank Helmer Helmers, Johan Koppenol and the editors of this
volume for their comments on an earlier version of this chapter. Marijke Meijer Drees
was kind enough to share literature with me as well as her ideas about Palamedes during an early stage of my work on this chapter.
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nina geerdink
readers did not choose to read the play as a political pamphlet, they
choose to read the play allegorically, and that was a political and an
aesthetic choice at the same time.
In literary studies, up until postmodernism that is, allegory has
long been regarded as a simple and therefore not that interesting literary form. he suggestion was that an author simply wrote one thing,
but meant another. Nonetheless, as early as 1928 Walter Benjamin
highlighted the complex and typically baroque function of allegory,2
and in recent decades (literary) historians have made up for the
neglect that befell allegory in earlier years. Several studies show how
there is a meaningful relationship between the two layers of allegory,
which form part of a literary game that predominated in both political
and literary cultures in earlier times. Moreover, allegory is no longer
regarded as only a formal mode of writing, but also a historical way of
thinking.3 Both for medieval and for early modern times, scholars have
shown how the culture of these times strongly emphasised decoding
literature.4 In his study on reading culture in seventeenth-century
England, for example, Steven N. Zwicker has argued how the people’s
way of reading the bible became dominant in their way of living.
‘Decoding’ was thus a natural part of their reading.5 he aesthetics of
literature in the early modern period were partly determined by this
game of decoding, just as politics were determined by it.6 Palamedes
was part of a culture in which the game of decoding predominated in
both politics and aesthetics.
2
Benjamin, he Origin, pp. 159–235.
Tambling, Allegory, pp. 1–6, 18.
4
Cf. Astell, Political Allegory about the Middle Ages and among others Zwicker,
Lines of Authority; Potter, Secret Rites; and Van Stipriaan, Leugens en vermaak for the
early modern period. In a more philosophical way, Benjamin shows in he Origin how
the allegorical reading of baroque German tragedy is part of the culture of the time.
5
Zwicker, Lines of Authority, pp. 3–4. See also Zwicker, ‘Reading the Margins’,
pp. 102–04. In both studies, Zwicker emphasises how the political situation of crisis in
England in the second half of the seventeenth century increased the importance of
decoding literature. he situation in the Dutch Republic in the irst quarter of the seventeenth century may be paralleled to this period of crisis in England. Moreover, the
importance of emblem books in Dutch culture can be considered as an argument providing grounds to suppose that emblematic thinking was important in everyday life of
the Dutch, too; cf. Smit, ‘he emblematic aspect’, p. 554.
6
Potter, Secret Rites, shows how political and aesthetic principles turn out time and
again to be the same. See, for example, Potter, Secret Rites, pp. 75–82. On the interaction between literary form and politics see also Sharpe and Zwicker, Reiguring
Revolution. In Art of the Modern Age, Schaefer provides a philosophical account both
of unique characteristics of aesthetics in difering periods and of the importance of
society in early modern aesthetics.
3
politics and aesthetics – palamedes
227
he suggestion that by writing an allegory Vondel aimed to disguise
the topical relevance of the play in order to prevent himself being punished for it is therefore untenable.7 To be sure, a real cover-up could
have protected him from accusations and measures of censorship, but
it would also have prevented the play from being read and understood
by the intended readers.8 By writing an allegory, Vondel set out to write
a topical play that was both highly intelligible and highly unintelligible.
his tension between two layers of meaning, which is one of the main
characteristics of allegory, has both aesthetical and political consequences.9 Vondel pleased his readers with the game and subject of
decoding, a literary game, and at the same time underlined the political
message of the play with this game. Because of the decoding, the political point could be made more efectively.10 In the words of Benjamin:
‘the authority of a statement depends so little on its comprehensibility
that it can actually be increased by obscurity’.11 One of the contemporary reactions, by the unknown author ‘Q.D.C.V.’,12 supports this argument, since it praises Vondel for the smart invention (‘kloecke Vond’)
of the surface level narrative, which allowed him to underline a political point. his argument thus contains praise for both its political message and its aesthetic quality.
I will return to this and other contemporary reactions to Palamedes
in the next section. Together with the whereabouts of Palamedes’ coming into being and the historiographical debate about the play, they
preface my analysis.
he Genesis and Reception of Palamedes
he execution of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt in 1619 is one of the
major events in Dutch history. It was the result of a complex set of
7
Smit, for example, believed this was the reason for Vondel to write an allegory; cf.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, p. 121. Recently, Sierhuis has also argued that this position
is untenable in Sierhuis, ‘A Babel Full of Confusion’, chapter 5.
8
For this argument see, for example, Potter, Secret Rites, pp. 209–10.
9
Wijngaards also highlighted the tension between the literal and the allegorical layer in Palamedes, referring to Fletcher, Allegory (Palamedes, ed. Wijngaards,
pp. 23–24).
10
Tambling, Allegory, p. 29, shows how this function of allegory was already
acknowledged by St. Paul and, later, Boccaccio. See also Potter, Secret Rites, p. 51; and
Benjamin, he Origin, pp. 206–07.
11
Benjamin, he Origin, p. 207.
12
Sierhuis, ‘A Babel Full of Confusion’, p. 265 identiies Q.D.C.V. as Geeraardt
Brandt (1626–1685) (though the argument for this identiication is not explicit).
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nina geerdink
politico-religious controversies in the Dutch Republic, dominated by
divisions between Remonstrants and Counter-Remonstrants in the
Dutch Reformed Church.13 What had begun as an academic debate
about predestination between the theologians Jacobus Arminius
(1559–1609) and Franciscus Gomarus (1563–1641) had by the second
decade of the seventeenth century become a heated argument about
religious toleration and the relationship between Church and state. he
Remonstrants, followers of Arminius, were tolerant. he orthodox Calvinist Counter-Remonstrants, followers of Gomarus, were more strict.
Oldenbarnevelt and the Stadtholder, Prince Maurits, tried to remain
impartial for a long time, but when civilian riots and political unrest
eventually became the order of the day, the situation became untenable. In 1617 Maurits publically declared his support for the CounterRemonstrants. Public and political support for Oldenbarnevelt,
who was sympathetic to the Remonstrants, decreased. In the end,
Maurits settled the dispute by prosecuting Oldenbarnevelt, which led
to his execution. he situation was to Maurits’s advantage, since he had
shown his resolve and was able to control the organs of the states
and the cities without considerable political opposition subsequent to
the execution.
Oldenbarnevelt was arrested on 28 August 1618. Ater a lengthy trial
he was condemned to death on 12 May 1619.14 He was prosecuted by a
team of twenty-four judges, appointed speciically for the occasion
and representing the seven provinces of the Republic. he accusations
were manifold. Among the most important were treason against the
state and high treason. he charge of treason against the state was
issued because Oldenbarnevelt was said to have initiated and supported peace negotiations with Spain; the charge of high treason was
brought because allegedly he would have exacerbated the dispute
between Remonstrants and Counter-Remonstrants with his politics of
tolerance in spite of the risk of civil war. None of the accusations could
be proven, however. his and Oldenbarnevelt’s persistent denial of the
13
For the details of these disputes, see Tracy, Europe’s Reformations, pp. 173–78.
Israel, he Dutch Republic, pp. 421–60, deals with the friction between Remonstrants
and Counter-Remonstrants within the larger framework of the politico-religious crisis
in the Dutch Republic in the 1610s.
14
he trial and execution of Oldenbarnevelt are described in the most recent
biography of Oldenbarnevelt: Knapen, De man en zijn staat, pp. 307–27. hey can
also be found in the older but more detailed Den Tex, Oldenbarnevelt, 3,
pp. 627–747.
politics and aesthetics – palamedes
229
accusations made the trial long and diicult; it continued for almost
nine months. Ater the conviction, however, everything proceeded
quickly. he former Advocate of Holland, aged seventy-one, was
beheaded on 13 May 1619, only a day ater the verdict. he beheading
was carried out at the Binnenhof, the Dutch political centre in he
Hague. Oldenbarnevelt was executed before the eyes of a large crowd,
including the twenty-four judges. Pamphlets spread the rumour that
even Maurits was present, although he was said to have hidden behind
a little window in the tower of the Binnenhof.15
he execution of the Advocate of Holland evoked many (written)
reactions in the Republic, as every other event regarding the conlicts
between Remonstrants and Counter-Remonstrants and between
Oldenbarnevelt and Maurits had done in the preceding years. In 1619,
numerous publications appeared that either celebrated the death of the
Advocate of Holland and criticised his Remonstrant ideas, or were critical of the trial and the presumed bias of the judges.16 here was a certain danger, however, in voicing criticism of the events of 1618–1619 in
the Dutch Republic, and this remained the case long ater the execution
of Oldenbarnevelt. Vondel’s reactions illustrate this.
Immediately following the execution, Vondel kept quiet – or so
it seems17 – although he had in fact engaged with the dispute earlier.
In 1618 Vondel had anonymously published a critical poem in which
he condemned the struggle between Remonstrants and CounterRemonstrants: Op de jongste Hollantsche transformatie (To the Latest
Transformation of Holland).18 His preference for the Remonstrants
and Oldenbarnevelt was evident. But this preference only becomes
truly dominant in the publications of his more polemical reactions,
which are all related to the execution of Oldenbarnevelt but were
only published ater the death of Maurits in 1625. hese polemical
reactions were very critical of the Stadtholder and of the CounterRemonstrants and their intolerance.19 hey also criticised the trial,
which Vondel regarded as illegal. he most famous poem Vondel
15
Cf., for example, Knapen, De man en zijn staat, p. 326.
See Meijer Drees, ‘Vondels Palamedes’, p. 81.
17
Wijngaards presumes that Vondel must have expressed some criticism of Maurits,
but that it did not survive. See Wijngaards’ edition of Palamedes, p. 13. Den Tex,
Oldenbarnevelt, 3, p. 751 claims Vondel did write some of the poems published ater
the death of Maurits in 1625 as early as 1619, immediately ater the execution.
18
See WB, 1, pp. 789–91.
19
Vondel himself was, at that time, a Mennonite.
16
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wrote about the execution, Het stockske van Oldenbarneveldt (he
Cane of Oldenbarnevelt, referring to the cane with which Oldenbarnevelt was said to have walked to the scafold) was not written until
1657.20
he fact that the execution of Oldenbarnevelt was still a relevant
issue in 1657 shows how great its impact was. he same is true of
the fact that the execution did not go unnoticed outside of the
Republic. In England, for example, several pamphlets were written and
translated – most of them rebuking Oldenbarnevelt and praising
Maurits, who was regarded a hero by the Calvinist Brits. he majority
of both public sentiment and the government favoured Maurits’s side
in the conlict.21 A play about Oldenbarnevelt was staged in London
only a couple of months ater his execution, on 27 August 1619: he
Tragedy of Sir John van Olden Barnavalt. It was written by Philip
Massinger and John Fletcher.
he play by Massinger and Fletcher portrayed, remarkably,
both Maurits and Oldenbarnevelt as leading igures with serious
shortcomings. he play was therefore suspected of criticising the
monarchy of James I. he Tragedy thus ofers an interesting analogy
with Palamedes, although the narrative of the execution of Oldenbarnevelt occupies surface level in this English play, whereas in Palamedes,
it is situated on the allegorical level. It seems the English topicality of
he Tragedy was, although controversial, not considered too dangerous, since Massinger and Fletcher were able to perform the play.
Although the irst staging of the play was postponed, the staging of a
revised version was allowed.22 Vondel, in contrast, was not able to see
Palamedes performed until 1663. Palamedes was one of the irst of
Vondel’s publications that responded to the execution of Oldenbarnevelt, and the only reaction in the form of a play, but it could not be
performed because of its political criticism and the censorship this
elicited.23
According to Vondel’s irst biographer Geeraardt Brandt (1626–
1685), the Amsterdam city regent Albert Burgh (1593–1647) had
20
See WB, 8, pp. 625–26.
Kamps, Historiography, pp. 141–42.
22
Kamps, Historiography, p. 144. On he Tragedy, see also Frijlinck, he Tragedy.
23
It is possible, for that matter, that Vondel did not aim at performance for Palamedes
immediately ater its publication. If this was the case, however, this decision must have
been inluenced by the dangers of censorship.
21
politics and aesthetics – palamedes
231
encouraged Vondel to write a play about the execution of Oldenbarnevelt in the spring of 1625. Vondel initially considered it too dangerous, but Burgh did not give up, and is said to have given Vondel the
idea of dealing with the subject allegorically. Vondel chose the ‘cover’ of
the mythological narrative of Palamedes, a Greek army commander
betrayed and executed during the Trojan War. Brandt does not explain
why Burgh wanted Vondel to write a play. He only mentions Burgh’s
love of poetry (‘Poëzye’). Vondel started writing with the idea of not
publishing the play until times were less dangerous. When Maurits
died while Vondel was writing the play, he supposedly inished it
quickly.24 he tragedy, of which the full title was Palamedes ot
Vermoorde Onnooselheyd (Palamedes or Murdered Innocence), was
published in October 1625, little more than a month ater Maurits’s
funeral.
he thin veil of classical tragedy could not prevent Palamedes from
being censored. Since Vondel’s name was on the title page, charges
were brought against him. he author went underground in fear of the
sanctions of the severe Court of Holland in he Hague but resurfaced
ater it became clear that the Amsterdam city government had refused
to hand him over to he Hague. Instead, they prosecuted him themselves. Some of the Amsterdam city regents were kindly disposed to
Vondel, which probably explains the light sentence; he only had to pay
a penalty of three hundred guilders. he fact that Palamedes took the
form of a play was used as an argument by some of the judges to regard
it as open to manifold interpretation, rendering it not obviously
intended as a political statement.25
Other contemporaries, however, seem to have particularly appreciated that political statement. While the irst performance only took
place in 1663, Palamedes sold out quickly ater its prohibition had been
lited and was reprinted clandestinely many times. Immediately people
began decoding the narrative of Palamedes, making keys for the references to the events of 1619. Decoding Palamedes remained in vogue
during the whole of the seventeenth century. his appears from notes
in handwriting in the margins of several prints of Palamedes.26 Vondel
himself is said to have written down some clues for his sister, but to
24
25
26
Brandt, Het leven van Vondel, ed. Leendertz, p. 14.
Beekman and Grüttemeier, De wet van de letter, pp. 15–19.
Cf. Kemperink, ‘Een bijzonder exemplaar’.
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nina geerdink
have burnt this manuscript out of fear for sanctions.27 Brandt collected
some of the keys from contemporaries in his 1705 publication of
Vondel’s satires. hey must have circulated before in handwriting.28
In his biography of Vondel, Brandt tells us how some people ‘praised
the purity of the language, and its grandiloquent smoothness’ (‘preezen
de zuiverheit der taale, en hoogdravende vloejentheit’) ater its publication in 1625, but the primary reaction to the play was surprise at the
political content and the fact that Vondel had dared to put his name on
the title page.29 In the supporting pamphlet by the above mentioned
‘Q.D.C.V.’, the author criticises the play being regarded as a ‘pasquil’
(pamphlet).30 Q.D.C.V. himself considers the play to be more than that,
but nonetheless focusses his attention on its political value rather than
on its literary merit. he author praises Vondel for the clever and brave
way in which he tells the truth in Palamedes. Vondel is encouraged to
ignore the critical reactions to his play and keep up the good work,
mostly because of the useful purpose it serves.
he political content of the play dominated critical reactions even
more. In a pamphlet by ‘Den Gereformeerden Momus’ (‘he Reformed
Momus’), for example, Vondel is rebuked for criticising the CounterRemonstrants and Maurits. he ‘play with Palamedes’ is regarded as a
failed attempt to conceal the political content. Moreover, the author of
the pamphlet blamed Vondel for instigating once more the religious
and political debate, which had lost its vigour ater the execution
of Oldenbarnevelt in 1619.31 his argument was one that even
Remonstrants – who of course appreciated the allegorical meaning of
the play – expressed in their reactions. hey were critical of Vondel’s
play because it could spark new arguments between them and the CounterRemonstrants.32
he reception of Palamedes in later periods continued to focus on
the play’s political content. Time and again the play was used in recurring controversies about the role of the Dutch stadtholders.33 It is no
Cf. Brandt, Het leven van Vondel, p. 69.
See Smits-Veldt, Samuel Coster, pp. 344–45; and Kemperink, ‘Een bijzonder
exemplaar’.
29
Brandt, Het leven van Vondel, p. 15.
30
Q.D.C.V., Aan (…) Ioost vanden Vondelen.
31
Anonymous, ‘Den gereformeerden Momus’.
32
Unger, Vondeliana, pp. 52–54.
33
Meijer Drees, ‘Vondels Palamedes’, p. 86. Helmers, ‘Cry of the Royal Blood’ shows
how it was also used in controversies about the English regicide.
27
28
politics and aesthetics – palamedes
233
coincidence that the irst performance of Palamedes in Rotterdam
took place in 1663, around the time when republicans felt a threat of
Willem III claiming the position of stadtholder. Vondel himself promoted the reuse of his play in this way several times, for example by
referring extensively to Palamedes in his 1663 play Batavische gebroeders.34 he handwritten key to the political references in Palamedes that
Geeraardt Brandt had created some years ater its publication was published in the so-called ‘Amersfoortse uitgaven’ (‘Amersfoort editions’)
along with Vondel’s satires during the second period without a
stadtholder (1702–1747), in 1705, 1707 and 1735.
In twentieth-century literary studies, the general view is that
Palamedes is a play that stands on its own within the collection of
Vondel’s plays. In his study of the dramatic oeuvre of Vondel, Smit
regards Palamedes as an ‘intermezzo’. He regards the political allegory
in Palamedes as more important than the literary conventions of
tragedy.35 He even proposes not to call Palamedes a tragedy since the
piece was:
so unconventional that we must ask ourselves if he [Vondel] actually
wanted to indicate that this play should not in fact be seen as a tragedy.
Even though generally speaking it has the shape of tragedy, it should not
be regarded as such, because for a large part, non-dramatic factors determined its structure.36
he opposite, however, has also been claimed. Bomhof, for example,
defends Palamedes as a tragedy, focussing on its aesthetic value, which
in his view should be regarded as separate from the allegorical references.37 his brings me back to the political-aesthetical entanglement
that this play, in my reading, embodies, and of which I will explore the
formal, textual embodiment. I will do so in a historical formalist
analysis.
34
Duits, Van Bartholomeusnacht tot Bataafse opstand, pp. 262–63. See also Meijer
Drees, ‘Vondels Palamedes’, p. 86. On Batavische gebroeders, see the contribution by
Gaakeer in this volume.
35
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 2, pp. 99–131.
36
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 2, p. 119: ‘[Palamedes] is zelfs zó ongewoon dat wij ons
moeten afvragen of hij [Vondel] daarmee niet te kennen heet willen geven, dat dit
spel, al had het in het algemeen de vorm van een tragedie, toch niet als zodanig moest
worden beschouwd, omdat andere dan dramatische factoren voor een belangrijk deel
de structuur hadden bepaald.’
37
Bomhof, Bijdrage tot de waardering van Vondels drama, pp. 34–35, 143–45.
Another example of an aesthetic reading of the play is in Jorissen, Palamedes, pp. 1–56.
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In recent decades, attention to form in literary texts has diminished
in Anglo-American literary studies. his is not to say that literary studies has not performed any formal analyses, but form has not been
regarded as an aspect of major importance; it appeared to be something that spoke for itself, and that could, consequently, be overlooked.
In reaction to this so-called ‘anti-formalism’, there has been some
explicit attention to form recently. It concerns a form of research that
has been deined as ‘New Formalism’.38 My analysis can be connected to
an important point of interest within this movement, also called
‘Historical Formalism’.39 Herein, form is connected to history, culture
and politics.40 Literature is regarded as one of many media in which
discourses on culture and politics are represented, but still as a medium
with speciic formal characteristics. hese formal characteristics, however, are not regarded as static, but as dynamically interrelated with the
discourses on culture and politics.
he work of Heather Dubrow has been of great importance within
Historical Formalism, and particularly helpful in my analysis of
Palamedes.41 Dubrow, focussing on literary genres, proceeds from
the assumption that an author’s choices in literary conventions are
meaningful – whether they follow the conventions or deviate from
them. Form and ideology are thus regarded as interactive.42 In the following analysis of Palamedes, then, I will focus on genres and discourses to which the play can be connected and on the use of the
conventions that are part of these genres and discourses. I will show
how Vondel follows conventions, ignores them or emphasises them,
38
his may be too grand a name for a movement without much coherence and
which is still developing into a ‘theoretically self-conscious movement’ (Rasmussen,
Renaissance Literature, p. 3). See Levinson, ‘What is New Formalism?’, for relections
on the plurality of ideas, theories and methods within ‘New Formalism’. Among recent
publications most explicitly arguing for form are Wolfson, Reading for Form and
Rasmussen, Renaissance Literature.
39
For the most straightforward example, see Cohen, Shakespeare and Historical
Formalism.
40
Which, most interestingly, is also the focus of recent studies by historians such as
Sharpe and Zwicker (see, for example, the above-mentioned publications). Both these
historians and the literary historians of ‘Historical Formalism’ present their work as a
continuation of New Historicism, with comparable questions, yet with more attention
to the interaction between formal elements and politics.
41
Esp. Dubrow, ‘he Politics of Aesthetics’ (which is a revision of Dubrow, ‘Guess
Who is Coming to Dinner?’) and Dubrow, A Happier Eden.
42
See also Cohen, ‘Between Form and Culture’, p. 32; and Cohen, Shakespeare and
Historical Formalism.
politics and aesthetics – palamedes
235
and I will try to explain how these choices may have motivated readers
to recognise the allegorical game of decoding in the play. Firstly, I will
show how readers must have been urged to decode even before they
had actually started reading the play. In two subsequent sections, I will
focus on formal stimuli to decode within the play itself and in the inal
section, I will present the framework of references to the game of coding and decoding that is at work within both the play and its preface. It
will become clear how in Palamedes both form and subject matter
motivated the contemporaneous reader to lit the veil that for so long
has been regarded as a necessary protective measure.
Decoding Extra-Textual Stimuli: Orchestrating Expectations
Even without reading the play, the public’s attention would have been
directed to the possibilities of decoding. In the irst place, this was the
case because of the simple fact that Vondel was the author. Vondel was
known as someone actively engaged in politics, within his plays too.43
Readers would have expected a political debate of some kind to be
present in a new play by Vondel. his expectation was further supported by the fact that the play was published shortly ater Maurits’s
death, with Vondel’s antipathy for the stadtholder being known. Furthermore, the universal moral in the subtitle, ‘Vermoorde Onnooselheyd’
(‘Murdered Innocence’) was an incitement for reading the play as a
code, since it did not refer to the speciic case of Palamedes. Benjamin
has shown that titles of allegorical plays are oten characterised by having a main title that refers to the surface layer, and a more general subtitle, referring to the allegorical content of the play.44
he main title of Vondel’s play, Palamedes, does indeed refer to the
surface layer. Yet it may even have been a stronger incitement to read
the play as a code than the subtitle. he narrative of the mythological
igure Palamedes has its own tradition, with which many of the future
readers must have been familiar. Reading or hearing the title of the
play, the tradition of the mythological igure probably resounded and
functioned as an incentive to read it allegorically. Palamedes was one of
the characters in the stories about the Trojan War, but he was not mentioned in Homer’s famous epic. Only in later works was Palamedes
43
44
See, for instance, the contributions by Grootes, and Smits-Veldt and Spies.
Benjamin, he Origin, p. 195.
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introduced as a Greek commander-in-chief of the army, who acted in
close conjunction with Agamemnon. Accused of treason by Ulysses, he
was killed by his fellow warriors. Ater playing a leading role in tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, Palamedes became a
symbol of those unjustly condemned to death. Although few of those
plays had survived, Vondel and his contemporaries knew the story of
Palamedes had been used by Euripides in an allegorical play on the
death of Socrates. Moreover, prior to the publication of Vondel’s play,
the character Palamedes made his irst appearance on the Dutch stage
in the allegorical play Iphigenia (1617) by Vondel’s colleague Samuel
Coster (1579–1665). Palamedes is only a supporting character in
Iphigenia, but the fact that Vondel’s main character had recently turned
up in an allegorical play, along with his earlier allegorical appearances,
was undoubtedly important in the Palamedes of 1625. It was indeed,
next to Iphigenia, the second play in the Dutch Republic in which a
classical-historical narrative was used to represent contemporary
events. Moreover, the political arguments in Iphigenia resemble those
of Palamedes.45 he title Palamedes thus contained several connotations to older plays with topical content, which may have warned future
readers to expect something similar.
In some of the early editions of Palamedes, there was also a visual
incentive to decode. A drawing by the Amsterdam engraver and art
publisher Salomon Saverij (1587–1679) depicted a man being crowned
with a laurel while he is threatened by all kinds of dangerous animals.46
he man is far too old to represent the young hero Palamedes and even
resembles Oldenbarnevelt to some extent, as depicted by other contemporary pictures. he contrast between Palamedes and the depicted
igure as well as its resemblances to pictures of Oldenbarnevelt may
have motivated readers to start reading Palamedes as an allegory about
the execution of the latter.
45
Iphigenia could be read as a satire about the politico-religious situation in
Amsterdam in the years 1616–1617, pleading against the strict Counter-Remonstrant
preachers. In 1621, the play was discussed in the Church Council and performances
were forbidden, but the real controversy about the political meaning of Iphigenia only
broke out in 1630, when some politically delicate issues had been added. Iphigenia and
Palamedes have oten been criticised together as being one of a kind. Cf. Smits-Veldt,
Samuel Coster, pp. 305–455, and Smits-Veldt, Het Nederlandse Renaissancetoneel, p. 85.
46
he depicted scene is described in the play in ll. 2023–41.
politics and aesthetics – palamedes
237
Decoding Textual Stimuli: he Realities of Staging
In the play itself too, references are made to the old age of the main
character, which makes him incompatible with the image of Palamedes
as passed down from the classical period.47 he Palamedes of antiquity
was a young and vital warrior, whereas Oldenbarnevelt was an old,
resigned statesman. he character Palamedes introduces himself in a
long monologue in Act One. He feels uncomfortable in the Greek army,
since he is regarded as insincere and has been accused of several crimes
by his fellow warriors. In his monologue, he refutes every single accusation and is thus presented as a just man. In the following acts, however, Ulysses and his companion Diomedes plot to ‘prove’ some of the
accusations. hey kill an imprisoned Trojan slave and plant a letter
among his clothes which is addressed to Palamedes and has supposedly
been signed by the Trojan king Priam. he letter implies that Palamedes
is a traitor, and Agamemnon is of course willing to believe this about
someone he regards as a competitor. He decides Palamedes will be
judged by three of his greatest adversaries and this, unsurprisingly,
results in Palamedes’ execution. Friends and family of Palamedes try to
prevent the conviction but are overruled by the power of Agamemnon
and the cunning of Ulysses and the priest Calchas. In Act Five, the desperate brother of Palamedes, Oeax, calls upon their ancestor Neptune
and asks him for revenge. Neptune predicts how Palamedes will
be honoured in the end, whereas the future of the other Greeks is not
that bright at all. Neptune describes in detail the future suferings of
Agamemnon and Ulysses. Ater this preview we are presented with a
short look at the Trojan leaders Priam and Hecuba, who are celebrating
the death of Palamedes.
For all of the igures in Vondel’s play, readers could ind contemporary counterparts. hey saw Palamedes as Oldenbarnevelt and
Agamemnon as the stadtholder Maurits. To them the Greeks represented the Dutch and the Trojans the Spaniards. Vondel’s appropriation of the igure of Palamedes invited the reader to decode allegorical
meanings like these. First of all, there are the signiicant diferences
between the Palamedes of classical mythology and Vondel’s Palamedes.
As we saw earlier, the most important of these diferences is their age.
Secondly, Palamedes clearly uses words ascribed to Oldenbarnevelt.
47
Cf. Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, p. 117.
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He does so, for example, when he addresses the crowd immediately
before his death (ll. 1882–1885). he words are appropriate to
Oldenbarnevelt’s position – not to Palamedes’s – and contemporaries
must have recognised them, as they had been reproduced several times
in pamphlets and other media. Several other characters, for that
matter, use words that were said to be expressed by their Dutch counterparts in the real-life drama of the execution of Oldenbarnevelt verbatim. In pamphlets circulating ater the execution, the so-called words
of the protagonists of the drama had been repeated time and again.48
hese references would thus have been recognised immediately by
contemporary readers and they could – and did – proceed, as the
reception of the play proves, to decode more detailed or less familiar
references.
Let me ofer two examples of how this might work. Agamemnon
and Ulysses are both more rational and less emotional igures than
the other characters in the play, but they do not use many stoic maxims. Accordingly, their style and language relect their characters’
rationality. hey use few passionate words or stylistic devices, such as
exclamations or hyperboles. Both, however, sometimes use expressions
that nevertheless exceed the theatrical conines of their characters.
A good example of this is when Agamemnon calls Palamedes a ‘scoundrel’ (‘hondsvot’, l. 1659) ater hearing him and predicting his execution. Maurits was said to have used this word to refer to Oldenbarnevelt
while he was looking at the execution out of his window.49 he word’s
dissonance with Agamemnon’s otherwise well-balanced use of language urges the reader to recognise it as belonging to the historical
Maurits.
Another example can be found in a monologue in Act Two, in which
Ulysses speaks about his plan to lead Palamedes into a trap:
he more he defends himself, and tries to prove his innocence,
he more the insults grow. He remains suspect.
he military are divided: some praise him like a father,
Some spit at him and call him a traitor.
In addition to this trouble, the spokesman of God
Cultivates and nourishes the lies of slander among the people.
48
See for example Den Tex’s sources for his description of the execution Den Tex,
Oldenbarnevelt, 3, pp. 718–47.
49
Cf. Den Tex, Oldenbarnevelt, 3, p. 746.
politics and aesthetics – palamedes
239
My vindictiveness will strip him of his pride forthwith,
And make old wounds and ills fester and ooze pus.50
he last two verses of the quote were ascribed to count Willem Lodewijk
(relative of Maurits) in the seventeenth-century keys to Palamedes. hey
deviate from Ulysses’s typical use of language in the play, which is more
rational. he Willem Lodewijk citation is less balanced and more vehement and brutal. Moreover, the use of the irst person in combination
with ‘vindictiveness’ (‘wraecklust’, l. 431) is remarkable. In the preceding and following verses, Ulysses describes the necessity of Palamedes’s
downfall in terms of fate. He sketches a situation in which Palamedes
will be ruined in any event – whether Ulysses can trick him or not.
Except for one expression, ‘my enemy’ (‘Mijn vyand’, l. 422), Ulysses’s
personal feelings towards Palamedes are not apparent. In referring to
his own vindictiveness, however, he shows his own particular emotional motivation. he obvious deviations in the last two verses of the
passage could serve to make the reader aware of its topicality.
he striking diferences between the character Palamedes as created
by Vondel and his literary classical forebear, combined with the
citations – theatrical and real – form the most obvious reference to the
layer of contemporary politics in the play. Yet there are many more of
these references. hey can be traced, for example, by taking a closer
look at the way the play associates itself with the Senecan tradition of
playwriting.
Decoding Textual Stimuli: he Conventions of Senecan Tragedy
During the years preceding the publication of Palamedes, Vondel
gained in-depth knowledge of the Senecan tradition of playwriting.
He studied Latin by translating Seneca’s Troades51 with the help of the
learned writers Hoot and Reaal, and he probably read Heinsius’s
50
Vondel, Palamedes ll. 425–32: ‘Te meer hy sich verweert, en na sijne onschuld
tracht, / Te meer het lastren groeyt. hy is, en blijt verdacht. / Het krijsvolck is gedeelt:
d’een loot hem als een’ vader, / En d’ander hem verspuwt, en scheld voor landverrader. /
By dese swarigheyt koomt, dat der Goden tolck / De lasterlogen queeckt, en koestert
onder ’t volck. / Mijn wraecklust sal eer lang hem sijnen trots verleeren, / En d’oude
lemten gants tot etter wt doen sweeren.’
51
his resulted in the publication of the Dutch play De Amsteldamsche Hecuba
(1626).
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annotated edition of Seneca’s plays (1611). It may even have been in the
commentaries in this edition that Vondel found his model for the allegory of the execution of Oldenbarnevelt, since Heinsius mentioned
Euripides’s play about Socrates as a itting example of allegory. Be that
as it may, the Senecan tradition, with its stoic philosophy, horrifying
scenes and a good share of maxims, was well-known and popular
among Dutch dramatists in the irst decades of the seventeenth century. Obviously it was very apt in articulating the emotions and viewpoints of political debate, since both subjectivity (pathos) and rationality
(in the dialogues and sententiae) are present in the genre. Readers had
been used to searching for ethical meaning in Senecan tragedy since
antiquity.52 Moreover, one could carefully characterise the early Dutch
Senecan tradition as a Remonstrant or pro-Oldenbarnevelt tradition,
since its most important preachers, Hoot and particularly Coster,
articulated Remonstrant and pro-Oldenbarnevelt views in their
Senecan tragedies. In his study of English Royalist literature from the
second half of the seventeenth century, Lois Potter has shown how
genre and political colour could become entangled.53
Vondel’s play meaningfully its in with the Dutch Senecan tradition
of the irst quarter of the seventeenth century. Palamedes uses most of
the Senecan conventions,54 which in many cases are highly suited to
emphasising the immediate relevance of the play. he most striking
example is the role of Palamedes as a somewhat resigned character.
Rather than being a tragic hero, he serves as a classic example of moral
rectitude, uncompromising in his sincerity – in Seneca’s theatrical
characters, one characteristic was oten emphasised. he character of
Palamedes in the play itted the heroic position Oldenbarnevelt was to
obtain as a consequence of the publication of Palamedes.55 he horrifying passage at the start of Act Two, where the fury Megaera brings
Ulysses’s uncle Sisyphus from the underworld to earth to advise the
sleeping Ulysses on how to deal with Palamedes (ll. 287–406), can also
be seen as typical of Senecan tragedy. he fury, thoroughly bad of
course, was recognised as the Amsterdam burgomaster Reynier Pauw,
Smits-Veldt, Samuel Coster, p. 67.
Potter, Secret Rites, pp. 72–112.
54
here are also some passages that are reminiscent of the plays of Seneca in
Palamedes, especially of Hercules furens. See Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 2,
pp. 123–24.
55
Cf. also Vondel, Palamedes, ed. Wijngaards, p. 28.
52
53
politics and aesthetics – palamedes
241
one of Oldenbarnevelt’s judges. he conventions of the Senecan
character of the Fury thus enabled Vondel to defame Pauw as thoroughly bad.
Even more signiicant than the use of Senecan conventions, however, are the deviations from traditional Senecan tragedy. In this
respect, the inal act of the tragedy is the most striking. In the irst of its
three parts, the desperate Oeax asks Neptune for revenge (ll. 1863–
2278). he second part is a short dialogue between the Trojan Priam
and Hecuba (ll. 2279–93) and the third part is a choir of Trojan girls,
celebrating the death of Palamedes (ll. 2293–2380). he dialogue
between Priam and Hecuba ignores the required unities of place and
action and the choir of Trojan girls violates the convention that a
(Senecan) tragedy should not end with a chorus.56 hese deviations
may have functioned as stimuli for informed readers to read the act
allegorically.
In the irst scene of Act Five, Neptune had predicted the terrors that
would face Agamemnon, Ulysses and the other agitators of Palamedes
ater his death. His prediction, a narrative well-known to the reader
of classical texts, contains only few parallels to the topical layer of
Palamedes. he betrayal by the Greek housewives, the destruction of
Greek kingdoms, Ulysses’s roaming – all of these familiar themes were
at that point in opposition to the consequences of the execution of
Oldenbarnevelt in the Dutch Republic. Only the death of Agamemnon
perhaps motivated an allegorical reading. he death of Maurits may
have been interpreted as a fulilment of Neptune’s prophecy in the play.
Although Maurits was not killed by his wife, like Agamemnon, their
resemblances were underlined by the tempest they both encountered:
Agamemnon on his way home, Maurits during the attack on Antwerp.
he subsequent scenes of Act Five, breaking with Senecan conventions, are more obviously topical and may have forced readers also to
interpret the irst scene as such. Priam and Hecuba were recognised as
the Spanish rulers of the Southern Netherlands, Albrecht and Isabella
of Austria. As such, their dialogue is very topical in its references
to Dutch history. It urges the reader to remember, above all, that the
play has a topical meaning. he closing chorus serves to reinforce this
reading. he happiness of the Trojan girls in the chorus represents that
of the Spanish and Southern Netherlanders following the division
56
On these deviations, see Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 2, pp. 118–19.
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within the Republic and thus points to the plot against Oldenbarnevelt
and its enormous consequences.
Another diference between Palamedes and Seneca’s tragedies is
found in its style and language. Unlike Seneca’s tragedies, the play ofers
relatively few stoic maxims or excessive ornamentation.57 he absence
of these Senecan conventions may have reduced the distance between
readers and the events described, thus making it easier to identify the
allegorical narrative. his is not to say, however, that the whole play
employs the language of common parlance. here are signiicant diferences in the use of style and language by the characters in the tragedy.
Palamedes himself is the only one who speaks almost entirely in poetic
language and employs the occasional Senecan stoic maxim. He is
indeed the stoic hero of the play. His style and language reinforce the
image of Palamedes as a quiet and wise old man – an image that is in
opposition to the classical igure of Palamedes but conforms to the
image Vondel wanted to create of Oldenbarnevelt.
he use of style and language is more striking in the choruses, however, which also deviate from common Senecan choruses in other
respects. In the Senecan tradition, the chorus was a lyrical passage
propagating universal moralism whilst oten presenting a story independent of the plot, for variety’s sake. In Palamedes only the third and
fourth chorus can be interpreted in this way. An apt example of a deviating chorus is the one at the end of Act One. Ater the monologue of
Palamedes, the antiphonal singing of the Euboeans (Palamedes’s people) and the Ithacans (Ulysses’s people) depicts their argument about
the accusations against Palamedes and his refutations thereof. heir
language is more passionate than that of Palamedes in the preceding
monologue and is free of stoic maxims. Whereas Palamedes describes
Ulysses’s campaign against him as a fact he has to endure, without
really blaming him, the Euboeans speak of Ulysses as the man ‘whose
tongue is sweet-sounding, but who carries poison inside’ (‘wiens tong
van Nectar dout, / En draeght vergit inwendig’, ll. 197–98). he contrast between the monologue and the chorus and the way the chorus
deviates from common Senecan choruses, underscores a topical interpretation. It can be interpreted as a representation of the dispute
between Remonstrants and Counter-Remonstrants, which was also
57
See also Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 2, pp. 123–24; and Vondel, Palamedes, ed.
Wijngaards, pp. 28–29.
politics and aesthetics – palamedes
243
reciprocal and more passionate than rational. Style and language again
support a topical reading.
Another departure from traditional Senecan tragedy provides the
framework of satirical elements, in which the use of style and language
again plays an important role. he play is simultaneously a tragedy and
a satirical drama.58 Satire in the loty genre of tragedy was uncommon
and is therefore dissonant in Palamedes. An example of a clearly satirical passage is the entreaty of priest Calchas in Act hree (ll. 947–86).
I cite the passage in which he describes the power of the priests:
We are bound to the Gods by an unbreakable pact.
hose who contradict us, contradict God’s word.
We are copies of God, ambassadors of immortality.
We are honoured, anointed Jupiter’s attendants,
And we wear his livery, form his retinue,
And through our saintliness, one speaks to God.
A worldly power that dares audaciously to counteract
Will lose his seat and stand on tottering feet,
Our signs are lightning bolts, our words crashing thunder.
We are a wall around the state, the keys of the city gate,
he torches that set a country easily alight.
Being provoked, we give free rein to the vomit
And curses of hell: no Monarch is able to mobilise his army
As quickly as we are able to mobilise the ierce people.59
he image sketched here of priesthood by a priest himself is replete
with hyperboles.60 Calchas represents himself as a proud person, hungry for power. He cannot be taken seriously as a sincere spokesman of
God. he satirical layer of the passage interacts with references to the
Counter-Remonstrants, who as a consequence lose their credibility
58
For an interpretation of Palamedes as a satirical drama see for example Wijngaards’
edition of Palamedes, pp. 33–34.
59
Vondel, Palamedes ll. 973–86: ‘Wy staen met Goden in onbrekelijck verbond. / Al
wie ons wederspreeckt, die wederspreeckt Gods mond. / Wy zyn afdrucksels Gods,
onsterlijckheyds gesanten. / Wy zyn gehult, gesalt tot Iupiters trawanten, / En voeren
syn levrey, en maken sijnen stoet, / En door onse hayligheyd men Godheyd spreken
moet. / Wat wereldlijcke maght ons stout derf tegenwroeten, / Diens setel sijght, en
staet op waggelende voeten, / Ons wencken blixems zyn, en donders yeder woord. / Wy
zyn een muur om ’t rijck, de sleutels van stads poort, / De fackels om een land in lichten
brand te stellen. / Gezart wy geven aen d’wtbraecxelen der Hellen, / En vloecken vryen
toom: en geen Monarch soo gaeu / Syn heyr brengt op de been, als wy het woeste
graeu.’
60
Sierhuis has shown how the image of Counter-Remonstrant ‘fanaticism, ambition
and hypocrisy’ in Palamedes is derived in large part from pamphlet literature from the
1618–1619 controversy: Sierhuis, ‘A Babel Full of Confusion’, pp. 275–281.
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nina geerdink
together with Calchas. Satirical passages of this nature can be found
throughout the tragedy, which emphasises the strong satirical connotations of the play as a whole and thus encourages allegorical reading.
he World as a Stage: A Framework of References to Allegory
he web of references to contemporary politics motivated by the use of
formal conventions is supported by a framework of references that is
both formal and thematic. hese references do not point to contemporary political events as such, but subtly refer to the possibility of allegory in literature as well as reality. hat is to say, the theme of theatrum
mundi is present in Palamedes, even in its preface. he larger part of
that preface describes what is known about Palamedes from earlier literature and historiography, particularly from the classical period. he
description places considerable emphasis on the comparison between
Palamedes and Socrates, based on the allegorical tragedy by Euripides.61
It posits the plays by Euripides and Vondel as representative of the
important function of drama in eulogising fallen leaders.
In general, the contradictions between the named sources lead
Vondel to take a sceptical approach to history and literature in the
preface. More than once, the sources are said not to have been faithful
to the truth. When that concerns a literary source, it is justiied by
referring to poetic licence. he ‘poetic freedom’ (‘poëtische vryheid’) is
speciically mentioned in l. 207, when Vondel gives his motivation for
the location he chose for the execution in Palamedes, which is an aberration of some of the sources. Poetic freedom is identiied elsewhere
too, for example in ll. 165–68, when Homer is explicitly called a poet,
in order to explain why he had ignored Palamedes.
In the end, however, literature and reality do not appear that dissimilar. Several references can be found to an idea of universal theatricality:
acting is regarded as not uncommon in either literature or reality. An
example of such a reference can be found in the description of the misuse of religion at the beginning of the preface, where Vondel argues
that good leaders will always be deceived in the end. he heathens
claiming to be Christian are said to perform their ‘role’ (‘personagie’)
very well.62 Later, the deceit which led to the execution of Palamedes is
61
he tragedy is mentioned in ll. 67–72, but Vondel refers to the comparison
between Palamedes and Socrates two more times, in ll. 43–53 and 97–102.
62
l. 17.
politics and aesthetics – palamedes
245
referred to, in Vondel’s translation of Ovid, as ‘the versiied prank’
(l. 130, ’t Gedichte schellemstuck’). In the following lines, this prank
is regarded as being appropriate for Ovid’s Metamorphoses, because it
led to a ‘transformation’.63 he boundaries between literature and reality are diminishing as a consequence of this argumentation. he preface thus points to the entanglement of the world of literature and reality
and the intrinsic possibilities of theatricality in both worlds.
In an article on the theatrum mundi metaphor in Dutch plays, René
van Stipriaan has shown how the use of words with theatrical connotations is part of a larger framework within the text of Vondel’s Palamedes
itself.64 For example, he draws attention to the description of the location of Palamedes’s death as a ‘stage’ (ll. 1896, ‘schouwtoneel’) and the
execution itself as a ‘tragedy’ (l. 1929, ‘treurspel’). I would include the
use of words like ‘play’ (ll. 13, 49 and 108, ‘stuck’), ‘versiied’ (ll. 392 and
1957, ‘erdight’) and ‘role’ (l. 433, ‘rolle’). Time and again the use of
words like these urges the reader to be aware of the theatricality of
everything, not only in the theatre, but also in the rest of the world.
he word ‘stuck’ for example refers in Palamedes respectively to: proof
or evidence (l. 13), which can also be false, as becomes clear later in the
play; to a plan (l. 49), in this case the plan to ofer the daughter of
Agamemnon, Iphigenia, as a sacriice, which Palamedes regards as an
unjust plan; and inally to a story (l. 1866), speciically the story of
Palamedes’s downfall.
he level of the theatrical characters also contains several markers of
the overt presence of theatre and betrayal. his is not just because the
characters represent both a ‘real’ person involved in the execution of
Oldenbarnevelt and a ictional character in the play. It rather concerns
the fact that the characters occasionally become interchangeable with
the people they represent as well as with other people too.
Some characters represent more than one person. Ajax, for example,
friend of Palamedes, was recognised as both Van Matenes and Schagen,
two friends of Oldenbarnevelt. And Ulysses, who was only recognised
as one enemy of Oldenbarnevelt, viz. François van Aarssen, nevertheless appears able to act like someone else when he uses the words of
count Willem Lodewijk, who in the rest of the play is represented by
Ulysses’s companion Diomedes.65 he way in which the two roles of
63
64
65
ll. 132–34.
Van Stipriaan, ‘Het theatrum mundi als ludiek labyrint.’
In ll. 431–32, see the above quotation: p. 239.
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nina geerdink
the character Palamedes – the Greek Palamedes and the Dutch
Oldenbarnevelt – become interchangeable during the play is the best
example of theatricality at the level of character. he character
Palamedes is not consistent. He is easily recognisable as Oldenbarnevelt
when he lives up to the image of docile old man, as in the irst act, but
in some later scenes he acts more like the igure of Palamedes. Using an
exceptionally passionate tone in certain dialogues, the character shits
from Oldenbarnevelt to Palamedes. Moreover, the events in the play
occasionally correspond with what we know about Palamedes, sometimes with what we know about Oldenbarnevelt, and other times with
both.66 For the reader, Palamedes and Oldenbarnevelt could become
one and the same person.
J.W. Delf, portrait engraving of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt ater
Mierevelt (1617).
66
Cf. Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 2, pp. 124–25.
politics and aesthetics – palamedes
247
Drawing by Salomon Saverij, in: Joost van den Vondel, Palamedes
ot vermoorde onnooselheyd: treur-spel. Amsterdam: Jacob Aertsz.
Colom, 1625. University Library VU University Amsterdam.
Something similar happens in the fourth chorus, which seems to
function only on the surface level of the play at irst sight. In this chorus,
Palamedes is compared to Hercules and the two become interchangeable. It has always been argued that this chorus is one of the few parts
67
Cf., for example, Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 2, pp. 125–26.
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nina geerdink
of the play in which the allegorical layer is absent,67 but when interpreted as part of the discourse on theatricality, it does have relevance to
the allegorical interpretation of the play. It is abundantly clear that
in this chorus, Palamedes is a young, vital warrior and not the
Oldenbarnevelt-like wise old man, but in fact another allegory is at
work here: Palamedes represents Hercules. his allegory within the
allegory of Palamedes shows the possibilities of the genre and the universality of theatre and betrayal. As such, it supports the larger framework of references to allegory in both preface and the play itself.
For that matter, the same thing applies to the description of
the threatening of Palamedes by all kinds of animals in ll. 2023–41.
he animals represent the enemies of Palamedes in the play, and at the
same time readers were motivated to recognise in them the enemies
of Oldenbarnevelt, particularly in editions that contained the picture of
Saverij on which an Oldenbarnevelt-like man was surrounded by the
animals described. Using allegories within the allegory could incite
readers to search for more allegorical meanings than they had already
found.
he discourse on theatricality in the preface and in the play itself
emphasises what Palamedes is able to do, namely to give a coded
account of reality. My formalist reading of the play aimed to clarify
how the allegorical narrative of Palamedes simultaneously hides and
displays the topical meaning of the play with extra-textual and textual
stimuli. his seemingly paradoxical movement can be regarded as
stemming both from the culture of coding and decoding and the allegorical genre itself as well as from the heated political debate in the
Dutch Republic during the 1620s. In that context, allegory is both more
than rhetoric or a literary game and more than a thin veil to cover a
political statement. he interaction between politics and aesthetics is
pivotal to Palamedes.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
TRANSLATION STUDIES – VONDEL’S APPROPRIATION OF
GROTIUS’S SOPHOMPANEAS (1635)
Madeleine Kasten
Life, Text and Interpretation
On 15 July 1634, Hugo Grotius presents his esteemed and loyal friend
Gerard Vossius with a play by his hand entitled Sophompaneas. As he
explains in his dedicatory letter, the piece has three points to commend
it. First of all, it is a tragedy and thus belongs to the ‘royal’ genre that
was not disdained by prominent men such as Sophocles, or the emperor
Augustus. Secondly, although the plot conforms to the Aristotelian
ideal it is drawn not from the misfortunes of Troy or hebes – matter
that has been tainted by the story-telling Greeks! – but from biblical
history, which is free from falsehood. Finally, the play ofers a portrait
of an exemplary ruler, and in this respect it complements the examples
of the irst three Patriarchs, on whose lives, according to Philo Judaeus,
Moses the lawgiver intended us to model our own.1
he exemplary regent in question is Joseph, son of Jacob and Rachel,
whose history we ind recorded in Genesis 37–50. More speciically,
Grotius’s play centres on the episode in which Joseph, having been
exalted to the position of governor of Egypt, confronts and forgives his
brothers, who had sold him into slavery in his youth. As a humanist,
Grotius presents his protagonist in the light of those qualities that mark
him out as a universal example, and the play may thus be classiied as a
1
Grotius, Sophompaneas, pp. 126–33. Unless stated otherwise, all references to
Grotius’s play, including the translations, are from the edition by Arthur Eyinger.
Daniel Heinsius, a Dutch humanist and former friend of Grotius, had singled out the
popular theme of Joseph in Egypt as the only one in the Bible to answer Aristotle’s
preference for a complex plot where the moment of recognition (agnitio) coincides
with a reversal of fortune or peripeteia (Eyinger, Sophompaneas, pp. 3–4). In his dedicatory letter, Grotius forestalls any possible criticism concerning the exitus felix of his
tragedy by mentioning a number of classical tragedies that likewise lack a sad ending,
including Euripides’ Iphigeneia in Tauris, a play he had recently translated into Latin
himself.
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mirror for magistrates. However, various readers and critics have
pointed out that the author must have been aware of certain striking
similarities between Joseph’s story and his own vicissitudes.2
A brilliant and internationally acclaimed jurist, theologian, classicist, and historian, Grotius had been intended for a career in politics.
Ater a promising start, however, he got caught up in the politicoreligious controversies of his day and was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Dutch castle of Loevestein (1618), from which, helped by
his wife, he managed to escape in a book chest three years later. His
subsequent years were spent in exile, irst in Paris and later, ater a
failed attempt to return to Holland, near Hamburg. Moved by feelings
of bitter resentment towards his home country he had long been looking around for new prospects. At last, in 1634, an opening presented
itself as the Swedish chancellor Axel Oxenstierna ofered him the post
of ambassador to the Swedish crown in Paris.
his appointment, as Grotius may have perceived it, would enable
him to further European-Christian unity and promote his ideas for a
universal system of natural law set forth in his treatise De iure belli ac
pacis (On the Law of War and Peace, 1625). It would thus aford him an
opportunity to prove his statesmanship, in circumstances which may
well have put him in mind of Joseph’s foreign career. Like Joseph,
Grotius had been forced into exile; like his protagonist, he may have
sensed the hand of God in the reversal of fortune that was once more
to call him to public oice. His conciliatory letters to the States of
Holland and the Dutch stadtholder, Frederick Henry, suggest his intention to follow Joseph’s example in repaying evil with good,3 while the
play itself contains several possible allusions to the parallel, notably
Grotius’s confusion, in the original drat, between his own term of exile
and that of Joseph.4
One early reader on whom this parallel was certainly not lost was
Vondel, who, like Grotius’s son Pieter, produced a Dutch translation of
the play in the year of its irst appearance. he personal relationship
between Vondel and Grotius dates back to 1631, when Vondel came
to visit his countryman in the latter’s temporary hiding place in
2
Eyinger, Sophompaneas, pp. 67–72.
Eyinger, Sophompaneas, p. 66.
4
Sophompaneas, pp. 999–1000. his slip, among other possible clues, was irst noted
by Van Vollenhoven, whose interpretation of the play’s genesis I am following here
(Verspreide Geschriten I, pp. 238–39).
3
translation studies – sophompaneas
251
Amsterdam. In 1628, Vondel had already dedicated his Dutch translation of Seneca’s Hippolytus to Grotius. In 1637, two years ater his work
on Sophompaneas, he honoured Grotius again with the dedication
of his play Gysbreght van Aemstel. Vondel’s much later Adam in ballingschap (Adam Exiled, 1664) is an adaptation of Grotius’s Adamus exul
(Adam Exiled, 1601), and as late as 1668 he was to render Grotius’s
Latin translation of Euripides’ Phoenician Women in Dutch.
In the preface to his Sofompaneas Vondel relects that as he was
engaged in the delightful task of translation, he ‘sometimes imagined
that either Joseph had been resurrected in the poet, or the poet had followed in Joseph’s footsteps’ (‘[Ick] hier mede vast in ’t vertolcken en
rijmen bezigh en verruckt zijnde, liet my zomtijds voorstaen, dat Iosef,
of in den treurspeelder verrezen was, of dat de treurspeelder Iosefs
spoor moest bewandelt hebben’).5 his comment, disarming in its show
of admiration for Grotius, may nevertheless be seen to serve a double
purpose. First of all, its chiastic structure (Joseph-poet/poet-Joseph)
suggests a relationship of reciprocity to the point of interchangeability
between the Genesis account and Grotius’s poetic adaptation. Yet
where could such a relationship exist except in the perception of a
reader/translator suiciently skilled to register the similarity and eager,
for his part, to cap this tour de force by achieving an analogous relationship to his original and its biblical pretext? Vondel’s subsequent statement that he has tried neither to follow too closely on the heels of
Grotius’s Latin nor to stray from his illustrious predecessor too far does
little to mask this aspiration, despite his modest assurance that whether
he and his two helpers have struck the right balance in this respect is
for the Great Intellect himself to decide.6
Vondel’s desire to revive the image of the Patriarch through Grotius
is characteristic of an age and culture which saw translatio as a irst step
towards the time-honoured ideal of imitatio et aemulatio. Yet we may
ask to what extent he succeeded in his endeavour, even if Grotius
declared himself thoroughly satisied with the job.7 It is this question
that I will try to answer here, although I should make it clear from the
5
Sofompaneas, p. 435. Unless stated otherwise, all translations from Vondel are my
own. To distinguish between Vondel’s translation and Grotius’s original I will refer to
Vondel’s work by means of its Dutch title, Sofompaneas.
6
Sofompaneas, p. 435. Vondel’s fond epithet for Grotius, ‘the Great Intellect’ (Dutch
‘het Groote Vernut’), is a pun on his Dutch name, De Groot. Vondel’s two helpers were
the playwright Daniël Mostert and the lawyer Joan Victorijn.
7
Eyinger, Sophompaneas, p. 88.
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start that the issues I want to highlight do not begin or end with Vondel’s
translation. hey are far more pervasive and cannot be properly separated from more general problems of imitation and interpretation.
Signiicantly, the Latin noun interpretatio encompasses both the translator’s and the interpreter’s activities, and the latitude for ideological
appropriation created by these overlapping meanings compromises the
notion of ‘translation proper’ from its very beginnings.8 In the case of
Sofompaneas, the diiculty is moreover compounded by the circumstance that Vondel’s Neo-Latin source text was itself both a linguistic
and generic adaptation and a radical cultural appropriation of the
Hebrew Bible story. In Grotius’s play, Vondel encountered a version
of the Genesis story that had already been mediated by the perspective
of a contemporary who was, moreover, a western intellectual and a
Christian.
Grotius’s play and Vondel’s translation represent only two among
numerous early modern adaptations of the popular Joseph theme.
To determine Vondel’s position within this larger intertextual framework it is not enough merely to judge his labour in terms of its faithfulness to Grotius’s original. Although the scope of this paper does not
allow me to follow up all of the intertextual leads, I will make a start by
referring Vondel’s and Grotius’s achievements to their common biblical
source. Ater all, even though Vondel’s own stated intention on this
occasion was to produce a ‘translation proper’ we will see that the dominant paradigm of translation in his time would have allowed him
scope for considerable alterations with regard to his original. Before
embarking on my analysis, however, it will be necessary – however
briely – to outline this paradigm, and to mark some historical shits in
the western approach to translation.
Invisibility in Translation
Although translation studies as an academic discipline established
itself only in the second half of the twentieth century, the relection on
translation as a practice goes back to antiquity. Frederick Rener, in his
8
Roman Jakobson, in his essay ‘On Linguistic Aspects of Translation’, distinguishes
between three types of translation: intralingual translation or ‘rewording’, intersemiotic
translation or ‘transmutation’, and interlingual translation or ‘translation proper’
(p. 114).
translation studies – sophompaneas
253
history of translation from Cicero to Tytler, argues that changing views
with regard to literary translation over the centuries are directly attributable to changes in perception concerning the relationship between
language and the world. Until the end of the eighteenth century, he
explains, this relationship was largely deined in terms of the classical
distinction between res and verba. Whereas words might be seen to
difer from one language to another, their referents were regarded as
universal and unchangeable. his outlook, in its turn, presupposed a
relationship of full, unproblematic equivalence between the individual
languages.
Following Cicero, translators generally took a liberal view of their
art. Interestingly, they oten compared their labour to a change of costume.9 Vondel, in the preface to his translation of the French poet Du
Bartas’ La Magniicence de Salomon, resorts to this very topos to justify
his enterprise:
But even though fear at times made me shrink [from the task of translation], a secret passion would compel me to see how I might adorn and
embellish this French Venus with a Dutch apparel and costume […].10
Where the preservation of meaning – the body underneath the changed
apparel – was taken to be a priori guaranteed, the translator’s ideal
would be to produce a luent text which strove to conceal its derived
nature at any cost.
Partly through the inluence of Descartes and Locke, the eighteenth
century sees a change in this respect. By this time, the insight is growing that our perception of reality is to a large extent shaped by language, and the old distinction between res and verba comes under ire.
Friedrich Schleiermacher, in his essay ‘Über die verschiedenen
Methoden des Übersetzens’ (‘On the Diferent Methods of Translating’,
1813), advocates a new approach to the translation of scholarly and
literary texts. Unlike his predecessors he rejects the idea that a translation could or, indeed, should copy the meaning of its original. Ater all,
every text is produced within a speciic cultural and historical context,
and this context is rooted primarily in language. Even apart from being
impossible an exact translation would be undesirable since, in
Schleiermacher’s view, the purpose of a translation should be to expose
Rener, Interpretatio, pp. 24–26.
‘Maer gelijck my vreeze zomtijds dede deynzen, alzoo noopte my wederom een
heymelijcke hertstocht om eenmael te zien hoe ick deze fransche Venus met een neerlands gewaed en hulsel zoude mogen toijen en opsmucken […]’, Heerlyckheyd, p. 229.
9
10
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its reader to a foreign language and culture. Accordingly, he declares
himself in favour of a more ‘alienating’ mode of translation designed to
preserve the characteristics of the source text as far as possible. he
resulting target text, he asserts, should not gloss over the traces of the
translator’s pains to achieve this goal.
With regard to the theory of translation it is safe to say that
Schleiermacher’s relativistic approach has withstood the test of time.
Particularly the advent of (post)structuralism, with its insistence on the
arbitrary and unstable nature of the linguistic sign, has done much to
reinforce the insight that a translation can never be more than an interpretation of its original.11 By contrast, Schleiermacher’s call for an
alienating practice of translation has met with little response.
Lawrence Venuti, in he Translator’s Invisibility, examines the consequences of what he deems to be a constant of the art of translation
through the centuries. Although Venuti’s survey is primarily concerned
with dominant practices of translation in the Anglo-Saxon world its
relevance is not restricted to this context. In order for a text to gain
approval, he argues, it has always been essential that it should read
luently – an efect which the translator achieves by adapting his style
and usage to the audience of his target text. As a result, however, the
translated text is likely to give the impression of being an original rather
than a translation. By erasing the traces of his own interference, the
translator disguises the secondary status of his work. he typical result
is an illusion of presence: presence of the ‘voice’ of the original, to which
the reader has direct access. To put it in Venuti’s words, ‘[t]he more luent the translation, the more invisible the translator, and, presumably,
the more visible the writer or meaning of the foreign text’.12
his brings us back to Vondel’s assertion that while he was translating, he sometimes imagined that he was either encountering Grotius in
Joseph, or vice versa. On the one hand his desire to lend presence to
not one, but both of these sources seems wildly ambitious even in terms
of the ubiquitous tendency signalled by Venuti. On the other hand, it is
important to note that Vondel produced his translation at a time long
before interpretatio, in its double sense of translation and interpretation, came to be conceived as a problem at all. In the closing sentence
11
An interesting survey of new approaches is Diference in Translation, a collection
of essays edited by Joseph Graham. See especially Graham’s introduction, pp. 13–30.
12
Venuti, he Translator’s Invisibility, p. 2.
translation studies – sophompaneas
255
of his preface, where he refers the judgement of his work to Grotius
himself, he signiicantly invites the Great Intellect to ‘rebuke our Dutch
Sofompaneas in his stammering, and to render him in Dutch as perfectly as in Latin’.13 his open invitation to the author to emulate his
translator is telling in several respects. Firstly, it conirms the idea,
prevalent in Vondel’s time, that perfection in translation is an attainable goal: the true master can render his text in one language as well as
in another. Secondly, it reduces the question of perfection to one of
‘mere’ words, of masterly eloquence as opposed to the beginner’s stammer. Finally, and perhaps most fundamentally, it obscures the diference between ‘translation proper’ – if such a thing should indeed exist
– and the prior act of interpretatio by which Grotius had translated ‘his’
Joseph from the Book of Genesis to his own Neo-Latin play, drawing
inspiration from a great many other sources in the process.14
his blurring of the diferent senses of interpretatio is entirely of a
piece with the fact that translation, in Vondel’s era, was regarded as an
integral part of a learning programme whose goal was to train the student in the imitation of the classical masters.15 Vondel himself, in his
Aenleidinge ter Nederduitsche dichtkunste (Introduction to Dutch
Poetry), claims that
Knowledge of foreign languages is a great advantage, and translating the
illustrious Poets will help the aspiring Poet in the same way that the
Painter’s apprentice may beneit from copying great masterpieces. […]
hus one copies the art from the best masters, learning, through artful
thet, to leave to others what is theirs.16
13
‘Maer of wy hier in de rechte maete houden, dat zal het Groote Vernut […] kunnen oordeelen, wanneer het zich gewaerdige onzen Neerlandschen Sofompaneas in
zijn stamelen te berispen, en hem zoo volmaeckt in het Duitsch als in Latijn te leveren
[…].’ (Sofompaneas, p. 435)
14
I quote Grotius’s own account: ‘he history of this tragedy is recorded by Moses
in Genesis, chapters 44 and 45 and the adjoining context. It is furthermore to be found
in Psalm 125, in chapter 7 of the Acts of the Apostles, in Philo’s Life of Joseph, in the
second book of the Antiquities by Josephus, the father of Jewish historiography, and
parts of it also in Justinus’ excerpt from book 26 of Pompeius Trogus. It is also recorded
in Artapanus, who drew on Alexander Polyhistor, and in Demetrius; the relevant references are listed in Eusebius’ Preparation of the Gospel’ (Sophompaneas, p. 147). In addition to these listed sources, Grotius’s play contains countless allusions to, and stylistic
resonances with, the classical masters.
15
See Jansen, Imitatio, esp. ch. 4, pp. 144–53.
16
‘Kennis van uitheemsche spraecken vordert niet weinigh, en het overzetten uit
vermaerde Poëten helpt den aenkomende Poeet, gelijck het kopieeren van kunstige
meesterstucken den Schildersleerling. […] Zoo ziet men den besten meesteren de
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he term ‘thet’ suggests that there is more involved here than a simple
drill. Indeed Venuti, in his study, makes it clear that precisely where the
art of translation appears most efortless, the translated text reveals its
thieving designs upon its original. For its illusory transparence does
not come to it naturally: it is the result of appropriation and suppression of the cultural other. he audience within the receiving culture
inds its standards and values conirmed in the translation, which thus
helps to delect any ‘foreign’ inluence that might endanger those
values.
In the foregoing I have tried to outline the cultural framework within
which Vondel operated, linking my observations at the same time to a
more general problem of translation. Within this broader context, it
remains to be determined why he chose to undertake this particular
project, and to assess the result. As a irst step towards my analysis
I now turn to Grotius’s Sophompaneas, a play whose very title presents
a vexing problem of translation.
Grotius’s Sophompaneas: An Outline
he title of the play refers to the Egyptian name given to Joseph by
Pharaoh in Genesis 41:45, Zaphnath-paaneah. his name, which presents an etymological riddle, has been variously translated as ‘the man
who discloses secrets’, ‘a man unto whom secrets are revealed’, ‘a man
and Interpreter of secrets’, ‘a discoverer of secrets’, or, as in Jerome’s
Vulgate, ‘Saviour of the world’.17 I will return to Jerome’s translation at a
later stage in my argument.
he beginning of the irst act inds Joseph alone while pondering his
duties as governor of Egypt. Like Socrates’ model ruler in the allegory
of the cave, Joseph, too, avows to spurn the trappings of his oice:
‘I maintain the image, but get no pleasure from it’ (utor hoc ego, non
fruor, l. 28). He contrasts his carefree youth in Canaan with his present,
kunst af, en leert, behendig stelende, een’ ander het zijne te laten.’ (Vondel, Aenleidinge
ter Nederduytsche dichtkunste, pp. 487–88).
17
Jerome omits the name Zaphnath-paaneah altogether. He merely states that
Pharaoh changed Joseph’s name, calling him in the Egyptian tongue the saviour of the
world (‘vertitque nomen illius et vocavit eum lingua aegyptiaca Salvatorem mundi’).
Eyinger notes that Grotius himself appears to have preferred the Hebrew rendering,
‘the man who discloses secrets’ (Sophompaneas, p. 148). his reading corresponds to
Joseph’s self-stated intention in the irst act of uncovering the secrets of his brothers’
hearts, which are usually veiled in mists (ll. 97–98).
translation studies – sophompaneas
257
precarious state as a stranger in a high position, calling attention to the
seven years of crop failure which are devastating Egypt and giving
praise to nature’s almighty Father, who has made him, Joseph, the
instrument of the country’s salvation.
God has made the dreams he sent Joseph as a child come true: from
far and near strangers come locking to Egypt for the grain stored there
through the governor’s foresight during the previous years of abundance. Even his own brothers have now undertaken the journey for the
second time, without, however, having recognized him. Joseph declares
himself a mild man who is willing to forgive his kin for their past
crimes against him. Yet he feels he must put these brothers – who are
actually his half-brothers – to the test, since he fears that the same
hatred which drove them to sell him into slavery long ago might cause
them to harm young Benjamin, his only full brother and the favourite
of their father Jacob in his old age. To this end Joseph has devised a plot
by which he hopes either to ind them good men, or to make them so.
He counsels his son, Manasseh, to follow his own example in repaying
evil with good lest he might lose God’s favour.
At the opening of the second act Benjamin is taken to Joseph’s palace
in fetters: his luggage has been found to contain a sacriicial bowl which
belongs to Joseph, and which was actually planted there at the latter’s
command. Judah, one of the brothers, tries to put in a good word for
him but is told by Joseph’s steward, Ramses, that the supplicants had
better examine their own conscience. God’s vengeance may be slow,
but it is sure, and the adversity which has befallen Benjamin might well
be a punishment for a wrong committed by his kin long ago. his
admonition does not fail to strike home. At that point, however, the
governor himself makes his entrance. He expresses his feigned surprise
at the ‘crime’: how could the brothers have hoped to get away with
thet? Were they unaware, then, of his prophetic git? Judah pleads
Benjamin’s case once more. He implores Joseph to temper justice with
mercy for the sake of old Jacob, who will surely not survive the loss of
a second child. Joseph pretends he needs more time to consider the
matter.
In Act hree a messenger informs Joseph of a rebellion in Egypt’s
easternmost province. he trouble has been caused by the greed of
the local authorities, who have made good proit by selling the
grain intended for the hungry people to buyers abroad. Joseph’s interrogation of this messenger allows him to expose the evils of bad government and at the same time to demonstrate his own statesmanship.
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He issues orders to restore the peace without unnecessary bloodshed
and henceforth to entrust power to the reliable middle class: ‘[T]he
backbone of society is the middle class – less prone to luxury and free
from sordid baseness’.18
his scene is overheard by Joseph’s brothers Judah and Simeon. he
latter, who has spent a year at Joseph’s court as a hostage, extols the
virtues and political insight of the governor. He shows Judah a picture
gallery – a git to Joseph from Pharaoh – which surrounds the palace
courtyard on three sides. Each tablet depicts a scene from Joseph’s
career in Egypt, starting with the attempt made on his virtue by the
wife of Potiphar, his irst master. Looking over Judah’s shoulder we next
follow the protagonist into the dungeon where this woman’s false accusations have landed him, but where he also rises to fame thanks to his
powers as a dream interpreter. Called upon by Pharaoh himself in this
capacity, he conidently predicts a seven-year spell of abundant harvests followed by an equal period of failing crops. He is then elevated to
his present dignity and seen to reform the country’s government, dividing society into three estates and promoting the arts and sciences.
Joseph’s crowning achievement, however, has been his counsel to
Pharaoh to store up as much grain as possible during the seven years of
plenty. By selling these reserves to the people in the subsequent years of
famine Pharaoh has become owner not only of all the land, but likewise
of the Egyptians themselves and their live stock. hus he has been able
to evict his own people from their dwellings, commanding them to go
and expand the empire by colonizing foreign lands.
Interestingly, Simeon now discloses that there is a fourth side to the
gallery where Joseph has depicted what the future holds in store for the
Egyptians. However, he declines to show Judah these last pictures,
explaining that they are unlikely to be of interest to him.
he fourth act centres on Benjamin’s trial before Joseph. he governor, on being reminded that Jacob already lost a son long ago, soon
elicits Judah’s confession that he would give his life to see father and
child reunited. Satisied with this answer, Joseph now proceeds to
reveal his own identity by degrees. First he demonstrates his knowledge of the Hebrew tongue by giving the etymology of Benjamin’s
name, leaving it to Judah to unveil the meaning of his own name,
18
Quod civitatem continet medium est genus, luxu remotem, sorde contemta vacans
(ll. 649–50); Sophompaneas, p. 205. his wisdom actually stems from Aristotle’s Politics
(IV.11).
translation studies – sophompaneas
259
Joseph: ‘the increase of a happy family’ (incrementa felicis domus,
l. 951). Indeed, a joyful reunion ensues in which Joseph fully forgives
his brothers for their past misdeeds. Accordingly, he orders them to go
and fetch Jacob in order that the whole family may come to live in
Egypt, sharing Joseph’s power and privileges.
In Act Five, Pharaoh himself arrives at Joseph’s palace to ofer his
congratulations on this happy ending. Joseph seizes the opportunity to
secure a promise that his family will be given fertile pastures in Egypt
for their cattle. In addition, he asks that they be allowed freedom of
religion as well as permission to leave Egypt if they should ever wish to
do so. Pharaoh swears a solemn oath that these wishes shall be granted.
Joseph concludes the play with a prophecy concerning Egypt’s future
ties with Israel and the coming of Christ, who will join the two peoples’
religions one day.
Each of the ive acts is followed by a chorus of Ethiopian women, the
maid servants of Joseph’s wife Aseneth. he main function of this chorus is to sing Joseph’s praises and to highlight particular episodes in his
life so as to justify the special favours bestowed on him by God. In Act
One, the women begin by setting of the governor’s marital idelity
against the sexual excesses of ‘barbarian’ rulers.19 hey continue their
eulogy by contrasting Joseph’s chastity in youth to the lasciviousness of
Potiphar’s wife. he keyword here is constancy. Unlike ‘barbarian’
monarchs, Joseph has never allowed himself to be swayed by passion, a
claim that is indeed supported throughout the play by his prudent handling of the confrontation with his brothers.
On its second appearance, the chorus raises the broader theme of
man’s innate capacity for evil. his proneness to sin, in its turn, leads
the women to celebrate Joseph’s strict and just leadership, which is next
demonstrated in Act hree as the governor unfolds his strategy for
quenching the rebellion.
God works in mysterious ways which defy human understanding.
his mystery is exempliied by Joseph’s history, but also, in a more
negative sense, by the Nile’s present lack of water, a disaster which the
19
he Latin adjective used here is ‘barbaricus’ (‘barbaricae more potentiae’, l. 157),
strictly meaning ‘non-Greek’, ‘non-Roman’, or simply ‘foreign’. Signiicantly, the
Ethiopian servants in Grotius’s play identify with the ‘foreigner’ Joseph to the point of
denouncing their own origins as ‘foreign’; a phenomenon that has been discussed
within the context of postcolonial studies by Homi Bhabha (‘Of Mimicry and Man’).
Eyinger’s translation of ‘barbaricus’ as ‘Oriental’ (Sophompaneas, p. 167) misses this
point.
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chorus, on its return, explains as a punishment by God designed to
recall man to a life of virtue. he chorus rejoices at Joseph’s reconciliation with his brothers and ends the play with the wish that the
Ethiopians, too, may one day come to share the beneits of divine
providence.
Vondel’s Sofompaneas
In the introduction to his translation, Vondel hails Joseph’s appearance
on the Neo-Latin stage in the following words:
Ater the passing of so many centuries the Hebrew enters the Latin
drama, playing his character in Latin so excellently that antiquity wonders at it and he can stand his ground next to her unabashed; an honour
that is not even granted all of the ancients.20
Within a single sentence Vondel not only establishes continuity
between the biblical story and Grotius’s contemporary drama; he also
stages an encounter between the biblical protagonist and the personiied classical tradition. his last move allows him to compare Grotius’s
achievement favourably to that of the ancient masters. Indeed the igures of the playwright and his character appear to blend in the image of
the eloquent, Latinized Joseph, an impression that is conirmed a few
lines further down as Vondel relates how, in Act One, Joseph lays the
foundation for his artfully constructed argument by contrasting his past
and present states.21 Here, the character becomes indistinguishable
from the igure of the artifex himself.
hroughout the introduction the translator’s tone is one of unqualiied admiration for the author of his original. In his discussion of
Vondel’s Sofompaneas, Smit notes how, at the time of its appearance,
Vondel and Grotius had for years been engaged in friendly correspondence. In the early 1630s Vondel had conceived the idea of writing an
epic devoted to the life of Constantine the Great, the Roman emperor
who, ater his own conversion, had made Christianity a state religion in
324 CE. he project became bogged down ater the untimely deaths of
two of Vondel’s children, followed by that of his wife Maeyken in 1635,
20
‘Na verloop van zoo veele eeuwen koomt de Hebreeuw op het Roomsche toonneel, en speelt zijn personagie zoo detigh in ’t Latijn, dat d’aeloudheid zich des verwondert, en hy onbeteutert nefens haer magh stand houden; een eere, die allen ouden
zelfs niet gebeuren en magh.’ (Sofompaneas, p. 434).
21
Sofompaneas, p. 433.
translation studies – sophompaneas
261
and was never resumed. Yet in its initial stages Vondel had felt greatly
inspired by the encouragement of Grotius, with whom he shared a
deep nostalgia for those early ages when, as they both saw it, the
Christian Church still constituted a relatively harmonious unity. In his
letter of condolence to Vondel on Maeyken’s death Grotius expressly
counselled his friend to seek comfort in his work on Constantine.22
Instead, however, Vondel immediately began his translation of Grotius’s
Sophompaneas.
Why did Vondel give priority to this ‘humble’ task over his own
ambitious enterprise? Grief at his recent loss, which may have prevented him from immersing himself in more original work, presents
one possible reason. However, Smit convincingly argues that Vondel
may have drawn consolation from Joseph’s story as an example of how
man’s life is guided not by blind fate but by God, who alone is capable
of turning every evil to good. In this context Smit points to a passage in
the introduction where the translator praises ‘God’s wondrous
Providence, which may use and manipulate the evil perpetrated by
blind people irrespective of their own aims for the preservation of
entire kingdoms, lands, and peoples’ (‘ […] Gods wonderbaere voorzienigheid, die de boosheid der blinde menschen buiten hun wit weet
te bezigen en te beleiden tot behoudenisse van geheele koningkrijcken,
landen en volcken’).23 On the other hand Smit speculates that Vondel
may have thought of his translation as being fundamentally connected
with his own Constantinade project, since he regarded both the emperor
and Joseph as emblems of the just ruler.24
he question presents itself to what extent and in what ways we ind
Vondel’s admiration for Grotius relected in his translation. First of all,
I propose to look at some technical aspects. An important intervention
to which the Dutch combination of syllabic and accentual verse
compelled Vondel concerns his prosody. Where Grotius uses a highly
complex pattern of alternating metres, predominantly iambic trimeters
and anapaestic dimeters, Vondel sticks to his familiar rhyming alexandrine. Compare his opening, for instance, to that of Grotius, who
employs iambic trimeters25 here:
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 1, pp.155–56.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 1, pp. 167–68; Sofompaneas, pp. 434–35.
24
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 1, pp. 156–57.
25
Aristotle recommends the iambic trimeter as the metre that most resembles the
natural rhythm of spoken ancient Greek (Poetics 1449a 24–26; cf. Davis and Finke,
Literary Criticism and heory, p. 63).
22
23
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Iosephus:
Rursum fugata nocte formosum caput
Sol promit orbi, qualis e thalamo novus
Surgit maritus veste purpurea nitens. (Grotius, Sophompaneas,
ll. 1–3)
Joseph:
Nu alle duisternis voortvlughtigh is geweken,
Zoo komt het zonnelicht al weder uitgestreecken
Met heerelijcken glans, gelijck in ’t purpren kleed
Een prachtigh bruidegom uit zijne kamer treed.
Now that all darkness has led
the sunlight comes shining forth
with royal lustre, just as, in his crimson robe,
a splendid bridegroom steps forward from his chamber.
(Sofompaneas, ll. 1–4)
Only in his choruses and in one especially emotional passage (ll. 381–
414), where Judah laments Benjamin’s misfortune, does Vondel shit to
a shorter, four-foot iambic line:
Judah:
O teere spruit van onzen bloede,
Nu in uw bloem en eerste vreughd,
Hoe ongeluckigh is uw jeughd
En jongkheid, die niet eens bevroede
In welcke rampen datze leit
Gedompelt (Sofompaneas, ll. 381–86).
O tender ofshoot of our blood,
now in the joy of thy irst bloom,
how unfortunate is thy youth,
which not even suspects
the disasters into which it has been
plunged.
Grotius, at this point, shits from iambic trimeter to anapaestic dimeter, a marching metre that is commonly reserved for chorus entries.
he fact that this is the only occasion – apart from the choruses – where
Vondel diverges from his standard alexandrine lends Judah’s exclamation special dramatic force, suggesting an intentional efect which,
because of Grotius’s more frequent changes in metre, is less evident in
his source text.
Dramatic intensiication also occurs in some of the instances where
Vondel expands Grotius’s terse Latin expressions to make them it his
own more loosely constructed verse lines. To this end he frequently
makes use of the hendiadys, the igure which renders a single idea by
two substantives. An example is to be found in the last quote given
above, where the synonyms ‘jeughd’ and ‘jongkheid’ for ‘youth’ serve to
emphasize the idea of Benjamin’s innocence.
translation studies – sophompaneas
263
A third feature that deserves attention is Vondel’s use of generalizing
or popularized Dutch terms for Latin cultural references. One such
type of generalization occurs in his translation of the scene in Act Two
where Judah, eager to allay the suspicion of thet, sums up the gits
which the brothers have brought Joseph from Canaan. Among the
items mentioned is a kind of fruit resembling human ingers (‘mortalium imitata digitos poma’, ll. 248–49). Vondel, perhaps taking his cue
from a reference in Pliny, brings the mysterious fruit down to the proportions of the comparatively common date (‘dadels’, l. 323). Elsewhere,
Grotius has a messenger report that the starving mob has taken to eating ibises (l. 552), while Vondel renders the unlucky bird in the Dutch
by substituting the familiar ‘stork’ (‘oyevaer’, l. 681).26
Another category which may be distinguished in this context concerns the names of planets and stars. Grotius, referring to one of
Joseph’s prophetic dreams in which he sees the sun, the moon, and
eleven stars bow down to him (Gen. 37:9), splits up the number of stars
into two separate constellations: the four Hyads and the seven Pleiads
(l. 86). Vondel, on the other hand, retains the addition four plus seven
but omits the classical names: ‘vier en zevenstar’ (‘four and seven stars’,
l. 100). On two occasions Grotius mentions Sirius, a star venerated in
ancient Egypt because its appearance spelled the annual loodings of
the Nile (ll. 176; 871). he irst time Vondel translates ‘heat’ (‘hitte’,
l. 222); the second time, ‘Hondsgestarnt’ (‘Dog Star’, l. 1031).27 Similarly,
Grotius’s mythological names for the sun, such as ‘Titan’ (l. 88, here
metonymically invoked as the father of Helios) and ‘Phoebus’ (l. 730)
are rendered as ‘Zon’ (Vondel, ll. 101 and 882 respectively).
As is illustrated by this last example, Vondel tends to replace the
names of classical divinities with the natural elements and goods attributed to them. hus Grotius’s ‘Ceres’ is in numerous instances rendered
as ‘grain’ (‘graen’). When the rebels in Act hree are setting ire to the
Egyptian town of Coptos, Grotius has Eurus, god of the east wind, fan
the lames (l. 589); Vondel, for his part, contents himself with ‘wind’
(l. 727). Finally, the sea god Nereus (Grotius, l. 1208) is ousted by
Vondel’s ‘the salty lood’ (‘de zoute sprinck’, l. 1383).
26
Both the ibis and the stork belong to the order of Ciconiiformes. Another name for
the ibis is ‘Egyptian stork’.
27
he star’s Latin name, Sirius, derives from Greek ‘seirios’, meaning ‘hot’, ‘burning
through the heat of the sun’. Sirius is the brightest star in the sky and appears in the
constellation Canis Majoris; hence its popular name, Dog Star.
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Geographical references are also frequently made less speciic or
even omitted. Where Grotius has Joseph recall how, in his youthful
days when he tended his father’s herd, he had a reed-pipe which would
sing to Syrian tunes, Vondel omits the geography completely by translating ‘to the tunes of the land’.28 Similarly, Benjamin’s hair, which has
the colour of Lybian gold becomes ‘shining hair, which dulls [the
colour of] gold’.29 When Simeon names the tasks pertaining to the
oice of Egypt’s priests, Grotius has them literally ofer fragrances from
the people of Sheba on the altars,30 while Vondel simply translates
‘wieroockt’ (to ofer ‘wieroock’, or frankincense, l. 956).
To be sure, all of these transformations may be explained by the fact
that Vondel intended his translation for a Dutch theatrical audience
likely to be less versed in the classics than Grotius’s reader. Conversely,
in classical Latin texts we commonly ind the names of the gods substituted for the things associated with them. Nevertheless, Vondel’s interventions clearly relect the cultural mechanism described by Venuti:
the obscuring or ‘making invisible’ of cultural diference.
In order to expose the ideological implications of this mechanism
I will discuss one last example of what I would call ‘geographical blurring’ in Vondel’s Sofompaneas. his concerns his rendering of Grotius’s
‘Chorus Aethiopissarum’ as ‘Rey der Moorinnen’ (‘Chorus of Moorish
Women’). Latin ‘Aethiops’ has the double meaning of ‘inhabitant of
Ethiopia’ and ‘black African’ (through Greek etymology, which yields
the literal translation ‘sun-darkened face’). By opting for the translation ‘Moorinnen’, Vondel obliterates the geographical reference, foregrounding the racial connotation in its stead. Ater all, the term ‘Moor’,
in Dutch as in English, could refer to any person of a dark complexion.31
his one-sided translation may well have been prompted by the chorus’s stereotypical blackness, which it is made to advertise on its irst
appearance.32 Yet where Grotius gives the women a speciic geographic
and cultural origin when he makes them declare that they were ‘sent
Syrios modos (l. 42); ‘na ‘s lands wijzen’ (l. 52).
Lybico concolor auro coma (ll. 315–16); ‘glinstrigh hair, dat goud verdoot’ (l. 390).
30
Sabaeos […] altaribus adolere odores (ll. 808–09).
31
An interesting discussion of the Moor’s appearance in Vondel’s Palamedes and,
more generally, in medieval and early modern European culture appears in FransWillem Korsten, Vondel belicht, pp. 129–37; Sovereignty as Inviolability, pp. 119–26.
32
‘You will recognise us by our curly hair which runs riverlike, not forced by iron
needles but by sunbeams. We have lat noses and wide nostrils and our skin is marked
by the heat of the all too closely shining sun. Like thick fences our lips protect the dazzling whiteness of our ivory teeth’ (Grotius, Sophompaneas, ll. 147–52, pp. 165–67).
28
29
translation studies – sophompaneas
265
from remote Nubian nations on the banks of the River Niger by order
of our king, who is descended from the noble line of Cush’ (ll. 144–46),
Vondel, striking a more generalizing note, translates ‘Sent by the King
of the Moors, born from a noble family’ (ll. 166–67),33 although he does
mention Nubia and the Niger in the same passage.
Summing up the general characteristics of Vondel’s translation
I would say that he lives up to his aim not to follow too closely on the
heels of Grotius’s Latin, at least with regard to his prosody and the
semantic issues mentioned above. In all other respects, however,
Vondel maintains the structure of his original. In a cultural context
where the art of translation was intricately bound up with imitatio,
such loyalty was not self-evident. To give just one example: Vondel’s
much later Adam in ballingschap is an adaptation of Grotius’s Adamus
exul, a play likewise inspired by a theme taken from Genesis. While
Vondel contains many verbal echoes of Grotius’s text, he does not
shrink from changing some of the characters, adding a wedding banquet in honour of Adam and Eve and skipping Grotius’s third act
entirely.34
Smit agrees with the Dutch poet Albert Verwey in inding the diction of Vondel’s Sofompaneas unequal to that of his two translations
from Seneca, De Amsteldamsche Hecuba and Hippolytus. he verse
contains many enjambments that fail to generate any prosodic efect,
he notes, and at times it becomes downright trivial.35 Smit reads this
inequality as an indication that Vondel had no particular wish to excel
with his Sofompaneas. When working on the Seneca plays he had irst
made prose translations, allowing himself time to devise elegant solutions for the diicult poetical problems he encountered. Smit concludes
that these latter translations had been intended as exercises in versemaking, whereas Vondel’s chief purpose with his Sofompaneas was to
make Grotius’s work accessible to a non-Latinate Dutch audience as
quickly as possible. In this context he draws attention to Vondel’s full
title, which reads: Hvigh de Groots Iosef of Sofompaneas. Treurspel.
Vertaelt door I. v. Vondel (Hugo Grotius’s Joseph or Sophompaneas.
Tragedy. Translated by J. v. Vondel). In most of his other translations
Vondel includes his own name in the main title, as with Vondelens
33
‘Gezonden van den vorst der Mooren / Uit een doorluchtigh bloed geboren’
(ll. 166–67).
34
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 3, chapter seven.
35
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 1, pp. 169–70.
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Hippolytus. Only in the case of Sofompaneas and two Greek tragedies
which he put to verse in his old age, working from his own previous
prose translations, does he mention the author of the original in the
main title, taking credit ‘merely’ for the translation.
As far as I am concerned, however, there is more to be said about
Vondel’s absence from the title of his Sofompaneas. Invoking Venuti’s
argument concerning the invisibility of the translator I would venture
that Vondel takes responsibility for his acts of cultural appropriation as
a translator precisely in those instances where he does advertise his
own name in the titles of his translated work. hat he refrains from
doing so in the case of Sofompaneas may be explained by the fact that
this time he was dealing with the work of an author who was not only
his contemporary but a venerated fellow countryman and a Christian,
whose religious views were moreover intimately related to his own. he
cultural distance that separated Vondel from Seneca’s antique world
must have seemed much greater to him than that which separated him
from Grotius’s biblical setting.
I have noted how Vondel repeatedly alludes to the parallel between
Grotius and his protagonist Joseph in his introduction. However,
his most remarkable gesture in this direction occurs in the play itself.
At the end of Grotius’s third act, Simeon concludes his tour of the governor’s picture gallery with the observation that Joseph, in his prescience, has reserved the fourth wall of the courtyard for the depiction of
his prophecies concerning the Egyptians:
[… for there,] in his prescience, he [i.e. Joseph] has depicted
what destiny holds in store for the people of Egypt in centuries to come.36
Vondel translates:
Simeon:
[…] een profecye
Van al wat Faroos volck bejeegnen zal, gestelt
Door last van ’t Groot Vernut, dat veele dingen spelt […].
([…] a prophecy
of all that will befall Pharaoh’s people, decreed
by the Great Intelligence which predicts many things […]).
(Vondel, Sofompaneas, ll. 1000–02)
In substituting his own fond epithet for Grotius – ‘’t Groot Vernut’ –
for ‘Joseph’ in this passage, Vondel pays his crowning tribute to his
36
Simeon: Saeclis cuncta quae populo Phari / venient, futuris fata mens ibi praescia /
disposuit. (Grotius, Sophompaneas, vss 848–50).
translation studies – sophompaneas
267
friend. At the same time this act of identiication marks his blind spot
for the cultural diference dividing him and Grotius from the ancient
Hebrew setting of the play. For Grotius had taken his theme from the
Hebrew Bible, a religious pretext that had itself been appropriated by
Christianity long ago. By way of an epilogue to my analysis I will devote
a few words to the problem of ‘translation proper’ as exempliied by a
revealing passage in the play’s closing act.
Aterword: How Zaphnath-paaneah Came to Save the World
In Genesis 45:17–20 Pharaoh, having heard of Joseph’s reunion with
his brothers, sends the latter back to Canaan to fetch their father. hey
are not to worry about their possessions, he reassures them, for ‘the
good of all of the land of Egypt is yours’ (Gen. 45:20, KJV). When the
brothers have returned, Joseph appears before Pharaoh with a delegation to request a place to live and pasture grounds for their locks: ‘And
Pharaoh spake unto Joseph, saying, hy father and thy brethren are
come unto thee: he land of Egypt is before thee; in the best of the land
make thy father and brethren to dwell; in the land of Goshen make
them dwell […]’ (Gen. 47:5–6). Somewhat further on we read that
‘Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt, in the country of Goshen; and they
had possessions therein, and grew, and multiplied exceedingly’
(Gen. 47:27).
Grotius, abiding by the Aristotelian unities, condenses this episode
by making Pharaoh pay a visit to Joseph in Act Five. he ruler of Egypt
shows himself eager to honour his governor, and when Joseph asks him
for the land of Goshen he generously consents. However, Joseph has
two more stipulations to make: irst, that his kinsmen may retain their
religion, and second, that they will never be prevented from leaving
Egypt should they wish to do so. Pharaoh, who in this play appears as
willing to pay homage to the Jewish God as the rest of his household,37
immediately proceeds to swear an oath. Should any future king of the
Egyptians fail to honour this oath, he vows, then may Egypt be visited
by ten horrible disasters varying from insect plagues to pestilence and
the death of its children, and may the sea engulf all of its people.38
In other words, Pharaoh unwittingly calls down upon his people the
37
Compare, for instance, Ramses’s pious exhortations in Act Two (Grotius,
Sophompaneas ll. 264–65 and 268–85).
38
Grotius, Sophompaneas, ll. 1192–1209.
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Ten Plagues as well as the drowning of Egypt’s army in the Red Sea –
events related in the subsequent book of the Hebrew Bible, Exodus
7–14.
his instance of tragic irony is immediately followed by a speech in
which Joseph predicts a number of events recorded in the Hebrew
Bible that will likewise afect the Egyptians. As a true diplomat, however, he omits the disasters related in Exodus, although he does add
that Egypt’s future prosperity will last only as long as it continues to
cherish God’s chosen people (ll. 1212–13). Grotius has Joseph conclude
his prophecy by predicting the advent of Christ and the New Covenant,
which will one day unite the Hebrews and Egyptians as well as their
respective religions. he three closing verses are given to the chorus of
Ethiopians, who concur in expressing their wish that they, too, may be
included in this future blessing:
Let us hope that these good things will come to us and may this celestial
ardour, which is warmer than he sun’s rays, also kindle the hearts of the
Ethiopians.39
he rhetorical device employed in Pharaoh’s oath and Joseph’s subsequent prophecy is the so-called vaticinatio post eventum, the prophecy
ater the fact. his igure enhances the play’s denouement in that it
completes the tour of the gallery which had been let uninished in Act
hree, linking past, present, and future in a continuum that is indeed
from beginning to end orchestrated by ‘God’s wondrous Providence’, as
Vondel had observed in his introduction.40 By the same stroke, however, the Genesis account is emptied of its historical content and made
to serve Grotius’s and Vondel’s own Christological perspective as well
as their shared vision of a uniied Christian world. For this appropriating move Grotius could draw on a long tradition of Judaeo-Christian
exegesis which, as early as late antiquity, had come to interpret the
Hebrew Bible in its entirety as foreshadowing the coming of Christ and
the New Covenant.41 Signiicantly, this tradition looked upon Joseph
the Patriarch as one of the chief types of Christ; a circumstance which
explains why Jerome, in his Vulgate, ‘translates’ Joseph’s Egyptian name
as Salvator mundi.
39
Chorus: Ventet et ad nos tam grande bonum / Et coelestis melior Phoebo / Calor
Aethiopum corda perurat. (Grotius, Sophompaneas, ll. 1228–30).
40
See my note 18#.
41
See Auerbach, ‘Figura’.
translation studies – sophompaneas
269
One fundamental reason why Vondel contented himself with the
secondary role of translator in his Sofompaneas must have been that he
felt himself to belong to the same continuum of Christian salvation history as Grotius. Despite the diferences that I have pointed out above it
is this attitude which, above all, is relected in his translation. If this
seems a rather predictable conclusion it is perhaps time to call in one
last exegete. he philosopher Jacques Derrida, in his essay ‘Des Tours
de Babel’ (‘Towers of Babel’), dismisses ‘translation proper’ as an unattainable ideal from the start. To this end, he too invokes the Book of
Genesis. God’s deliberate confusion of speeches at Babel, he argues,
triggers an uncontrollable proliferation of meaning which forever
closes the door on a return to the divine Logos. Henceforth, any original will require translations to make itself understood. On the other
hand, no translation depends on its original for its survival.42
With regard to Vondel’s Sofompaneas we may note that this last
insight, too, is borne out by the play. For whereas Grotius’s Latin version enjoyed only one recorded performance during the humanist
period, Vondel’s translation became one of his greatest successes on
stage. Five years ater its appearance he composed two more dramas
centring on the life of Joseph, Joseph in Dothan and Josef in Egypten. To
make his Sofompaneas it in with these other two he changed its title to
‘Jozef in ’t Hof’ (Joseph at Court).43 ‘Per lexuosas ambages’,44 then, he
ended up by claiming the play for his own.
42
Derrida, ‘Des Tours’, p. 184.
‘Joseph at Court’ (Eyinger, Sophompaneas, p. 118).
44
Grotius, Sophompaneas, l. 976, ‘in a roundabout way’; compare Vondel, ‘door zoo
veel ommewegen’, l. 1145. he phrase occurs in Act Four, as Joseph explains the reasons
for his devious course to his brothers.
43
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
INTERTEXTUALITY – GYSBREGHT VAN AEMSTEL (1637)
Marco Prandoni
Intertextuality
he term ‘intertextuality’ (intertextualité) emerged halfway through
the 1960s, as a product of the so-called antihumanistic project of
French-speaking (post)structuralism.1 he scholar who coined it, Julia
Kristeva, integrated the theories of the Russian formalist Mikhail
Bakhtin regarding the intrinsic ‘dialogism’ of every linguistic utterance
and the ‘polyphony’ of every text – among literary texts, most particularly the novel – with Saussure’s structural semiotics. Every individual
text is generated at the intersection of a potentially ininite number of
previous texts and bears in it the echoes of a plurality of codes, systems,
conventions – and not just linguistic ones. Every text, every act of writing or reading thus depends on prior codes. he shiting of the critical
concern from an author-centred attitude was evident. With Roland
Barthes, who together with Michel Foucault heralded in the same years
the ‘death of the author’, this view was further developed: he stated that
the meanings of a work do not reside in any uniied authorial power,
but in the mind of its readers. he readers connect every utterance in a
work with what they have already read and in doing so they orchestrate
their interpretations of it.2
Poststructural theories of intertextuality were mainly grounded on
linguistic-semiotic notions which postulated an uncontrollable dissemination of the meaning of a work. Kristeva called each text a ‘mosaic
of quotations’ and Barthes labelled it as a ‘tissue of quotations’.3
However, this made it diicult to use intertextuality as a practical tool
1
For a irst introduction to intertextuality, see Allen, Intertextuality, and Orr,
Intertextuality: Debates and Contexts.
2
Barthes, he Death of the Author; Kristeva, ‘Word, Dialogue and Novel’.
3
Kristeva, ‘Word, Dialogue and Novel’, p. 37; Barthes, he Death of the Author,
p. 146.
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for literary studies. his was why, somewhat later, two alternative routes
were developed. As a cultural theorist, Maaike Meijer wanted to
develop a reading theory instead of a theory of texts. In that context she
had to specify the ideological uses made of intertextuality. What she
called ‘cultuurtekst’ (‘culture text’) concerned those forms of intertexts
that by means of repetitions, or dominant usage, embodied the basic
tenets of a culture. Others, such as the literary theorist Gérard Genette,
wanted to limit intertextuality to the (semi-)autonomous and closed
ield of literature.4 He described a taxonomy of possible intertextual
relations, mapping virtually ‘all’ possible forms of presence of a preexistent text in another text in the Western literature – ‘literature on the
second degree’ – from Homer to Joyce: citations, serious imitations,
transpositions, parodies, pastiches, plagiarism, etc.
Although Genette’s perspective was all but author-centered in its
consideration of literature as a synchronic ield, this approach made
intertextuality come closer to the old notion of the ‘inluence’ of one
author on another – or the ‘reception’ of an author by another one – key
notions in literary studies, at least since Romanticism. With respect to
this, intertextuality has oten been used in an impoverished way, as a
voguish substitute for the traditional source-hunting, conceived to
trace in a literary work the intentional authorial activation of preexistent models. Even more author-centred, but not at all interested in
detecting such details as the exact sources of a work, was the theory put
forward by the American Harold Bloom, who warned of the humanistic loss caused by (post)structuralism and conceived the history of literature as an oedipal struggle of sons, led by an ‘anxiety of inluence’
toward their fathers.5 And despite all the criticism Bloom’s proposal has
encountered,6 it might still prove of some interest for the study of
Vondel’s attitude towards his adored model Virgil, especially in
Gysbreght van Amstel. However, a more fruitful application of intertextuality seems to lie in a combination with hermeneutics and readerresponse theories, keeping in mind that speciic intertexts can also
be specimens of recurring patterns. he focus remains, then, on the
Meijer, In tekst gevat; pp. 33–34; Genette, Palimpsestes.
Bloom, he Anxiety of Inluence.
6
Poststructuralist critics have judged this book conservative, imbued with patriarchal ideology, with a neo-romantic claim of the genius of the poet and with a universalistic theory of poetry.
4
5
intertextuality – gysbreght van aemstel
273
readers/spectators as centres of production of meaning and on their
reconstructed horizons of expectation.
In this respect, Bourdieu’s critique to intertextual and readerresponse approaches remains valid. In Bourdieu’s eyes, this sort of
analysis tends to construct a reader-spectator (like Iser’s implied reader,
Eco’s model lector/spectator, Fish’s informed reader, or Rifaterre’s archilecteur) whose competence coincides with that of the interpreter himself.7 Keeping this in mind, one can nevertheless try to reconstruct
‘intertextual’ horizons of expectations that consist of implicit or explicit
links to speciic, clearly deinable literary antecedents, which are
framed by generic conventions and, more generally, by difused sets of
literary, social or, broadly speaking, ‘cultural’ codes (e.g. concerning
gender representation). hese codes shape the way in which readers/
spectators act in a given historical time and particular sociocultural
context.
In the case of Gysbreght, these readers/spectators make up the public
of the Amsterdam heatre or the readers of dramatic texts that were
published halfway through the seventeenth century. In one sense they
formed a rather homogeneous interpretive community since they were
mainly middle-class bourgeois citizens (men and women) with good
reading and writing skills. In general, the audience was well-accustomed
to theatrical practice. It was an audience trained also to understand,
judge and interpret a literary work. When I focus, now, on this community in terms of its reading strategies, I will bear in mind that any
reconstructed horizon of expectation remains an abstraction. Such a
horizon cannot fully take into account the situatedness of every peculiar reader/spectator, as poststructural studies have contended. Any
member of an audience is determined by all sorts of difering factors
concerning gender, provenance, social class, confession, political views,
etc., which besides literacy and theatrical competence determine
modes of reading and experience. If one sticks to individual members
and to these alone, however, it becomes hard to deine a text’s broader
cultural implications. To be sure, a culture consists of many strings and
domains, but it can be deined as one culture nevertheless, even when
that deinition has to remain, in a sense, abstract.
7
Bourdieu, Les règles de l’art, p. 415.
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Gysbreght van Aemstel and History
With his Gysbreght van Aemstel, the ity-year-old Joost van Vondel
made his comeback to theatre ater a long absence.8 With this play he
rediscovered his theatralische Sendung (theatrical mission). In fact, the
tragedy would consecrate him as an outstanding playwright in
Amsterdam and therefore in the whole Republic, of which Amsterdam
was the undisputed capital of theatre ater 1637. he occasion for his
grand return was the opening of the irst stone theatre in the Republic.
he playwright sought inspiration in the mediaeval history of
Amsterdam and of the County of Holland, speciically in the events
following the death of Count Floris around 1300. Vondel’s inaugural
play met with the resistance of the Calvinist Church, but found the support of the liberal city council. It eventually debuted on 3 January 1638
and established a performance tradition that from 1641 would continue uninterruptedly for centuries. It thus became a milestone in
Dutch cultural history.
he play can be summarized as follows. In the prologue Gijsbreght
van Aemstel, Lord of Amsterdam, explains the play’s preliminary history: for one year, Amsterdam has had to withstand the besieging
eforts of troops who want to avenge the capture and death of Count
Floris V. Gijsbreght’s relatives were responsible for this, since they
wished to punish the misdeeds of the Counts who had repressed the
nobility and raped a noble dame, Machtelt van Velsen. Gijsbreght was
tricked into involvement in these plans and had to sufer the consequences: irst exile, later the siege. But now the siege has suddenly
ceased. During the celebrations stemming from this unexpected event
(on Christmas night, in fact), Gijsbreght pardons a young boy, Vosmeer,
an outcast belonging to the enemy. He allows him to help the population by bringing into the city a ship, the Sea Horse, which the leeing
enemy has let behind. But Vosmeer – a revealing name meaning the
Fox, as with Jonson’s Volpone – is a wily spy: hidden inside the horse
are enemy soldiers, ready to iniltrate the city by surprise. Gijsbreght’s
wife, Badeloch, has a terrible dream vision which turns out to be true:
while everybody was at Christmas Mass, the concealed soldiers came
out of the ship and started burning the city. Despite heroic resistance
8
Joost van den Vondel, Gysbreght van Aemstel, ed. Smits-Veldt. he English translations are drawn from Joost van den Vondel, Gijsbreght van Aemstel, transl. Kristiaan
P. Aercke.
intertextuality – gysbreght van aemstel
275
on the part of Gijsbreght, his brother Arend and their valiant kinsfolk,
Amsterdam gradually falls into the enemy’s hands and collapses.
Gijsbreght’s defence of the New Church and of the City Hall fails. He
must also face the decision of his uncle, former Bishop of Utrecht,
Gozewijn van Aemstel, and his niece, Abbess Klaeris van Velsen, not to
lee and to await martyrdom in their convent. Gijsbreght is thus confronted with the impossibility of fulilling his role as protector of his
citizens and of all the people for whom he is responsible. He eventually
retreats to his castle. Arend dies in a sortie and Gijsbreght refuses a
capitulatory deal. He still intends to defend his castle to the last, preserving his military honour through a glorious death, but irst he
wishes to organize the embarcation of the refugees, including his wife
and children. Although Badeloch passionately objects to leaving without him, eventually she is obliged to obey. At this point angel Raphael
appears as a deus ex machina and orders Gijsbreght to listen to his wife
and to abandon Amsterdam. Raphael’s prophecies of Amsterdam’s
future splendour in the Golden Age – a connection to the present of the
audience – and the happiness of his descendants console the pious
hero. And thus the refugees lee to distant Prussian shores, where they
will found the small city of New Holland.
his play is not just the dramatization of mediaeval events. It also
ofers a Christianized analogue of Virgil’s widely known second book
of the Aeneid, the burning Amsterdam and the exiled Gijsbreght being
easily recognizable igurae of ancient Troy and of the leeing Aeneas,
albeit with signiicant new emphasis: Gijsbreght is the Lord of the city,
unlike Aeneas, and is thus in charge of its defence. It is even more
important that in the end he has no great mission to accomplish – the
obscure New Holland in Prussia can hardly be compared with the destined city of Rome – and exits the Great History, towards a prospect of
future personal happiness, unknown to the fatal hero Aeneas. By
watching the staging of the destruction of the city and the banishment
of its eponymous protagonist, the audience of fellow citizens is confronted with an anything but simplistic ‘reading’ of its history. his was
not just mediaeval history, but it also mirrored the turmoil of the recent
Dutch Revolt – when the Catholic and loyalist Amsterdam was besieged
by the rebels, for instance. In other words, the play was far from a shallow, panegyrical, patriotic work. It was full of problematic hints to open
wounds in the recent past of the city and of the whole land.9
9
Cf. Parente, ‘he heatricality of History’, and, with new emphasis, Prandoni, ‘he
Staging of History’. In this article I distance myself from those critics who contend that
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he seventeenth-century spectator/reader sees the new drama take
shape in the light of Virgil’s Aeneid – very prominently, sometimes
almost inescapably – and innumerable epic and tragic antecedents.
Gysbreght uses a texture of interwoven references to other texts from
classic contemporary works since, beside the Aeneid, many theatrical
intertexts can be mobilized. In particular, the Senecan subgenre of history plays comes to mind, which was given a new impulse in the
Republic ater Heinsius’s dramatization in Latin of William the Silent’s
death. Heinsius was quickly followed by many tragedies dealing with
this and other national topics, such as Willem van Hogendorp’s tragedy
on Orange’s murder, staged in Amsterdam in 1617.10 In this context,
Hoot’s Geeraerdt van Velsen (1613) also needs mentioning, a play that
dealt with the mediaeval municipal history of the Republic’s informal
capital and by now growing international metropolis.11
he audience in Amsterdam must have been familiar with the
Senecan tradition and its recent revitalization. But even non-theatrical
intertexts could be activated in the interpretation of Gysbreght van
Amstel, this work serving as a good example of osmosis between the
ields of theatre and literature in the Renaissance culture. As a result,
the spectator/reader could recognize a rich interplay of multiple genres, one that need not lead to a coherent and consistent end result,
however. he diferent textual traces and fragments continued to interact and oten continued to clash with one another. he ‘generic path’
that the audience was induced to take (e.g. by blunt references to wellknown models such as the Aeneid) could at times be rewarding, but
more oten it could be treacherous too. Dealing with Gysbreght implied
a continuous activation and frustration of interpretive expectations,
based on cultural conventions that were shaped by seemingly stable
generic codes. Nevertheless, in some cases pretexts were so completely
altered, reshaped or contaminated with other intertexts, that the interpretation of the new text could only rely on them with reservation, or
could only take them as a irst step toward a totally new and daring
production of meaning.
the Gysbreght van Aemstel is an overtly pro or anti-Catholic work (Maljaars and De
Waard: ‘O christelijcken knoop!’; and Koppenol: ‘Nodeloze onrust’).
10
Daniel Heinsius, Auriacus, sive Libertas Saucia; Gijsbrecht van Hogendorp, Truerspel van de moordt, begaen aen Wilhelm by der gratie Gods, prince van Oraengien.
11
Importants contributions to the study of intertextuality in Gysbreght are Hermann,
Joost van den Vondels ‘Gysbreght van Aemstel’; Van der Paardt, ‘Vondels Gijsbreght en
de Aeneis’; Smits-Veldt, ‘Vondels Gysbreght van Aemstel onder de loep’; and, recently,
Prandoni, Een mozaïek van stemmen.
intertextuality – gysbreght van aemstel
277
‘A Hopeless Hope’? An Intertextual Analysis of the Female Protagonist
Modern critics have expressed totally diferent views on the character
of Badeloch. She has been considered as an exemplary wife,12 a hysterical woman and unnatural mother,13 to name only a few characterizations of her. Critics were mainly interested in the interpretation of the
male protagonist and tended therefore to marginalize her role or to
interpret her as a function of her husband’s characterization.14 An
intertextual analysis that focuses on her appears to be fruitful. It may
help us to consider up to which point the audience’s expectations were
determined by ‘generic paths’ and prior conventions and how these
determined what role the female protagonist could have in the play and
what her ultimate fate would be. It may also help us to see with what
subtly and how surprisingly these expectations were ultimately
thwarted, with the staging of an almost unprecedented model of feminine subjectivity.15
Badeloch’s irst appearance on stage is in the third act. She is panicking ater an ominous dream. Her dead niece Machtelt van Velsen has
warned her that the enemy has penetrated the city and that Amsterdam
is collapsing. Gijsbreght has apparently little diiculty in dismissing the
prophetic power of dreams and reassuring her (ll. 745–826). In
Badeloch’s dream narrative to Gijsbreght there resonates a web of
famous literary dream narratives, like the passage from the Aeneid –
the poem that is constantly evoked in Gysbreght van Aemstel – in which
Aeneas describes a terrible dream vision (Aeneid 2, 270–97). But in the
Renaissance the episode of the dialogue between a woman who reacts
in panic to an ominous apparition and another character who tries to
calm her by assuring her that dreams are delusions, constitutes a set
ingredient of Senecan theatre, well-known to everyone with any
acquaintance with classicist theatre. A good example is provided by the
Dutch ‘Orange plays’ about William the Silent’s murder, such as that of
12
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 1, pp. 215–16.
Recently Maljaars, ‘Niet min godvruchtelijck als dapper’.
14
Van Stipriaan, ‘Gysbreght van Aemstel als tragische held’ and Konst, Fortuna,
Fatum en Providentia Dei, pp. 136–52, base their interpretation of the play mainly on
the analysis of Gijsbreght’s character.
15
he irst modern critic to draw attention to Badeloch was Szarota, Stärke, deine
Name sei Weib! Korsten, Vondel belicht, p. 184; Sovereignty as Inviolability, p. 165,
underlines the subversive elements of this character who dares question God’s plans, or
rather the way her opponents onstage, Gijsbreght and Peter, use them rhetorically to
persuade her.
13
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Van Hogendorp. In the latter’s play the ghost of Louise’s father –
Gaspard de Coligny, murdered on Bartholomew Night in 1576,
together with Louise’s irst husband – appears to his daughter.16 his
intertext is certainly not gender-neutral. It may almost be termed ‘gendered genre’ par excellence, with a set gender pattern. Women act
highly emotionally, whilst it is the role of men to reassure. he spectator/reader who interprets this scene in the light of the intertext can be
expected to have precise expectations about the development of the
plot. Although the female character is the only one who perceives the
seriousness of the situation, due to a ‘tragic irony’ she will not be
believed by her male partner.17 he panic she now experiences is a precursor of the sufering that will probably befall her later, and which she
will not be able to avert in any way whatsoever. With this scene the
spectator/reader may therefore begin to align Badeloch with a particular tragic female character type. he type frames a woman impotently
full of ominous premonitions, afraid of the future, powerless, not capable of inluencing her own fate.
In terms of premonitions, it is remarkable that Badeloch’s dream
spoke the truth. he priest Peter runs into the castle to announce that
Amsterdam is collapsing. Gijsbreght immediately climbs a tower to get
an impression of the situation. In the meantime, Badeloch abandons
herself to a lament. A frequent gender-related distinction occurs here
between exterior-deed-activity (male) and interior-relection-passivity
(female). In these dialectics of inside and outside the woman is usually
assigned an inward-looking place, that of someone ofering a commentary on what takes place outside, over which she has no control whatsoever.18 We need only think of the ‘matière de Troie’ – the wide-ranging
cycle on the fall of Troy which lourished again in Renaissance culture,
and most particularly in epic poems and on the tragic stage – to realize
to what extent the female character is stereotypically associated with
plaintive outbursts.19 Victims of history, marginalized and excluded
from the male realm where decisions are taken and actions performed,
16
Cf. Van Gemert, ‘Hoe dreef ick in myn sweet’, p. 173.
Strengholt, ‘Dromen in Vondels drama’s’, p. 31.
18
In Hoot’s Geeraert van Velsen, Machtelt is at a certain point victim of a pathological ‘inwardness’, as a consequence of sexual violence: when she knows that her rapist
Count Floris has benn captured, she refuses to look out of the window to see him
(ll. 382–85).
19
Cf. Smits-Veldt, Samuel Coster, pp. 278–94.
17
intertextuality – gysbreght van aemstel
279
there is oten little else for female characters to do than to lament the
fall of their city or the death of their loved ones. Homer’s Iliad and
Euripides’ Hecabe and Troades (he Trojan Women), known in the seventeenth century especially through the theatrical adaptation of
Seneca’s Troades (which Vondel had translated for the public of
Amsterdam in 1626), ofer exemplary illustrations of women who
abandon themselves to endless lamenting in a variety of ways and in
difering degrees of intensity. Likewise, in the Dutch stage of the
‘Orange dramas’, Louise de Coligny amply fulils the role expected of
her, that of mourner. Ater William’s death she can abandon herself
openly to her grief. Her passionate mourning is no longer even viewed
negatively: she just does ‘what a woman should do’.20
his type of female character oten has to resign herself in advance to
her role as mourner, even before the death of her loved ones, about
which she has ominous premonitions.21 his may be a case of ‘proleptic
lament’ (as Elaine Fantham calls it, on Andromache’s premature
mourning of her son Astyanax, who is still alive, in Seneca’s Trojan
Women).22 he epic archetype of this is Homer’s Andromache, in her
last conversation with Hector in Iliad, Book 6. In her opinion, he will
almost certainly fall in battle and that she will become a widow. Ater
he eventually leaves, Andromache returns weeping to the royal palace,
surrounded by the laments of her female servants, who already regard
him as dead. he audience of Gysbreght van Amstel may regard
Badeloch’s complaint as a proleptic lament for Gijsbreght too.
Badeloch draws such conviction from her pragmatic assessment of
the situation, but perhaps even more from her own life experience.
Since her wedding day, life has brought her nothing but misery:
When I relect on my entire life so far,
Beginning with my wedding, no, my betrothal,
For how many tempests have I not bowed my head?
Which tower is so high, from which I could see across
he endless stormy ocean of my crowded life?23
20
Daniel Heinsius, Auriacus, ed. Bloemendal, p. 110.
In the prologue of Hoot’s Geeraerdt van Velsen, Machtelt says that her husband
has prohibited her from wearing the dress of a widow while he is still alive (ll. 95–98).
22
Fantham, Seneca’s Troades, p. 315.
23
‘Als ick den ganschen tijd mijns levens overreken, / Van mijne bruilot af, van dat
ick zat verloot: / Wat stormen zijn my niet gewaeit al over ’t hoofd? / Wat toren is zoo
hoogh, van waer ick deze baeren / En zee kan over zien van al mijn wedervaeren?’
(ll. 866–70).
21
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Badeloch looks back on her own life, which is a never-ending series of
disasters as a result of which she now has every reason to fear that her
husband will die. his painful act of remembrance emphatically helps
the audience to place her within a speciic female typology: that of
women with broad experience of sufering, who are ‘survivors’ of sorts,
and who are continually sounding the depths of their past losses and
miseries, as a result of which they constantly have to fear the worst for
the future. hese are women like Hecuba and Andromache in the ‘matière de Troie’, as well as Louise in the ‘Orange plays’.24 he spectator/
reader can therefore see the igures of Andromache and Louise de
Coligny, and of so many other – classic and modern, epic and tragic –
heroines, clearly proiled behind the igure of Badeloch. Updating these
antecedents gives rise to ominous portents with respect to Gijsbreght’s
fate and that of Badeloch.
In this intertext the female protagonist, as the victim who is let
behind, is assigned only the function of mourner honouring her
deceased husband. And it is precisely the role Badeloch adopts, even
before Gijsbreght’s death. When Arend comes back to the castle, she
assaults him, asking twice if Gijsbreght is dead (ll. 1074–75), as if she
knew it already. Ater hearing Arend’s tale of how the New Church was
plundered, she gives up hope of seeing him again:
A hopeless hope! Oh Gijsbrecht, dearest lord!
I’m sure he’s dead, and never will we meet again.25
hen the fourth chorus compares her to a turtledove on a withered
branch, a common emblematic representation of widowhood.26 At this
moment, Badeloch hears the voice of her beloved in the distance. Her
joy can hardly be expressed in words but very soon turns to sorrow
once more, since Gijsbreght wishes to stay in Amsterdam with his men
to ight the enemy until the bitter end, whilst dispatching her, the children and the refugees. A conlict erupts within Badeloch because she
absolutely refuses to board a ship without Gijsbreght. In this confrontation between husband and wife the spectator/reader can realize a
broad and prismatic intertextual ield or, rather, a combination of multiple and subtly interconnected intertexts.
24
Louise recalls the ‘tempests’ that have raged in her life (l. 1276) – the same allegorical image as in Badeloch’s lament.
25
‘Een hoopelooze hoop. och Gijsbreght, lieve heer, / Ick recken hem als dood, en
zie hem nimmer weer’ (ll. 866–68).
26
Scholz-Heerspink, ‘Vondel’s Gysbreght van Aemstel’, p. 572.
intertextuality – gysbreght van aemstel
281
he irst that one would think of is probably the Aeneid, with Creusa
asking her husband Aeneas to let her and their child share in his fate, if
he wishes to remain in burning Troy, then falling to her knees to
implore him (Aeneid 2, 675). But this intertextual activation appears to
be quite deceptive as Creusa plays a very marginal and passive role in
the second book of the Aeneid. In Gysbreght van Aemstel, on the other
hand, two highly distinct personalities clash, placed in direct opposition to one another, like in the farewell scene of Iliad, Book 6 between
Hector and Andromache. here too the focus is on the future fate of
the family – of the child and the future widow, if the husband dies in
battle. As we have seen, this ‘marital intertext’ oten echoes in Gysbreght
van Aemstel, in part with the mediation of the Renaissance history
plays. One could think of the long dialogues between Louise and
William, as well as the conversations, lasting no less than three scenes,
between Machtelt and Geeraerdt in Hoot’s well-known and frequently
staged Geeraerdt van Velsen (ll. 349–87; 805–32; 1214–39).
But besides these ‘marital’ intertexts – all governed by the subordination of the female character to her husband – there is yet another
intertextual ield that may be opened in this respect. he point is that
Gijsbreght and his wife do not agree, but are quarrelling. In this context
the ierce, hostile dispute in Seneca’s Trojan Women comes to mind
between Andromache and Ulysses, demanding that the young Astyanax
be handed over for sacriice. he importance of this intertext lies in the
fact that it places the woman in a spirited confrontation, but not with
her husband and therefore outside the dimension of the family. he
diference with Gysbreght is that, in classical drama, the conlict does
not take place in the intimate sphere, and that it develops counter to the
hierarchical relationship between husband and wife: Andromache is
confronted with a deceitful and hated enemy. his makes it the more
provocative that, again and again and sometimes literally, we hear echoes from Andromache’s resistance to Ulysses in Badeloch’s responses to
Gijsbreght. he intertextual allusion contributes to the disruption in
part of the idyllic framework of the marital relationship. Husband and
wife become slowly but clearly estranged from one another. Badeloch’s
militancy is embedded in an intertext that calls to mind the gentle
Andromache who, despite her gentleness, is prepared to ight for what
she loves: a loving mother who would nevertheless not linch at sacriicing her only child, for the sake of her husband or even only his ashes,
out of marital idelity. Badeloch is in fact determined to risk everything
to reach her goal, which is to save her husband and retain the unity of
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her family. To achieve this she does not hesitate to defy the gender conventions. She refutes Gijsbreght’s accusation that she is not a good
mother since she had considered the extreme possibility of sacriicing
her children for the sake of her husband, under the pressure of her
interlocutors (ll. 1701–02). She responds by combining the physical
implications of motherhood and of being married:
I bore this child under my heart, gave birth in pain.
My husband is my heart. Without him, there’s no life.27
he response testiies to the forces that have produced a radical change
in Badeloch’s attitude ater Gijsbreght’s unexpected return from battle.
he desperate woman who had resigned herself to her tragic fate, who
had even taken on mourning for Gijsbreght and was slowly sinking
into widowhood, has now changed into a warrior who is prepared to
do anything to keep her head, and the head of those she loves, above
water. his constitutes a break with the generic gender-intertext.
With the exception of Andromache, the culture text here ofers only
female characters with no control whatsoever over the course of the
events that afect them directly. In Dutch history the plaintive, anxious
Louise and the traumatized Machtelt – the former on the verge of illness, the latter without doubt ill – are given large amounts of text, but
without creating even the slightest impression that they are driving
forces for the action. hey act only as victims and must resign themselves to this role from the outset. In the case of Badeloch, the spectator/reader sees her slowly rise above the intertext to become a new
character who interprets her role in her own way, with a striking selfpossession and assertiveness.
Still, as it becomes clear to her that her arguments will not be heeded,
Badeloch begins to lose control over her emotions. She even asks
Gijsbreght whether he will kill her and the children. Gijsbreght assumes
he has brought the discussion to a inal close by calling on his conidants (l. 1769). He thus turns away from Badeloch and directs his
words to his men. Badeloch has been sidelined and is panic-stricken by
what she hears and sees. Terror and powerlessness force Badeloch into
an extremely emotional state, which, as we have seen, was presented in
seventeenth-century theatre as something typically feminine. In the
end, therefore, Badeloch is not only forced into obedience, but also into
27
‘Met smarte baerde ick ’t kind, en droegh ’t onder ’thart. / Mijn man is ’t harte zelf.
’k Heb sonder hem geen leven’ (ll. 1708–09).
intertextuality – gysbreght van aemstel
283
a state of mind that belongs much more to a generally accepted feminine pattern of behavior than the militancy she exhibited previously.
No wonder, then, that Gijsbreght deals with this emotional reaction
with relative ease. He appears to have regained his male authority and
authoritarian voice in the face of a weakened opponent. For her part,
Badeloch is no longer capable of a real response. At the end of the confrontation, her surrender seems to be complete. She says she will obey
her husband, ‘as is itting for a Christian wife’ (‘gelijck een Christe
vrouwe past’, l. 1781) and even calls Gijsbreght in her despair ‘father’
(‘vader’), adding ‘it’s all my fault – don’t be so irate’ (‘’t is mijn schuld,
en weest zoo niet verbolgen’). She sees in him now the gendered roles
of father and husband, controlling a woman’s destiny respectively
before and ater marriage and punishing abuses and transgressions, all
rolled into one.
here is then another twist. Before the inal catastrophe takes place,
a celestial wonder changes everything completely: the appearance of
angel Raphael as deus ex machina. Not only does he order Gijsbreght to
leave the city, he states also clearly that Gijsbreght must listen to his
wife: “So resist your faithful wife no longer […]” (l. 1827).28 In the end
Badeloch’s resistance to her husband is thus placed in a new light. Her
actions towards her husband were not the improper response of an
irresponsible woman, but a justiied plea for the best way to tackle an
emergency situation. he involvement of the supernatural, which
bypasses the realm of human discourse, restores dignity to the woman’s
voice, and grants her a divine seal of approval. he voice that had been
marginalized is restored to its central place. he ‘divine approval’ has a
liberating efect on Badeloch. As a result, the spectator/reader sees her
inally break out of the frame of a powerful culture text, from which she
had struggled so tirelessly to escape. At the end of the previous scene
this seemed to have been in vain, when the ghosts of other epic and
tragic female characters became visible again behind her, embodying
sombre omens regarding her fate and that of her family. For in the Iliad
Andromache loses Hector in battle; in the Orange plays Louise becomes
a widow following the murder of William; in Geeraerdt van Velsen
Machtelt is let behind alone by Geeraerdt, soon to be killed; in Seneca’s
Trojan Women the Greeks throw young Astyanax from a tower; in
Aeneid Creusa herself disappears without a trace before the departure
28
‘Dus wederstreef niet meer uw trouwe gemaelin’ (l. 1827).
284
marco prandoni
of the exiles. Yet, unlike all these scattered and difused intertexts,
Badeloch’s struggle for the preservation and unity of her family can
triumph.
he audience is confronted and seduced, then, by the staging of a
daring model of femininity. In the beginning, this model appears to be
well-embedded in intertexts that propagate determining cultural conventions, but it eventually outgrows them or breaks through them. his
brings the play dangerously close to the edge of gender transgression.
he end must be experienced as rewarding to the audience in many
diferent shades. For those who can hear it, a new sound emerges from
a polyphony of intertexts.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
DRAMATURGY – STAGING PROBLEMS IN VONDEL’S
GYSBREGHT VAN AEMSTEL
Peter G.F. Eversmann
In 1937, shortly before the third centennial of (almost) yearly performances in the city theatre of Amsterdam, Ben Albach concludes his
study of the staging tradition of Vondel’s Gysbreght van Aemstel with
the following words:
hus, ater three ages, the Gijsbreght tradition is still central to the life
and aspirations of the Amsterdam theatre. Independent of the theatrical
circumstances, and independent of time, each New Year’s day the Heer
van Aemstel [i.e. Gysbreght] makes his appearance in the Stadsschouwburg
before an auditorium illed with Amsterdam families, including (as
always) the youngest generation, which at that moment is present for the
irst time at the celebration that delighted its ancestors and that at one
time will be attended by its ofspring. […] Undoubtedly the ‘Gijsbreght
van Aemstel’, being as it is one of the inest expressions of the Dutch language, will sound on the boards for many ages to come. he Gijsbreght
tradition is like an old legend that comes to life each year. May ‘Gijsbreght
van Aemstel’, the symbol of Holland’s days of glory, forever roam the
Municipal heatre of the Dutch capital city!1
It was not to be. In 1968 the inal performance of Gysbreght according
to the old tradition was staged in the Stadsschouwburg. And although
there have been some productions of the play since then (a few of them
explicitly attempting to revive the tradition), not all of these were performed at this theatre and one can no longer speak of an annual
event. Moreover, a recent commentary in one of the leading national
newspapers – De Volkskrant – characterised the drama as ‘generally
deemed to be unstageable’!2 So today it is safe to conclude that the play
is rapidly disappearing from the collective memory of Amsterdam
Albach, Drie eeuwen ‘Gijsbreght van Aemstel’, p. 132; my translation.
De Volkskrant, 10 March 2010. (‘As a play generally deemed to be unstageable, Van
Dis eased the text away from yellowed paper and tradition and even rapped a couple of
lines of Vondel.’)
1
2
286
peter g.f. eversmann
theatregoers. he older generation might still retain a dim image of the
tradition that is so eloquently described by Albach, but for younger
audience members the drama is only a famous title from the past. If
one is lucky, some attention will have been given to it in high school
and in a few very fortunate cases one will even have read the whole play
(most likely in an abridged version in which the seventeenth-century
language has been reworked into more intelligible modern Dutch) or
have seen a (television) recording of an older performance. However,
the annual opportunity to experience a live encounter with the characters onstage is now a thing of the past.
he question as to why this tradition that seemed so iercely established has been broken ater 330 years is a complex one that is not easy
to answer. No doubt one can point to an amalgam of reasons, including
inancial ones, a general revolutionary and avant-garde spirit that pervaded the Dutch theatre at the time of the breach (emphasising renewal
and doing away with repertory theatre), estrangement of certain features of the play with regard to both content and structure that became
more and more alien to society at large (for example, intervening angels
as deus ex machina, religious allusions, the portrayal of women, a male
hero glorifying war, etc.) and the diiculties of delivering and understanding seventeenth-century poetic language. Furthermore, it can be
argued that in this case the tradition itself can be held partly responsible
for its cessation. Ater all the idea was not to bring museum theatre –
ritualistically staging the play again and again in the same manner –
but to renew and contemporise the drama each year so that it could be
savoured afresh. However, ater a certain number of interpretations it
becomes harder and harder to come up with yet another one that does
not artiicially seek to be ‘new’ and that does not stress credibility.
When – in the sense of Carlson – the ‘ghosts’ of actors interpreting
Gijsbreght,3 Badeloch and the other characters become too numerous
it is only understandable that a certain weariness is experienced.4 In
this regard one should also notice that the history of the stagings of
Gysbreght is not without problematic periods in which the tradition
was endangered by continuity lapses for reasons of production or
3
Apart from quotes, I will use Gysbreght to designate the drama and Gijsbreght
when referring to the character.
4
Cf. Carlson, he Haunted Stage. ‘Ghosting’ refers to the mechanisms by which
theatre makers, actors and knowledgeable audience members will bring previous stagings and characterisations to bear upon the reception of new ones – coloring their
perceptions and continuously comparing past and present performances.
dramaturgy – gysbreght van aemstel
287
politics. Conversely there have also been times when the staging was
mindlessly repeated year ater year, becoming so boring and superluous that the critics strongly urged that the play be subject to drastic
alteration.5 In this respect the ‘tradition’ is characterised by continuous
transformations and modiications – changes in interpretation, text, set
design, costumes and acting style – that relect the ever-changing fashions in Dutch theatre history. In a way, then, the question as to how it
is possible that the play was adapted to new circumstances time and
again enabling the tradition to persist is just as astute and as diicult to
answer as the question of why that tradition inally came to an end.
However, the present-day situation, in which one is not hampered
by an oppressive and in many ways stiling tradition but is also aware
that the drama apparently had enough appeal to inspire theatre makers
and their audiences for such a long time, has the advantage of allowing
one to go back to Vondel’s original text and study it with relatively fresh
eyes. In the process one should then ask two questions: what are the
problems and challenges when producing this play and what are its
features that make adaptation possible for a wide diversity of theatrical
conventions. In other words, how can it be that the drama has had such
a long staging tradition but is now ‘generally deemed to be unstageable’? In what follows I will try to answer these questions by concentrating on the structural characteristics and technical demands of Vondel’s
text. Ater all, these internal features of a dramatic text ultimately
determine whether it can be adapted to changes in circumstances of
production or – within the conines of a speciic theatrical paradigm –
whether it is regarded as principally unit for staging.
I am consciously leaving aside matters of conceptual interpretation,
of intertextual comprehensibility and of how the content of the drama
can express present-day concerns or might be updated to appeal to a
modern-day audience. Of course, these are important dramaturgical
questions that should be answered by theatre makers before they decide
to stage Gysbreght. However, these questions primarily pertain to
content and to the reasons – the inner need so to speak – for producing
the play. As such they are not concerned with the principal question
of whether or not a drama is stageable, but rather they belong to
the realms of artistic relection, inspiration and justiication. Besides,
the existing literature that is addressing these interpretational and
5
See Albach, Drie eeuwen ‘Gijsbreght van Aemstel’, passim.
288
peter g.f. eversmann
contextual matters is quite abundant and enables theatre makers to
form a rather clear picture of what Vondel’s text means, what certain
passages are alluding to and where ostensibly there is room for disagreement among scholars. he secondary literature in the ‘Digitale
Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren’ (‘Digital Library for Dutch
Literature’) is a good starting point, and a very recent publication that
extensively explores Vondel’s inspirational sources and the intertextual
aspects of Gysbreght is provided by Marco Prandoni’s doctoral thesis
Een mozaïek van stemmen: Verbeeldend lezen in Vondels ‘Gysbreght van
Aemstel’ (A Mosaic of Voices: Representational Reading in Vondel’s
‘Gysbreght van Aemstel’).6 However, what I would like to do here is different from these predominantly philological approaches. My aim is to
read Vondel’s text7 from a directorial perspective and to explore its
demands and challenges when staging the play. In other words, what
are the immanent clues that one should consider when trying to give
form to this text in a three-dimensional, multimedial and time-based
event? It goes without saying that this is a virtual exercise and that one
should not necessarily adhere to these clues in an actual production
process. It is quite possible to ignore them or to express them onstage
in such a way that the presentation supplements, contradicts or ironically comments upon the text. When, for example, Gijsbreght asks for
his sword (‘T’sa dienaers schat geweer’ [883]) it may very well be the
case that in one particular production his servants will hand him an
automatic rile, while in another one he will be presented with a paintball gun or a children’s toy sword. Furthermore, in this virtual exercise
I will proceed from the assumption that the full text and the order of its
scenes are adhered to and that, apart from translating the seventeenthcentury language into a contemporary Dutch idiom, the source material is not being adapted into a principally diferent play. Of course,
6
DBNL, see http://www.dbnl.org/titels/titel.php?id=vond001gysb01; Prandoni, M.,
Een mozaïek van stemmen.
7
I will use the text of the irst edition (t’Amsterdam. By Wilhelm Blaeu. 1637) as it
is found in the DBNL: Vondel, WB 3, pp. 514, 523–600. his text includes Voorwerk
(the dedication to Hugo Grotius), Voorspel (address to ‘Schout, Burghemeesters,
Schepens en Raed van Amsterdam’), Op den nieuwen Schouwburg (address to the
‘Raedsheer Nikolaes van Kampen’), Kort Begrijp (abstract of the story) and Spreeckende Personagien – Stomme (the list of characters) and Gysbreght van Aemstel. Treurspel
(the full text of the tragedy). When referring to speciic lines, I will use the numbering
as given by the DBNL in brackets – for the paratext with designation (e.g. Voorwerk, ll.
55–59) and for the full text of the drama without (e.g. ll. 16–17). he translations of the
Gysbreght are taken from the one made by Kristiaan Aercke.
dramaturgy – gysbreght van aemstel
289
this is not particularly realistic and probably the irst thing a director
would do nowadays is omit lines or even whole scenes, reorder the text
and maybe insert other texts into the performance,8 but this would
only attest to the opinion that (part of) the subject matter of the play is
indeed unstageable – either because a modern-day audience would
lack the frame of reference needed to interpret certain phrases or
because one feels an artistic need to change the content of Vondel’s
drama.
In addition, it is not my intention to reconstruct the original performance of 1638 as it was staged in the then newly erected Schouwburg.
Several attempts to efect such a reconstruction have been put forward
but it is my conviction that, although very worthwhile suggestions have
been made on how the polytopic stage might have been used, the historic information is not suicient to give a full-scale and detailed
account of what the irst production looked like and how the mise en
scène was executed. However, I will occasionally refer to the historical
evidence and the original production circumstances insofar as they
have been documented because they can complement Vondel’s text by
providing information on the theatrical conventions for which it was
written. It is these conventions that will at times highlight staging problems posed by the text and that will also enable us to appreciate how, in
other times and with other theatrical conventions, diferent solutions
had to be found. To cite an obvious example, in 1638 all parts were
performed by men and this could have had direct consequences for the
number of actors involved since in principle the doubling of male and
female parts was possible. But in times when the cross-gender casting
of female parts is no longer en vogue, this is clearly impossible, resulting in a larger cast.
Speaking of theatrical conventions it is interesting to note that
Vondel himself remarks in the dedication of the drama to Hugo Grotius
that – although he has taken certain poetic liberties – the work, as far
as he is aware, does adhere to the laws of the stage, with the possibility
of one exception: the large number of characters that ensues from ‘the
requirements of the work’ (i.e. the nature of the story itself). He writes:
We decorated and furnished the same according to the laws, rules and
liberties of poetry, and according to the laws of drama. If we violated the
8
his is precisely what Margrith Vrenegoor did when staging the drama in 1995. Cf.
Deuss, ‘De Gijsbrecht in 1995’.
290
peter g.f. eversmann
latter it was not on purpose, save, perhaps, for the large number of characters (which we could scarcely avoid without depriving the work of
what it requires).9
Indeed, it seems that Gysbreght requires quite a number of actors.
he list of speaking characters consists of sixteen roles and one trumpeter. Besides these there are groups of characters indicated. hese
comprise four reyen (Amsterdamsche Maeghden, Edelingen, Klaerissen
and Burghzaten, i.e. Virgins of Amsterdam, Noblemen, Clares and
Denizens) and three other groups (hoplieden, bondtgenooten and vlughtelingen, i.e. captains, allies and refugees). On top of this there are also
non-speaking characters. hese comprise three groups (Katuizer,
Egmonds soldaten and Gijsbreght van Aemstels dienaers, i.e. monks of
the Carthusian convent, soldiers to Egmond and servants to Gijsbrecht)
and one single role, the bastard son to Count Floris Witte van Haemstee.
Even if one assumes a doubling of roles for the reyen and the other
speaking groups and allows for only two persons per group this means
that at least eleven more persons are needed, bringing the total to
twenty-seven. It might be possible to reduce this number a little bit by
doubling some of the speaking roles (Willebord and Raphael, Vosmeer
and Heer van Vooren, Willem van Egmont and the messenger, Diedrick
van Haerlem and Broer Peter), but still the cast would be quite large
and the evidence from the seventeenth century strongly suggests that
such doubling was not at all customary. Instead, one would assume the
number of players to be even higher because two persons for all the
reyen seems too low. Albach notes that in 1641 four singers were
engaged for these sung parts – accompanied by three musicians – and
he gives a total of thirty players (24 speaking actors and 6 ‘Piekeniers’,
or pikemen) for the production in 1658.10 All in all one should conclude that an unabridged and unadapted version of Gysbreght would
require a rather large cast and is therefore relatively expensive to produce – certainly if one also opts for a lavish set and elaborate costumes.
his conclusion is more or less corroborated by the expenses of the irst
13 performances in 1638: 1363 guilders–15 ive-cent pieces–12 cents;
quite a large sum indeed, but the income (2459 guilders–18 cents)
Dedication, ll. 55–59: ‘[…] en stofeerden en bekleedden de zaeck na de wetten,
regelen en vrijheid der poëzije; oock na de tooneelwetten, waer tegens wij wetende niet
en misdeden, ’t en waer misschien in talrijckheid van personagien, dat wij qualijck
konden vermijden, zonder het werck zijnen eisch te weigeren.’
10
Albach, Drie eeuwen ‘Gijsbreght van Aemstel’, p. 20 en pp. 142–43.
9
dramaturgy – gysbreght van aemstel
291
shows a tidy proit.11 Let us now have a further look at the what the text
of Gysbreght suggests for its realisation onstage in terms of setting,
time, reyen, costumes and props and the action of the drama.
Spatial Coniguration
First of all then it should be noted that there is almost no secondary
text – no prescriptions of what the stage or costumes should look like,
no explicit indications by the author on the behaviour of the characters
or on their physical appearance. he only indications that are given are
the headings of the acts and the names of the characters that speak.
his is not to say that there are no clues whatsoever as to what can be
perceived onstage, but almost all these clues are immanent in the
clauses of the characters and have to be deduced by careful analysis.
his is, of course, in line with other plays from the period, but it is good
to realise that it is precisely this lack of prescriptive descriptions and
staging indications that provides a lot of freedom for theatre makers. In
terms of clues for the setting, the relative indeiniteness as to where the
action takes place becomes particularly apparent. As justiication for
adhering to the norm of the unity of place Vondel writes that ‘the play
takes place in front of and in the city and in the castle’ (‘het tooneel is
voor en in de stad en op het huis’ (Kort Begrijp, l. 48), but the indications in the text are a little bit more speciic. he irst and second acts
are indeed set outside the walls of the city. In Gijsbreght’s soliloquy at
the beginning of the play he describes the surroundings thus: ‘Here
their troops encamped; littered is the entire ield / With arms and gear.’
(‘Alhier, daer ’t leger lagh, is ’t veld alsins bezaeit / Met wapens en
geweer’, ll. 16–17). Later on it becomes clear that this place is probably
not far from the Carthusian monastery,12 that one can discern a ship
loaded with irewood from here13 and that one of the gates of the city is
nearby.14 From these clues and the fact that Arend appears on the scene
11
Ibidem, p. 138.
Vondel, Gysbreght, ll. 158–59: ‘Maer ‘k zie den vader daer van ons Katuizers
klooster genaecken van ter zy […]’
13
Gysbreght, l. 378: ‘Ghy ziet hoe daer een schip, het Zeepaerd, leit, vol rijs.’
14
his can be inferred from Vosmeer’s lines ‘[…] ‘k wil liever voor uw poort, […]
dit lastigh leven laeten’ (ll. 402–03) and from the invitation of the Rey van
Amsterdamsche maeghden to enter the city: ‘Treck in, o Aemstel, treck nu binnen, […]
treck in o braeve burgery’ (ll. 445–48).
12
292
peter g.f. eversmann
ater having pursued the enemy along the ‘Haerelemmer dijck’ (‘the
Haarlem dike’, l. 8) it has been rightly concluded that the irst act is set
in front of the Haarlemmer Poort, at the northwest corner of the city.
At the same time one should realise that the old Amsterdam, in which
Gysbreght is set, is not a historically accurate reconstruction of the situation 300 years before Vondel’s time. Rather, both the old and the new
Amsterdam form an imaginary amalgam that is based on older maps of
the city coupled with the wish to present recognisable features of seventeenth-century Amsterdam for the contemporary audience.15 At any
rate, one cannot maintain that the locations as portrayed in the drama
describe deinite settings to which theatre makers should adhere.
Instead, one is faced here with a kind of word scenery16 in which the text
leaves room for a lot of imagination. hus the stage can be designed in
an elaborate and detailed way, but at the same time it is possible to have
a more neutral setting in which in their mind’s eye the theatregoers
complement the structural elements of the stage with the textual indications provided by the characters. And this general principle applies
not only to the location of the the irst act but for the indications pertaining to the rest of the settings as well. he second act also takes place
outside the city walls, near the Carthusian monastery and at its gate,17
but also at another, less distinct place near the city and a waterway
leading into it.18
Together, then, the irst two acts take place outside the city and
one can envision them well on a polytopic stage where (for example)
the city gate is located in a central part, the Carthusian monastery is to
the right side of the stage and Vosmeer and Egmont meet somewhere
on the let. As such this scheme would probably it well on the stage of
the new Schouwburg, but other solutions are possible as well19 and we
15
See the discussion by Smits-Veldt in Vondel, Gysbreght van Aemstel, ed. SmitsVeldt, pp. 11–12.
16
Pister, he heory and Analysis of Drama (tr. Halliday), p. 267. Oten such ‘spoken space’ has the function to compensate for restricted means in scenic presentation
and this might very well be the case with Gysbreght. he interesting feature here is that
the spaces are not described in extenso but depend largely on the knowledge of the
spectators who can activate their familiarity with certain locations when hearing their
names.
17
‘Wy zijn by ’t klooster weer’ (l. 451); ‘’t Katuizers klooster is ons ’t reedst, het leit
hier by’ (l. 491); ‘wie klopt’er?’ (l. 503).
18
Gysbreght, ll. 498–99: ‘Ick gae terwijl na stad, om Vosmeer noch te spreecken, Die
ter gezette tijd koomt zwemmen door den boom.’
19
See (for example) Hummelen, Inrichting en gebruik van het toneel in de
Amsterdamse schouwburg. pp. 44–45.
dramaturgy – gysbreght van aemstel
293
cannot be sure of the original mise en scène. In the third act the scene
shits to inside the castle. Not much more can be deduced from the text
than that Gijsbreght shortly leaves the scene in order to assess what the
situation with the surprise attack is from the parapet of one of the towers.20 Whether or not we actually see Gijsbreght sprinting up a light of
stairs and – not long ater – see him deliver the lines in which he
describes how the taking of the town is proceeding (ll. 874–83)21 from
a loty vantage, is something that again is up to the theatre maker. In
1638 the new theatre with its permanent stage building that provided
balustrade balconies on either side of the ‘heavens’ certainly did ofer
possibilities for such a mise en scène, but whether or not these possibilities were actually used is pure conjecture.
he fourth act starts inside the church of the Klaerissen nunnery.
Not much more is said of this place than that there is an altar and a
cross, a chair for Gozewijn to sit in, possibly chorister benches for the
nuns and, nearby the altar, an alabaster tomb of a martyr.22 his part
ends with Gijsbreght leaving the scene by going upstairs23 again and –
certainly in later productions but most probably also in 163824 – with a
pantomime and a tableau of the murder of the nuns (see below). he
rest of the act and the initial scenes of the ith one – until the end of the
messenger’s story when Gijsbreght and Arend leave to make a sally (l.
1520) – are situated inside the castle, most likely in a room. What happens aterwards is a little unclear, but most probably the scene shits to
another location within the grounds of the castle, either the courtyard
20
‘Ick zal terstond om hoogh gaen zien van Schreiers toren’ (l. 851).
hese lines are almost a teichoscopy (i.e. a character on stage describes spatially
hidden action that takes place simultaneously) but diferent in so far as Gijsbreght
describes what he hears and just saw (past tense!) and not what he sees. For an exploration into the nature, functions and efects of teichoscopies and messenger stories see
Eversmann, ‘I Saw It with My Own Eyes’.
22
‘his altar is our refuge’ (‘dit outer is ons wijck’, l. 977); ‘before this altar’ (‘voor dit
autaer’, l. 988); ‘Now children, sit down here, …’ (‘Nu kinders zet u hier, …’, l. 1005) and
later – in Act V – in the descriptions of the messenger (ll. 1393–1520, speciically 1418,
1457 and 1493–96). Smits-Veldt, ‘3 Januari 1638. Opening van de Amsterdamse
Schouwburg met Vondels Gysbreght van Aemstel’, p. 207, assumes that the candle mentioned in the Schouwburg ledger in 1637 was placed on the altar.
23
‘Hold, the enemy is here, I must be of now’ (‘Daer is de vyand zelf, ick vliegh na
boven toe’, l. 1070).
24
his is concluded by Albach, Drie eeuwen ‘Gijsbreght van Aemstel’, p. 22 from the
fact that Witte van Haemstee, who commits the murder, is speciically mentioned in
the list of non-speaking characters and from visual as well as descriptive evidence of
18th-century productions.
21
294
peter g.f. eversmann
or in front of the gate with the bridge over the castle moat.25 We can
infer this from Badeloch’s teichoscopy (ll. 1521–27), which describes
how the garrison falls back and is demolishing the bridge while
Gijsbreght goes back to search for his brother. Furthermore, this episode of the sally might have been enacted onstage in a pantomime that
would have served to bridge the apparent time gap between ll. 1520
and 1521. At any rate, at the behest of Gijsbreght to carry the dead in
(‘men draegh den doode binnen’, l. 1550) it becomes clear from his
entrance with the dying Arend that the action is set in an outside location. here might be a shit in focus for the negotiations with the Heer
van Vooren but apparently the scene remains outside, near the moat
(‘We stand before this moat, ready to attack’, ‘Wy staen voor deze grat
tot storremen gereed’, l. 1552), so that one does not necessarily need a
change of place or scenery here. Ater this scene Gijsbreght is reunited
with Badeloch, their children, Broer Peter and the refugees, something
that can be deduced from the fact that he has to inform them about his
dealings with the enemy (‘I think we gave Vooren a brief and clear
reply’, ‘Wy gaven Vooren kort en duidelijck bescheed’, l. 1655), so most
likely this takes place indoors in a place to which Arend’s body has
been carried.26 At any rate, from this moment on until the end of the
play with the appearance of the angel Raphael there is no more change
in location. One may assume once more that the polytopic stage of
1638 could well have been used to present the diferent castle locations
needed in Acts IV and V – the inside room, the courtyard or a place
near the gate and maybe even a somewhat higher location on the parapets which could have been used for Badeloch’s teichoscopy and possibly also for the negotiations with the Heer van Vooren – but again
there is a complete lack of clues as to the actual staging.
Temporal Coniguration
A similar analysis is possible with the time that is portrayed in
Gysbreght. It was noted earlier that the action took place some three
25
here is also, however, a theoretical possibility that this shit is unnecessary; one
has to assume, then, that the previous scenes with Badeloch and Arend (Act IV), as
well as the scenes featuring the return of Gijsbreght and the messenger (Act V) are taking place outside – in the castle’s courtyard.
26
his indoor location its with ‘All the people leave irst, then the body’ (‘Al ’t volck
ga voor, dan ’t lijck’, l. 1877) and also with Gijsbreght giving the cross he has inherited
dramaturgy – gysbreght van aemstel
295
hundred years before Vondel’s time – as he himself writes: ‘hree hundred years our stage will now leap back’ (‘Het nieuw tooneel drie eeuwen springt te rugh’, Voorspel, l. 13). In accordance with the unity of
time Vondel gives precise directions as to the beginning and end of the
drama: the time represented spans a period commencing at three
o’clock in the aternoon on Christmas Eve and drawing to a close during the early dawn of the following day.27 Although it is a little harder to
give exact times for each of the diferent acts and scenes, it is nevertheless possible to follow the timing of the portrayed events rather well.
Ater Act I there is obviously a time leap because Act II begins in the
evening ater the Carthusian monastery has already closed its gate (‘It’s
pitch dark; we don’t really care for friends right now’, ‘’t is avond, en een
tijd daer ons geen vriendschap dient’, l. 504, and ‘We never open / his
late’, ‘Men opent hier geen deuren / Zoo spade’, ll. 506–07). Later on in
the act Egmont meets Vosmeer in the dark (l. 609) and the act ends
with the ‘Rey van edelingen’ (‘Chorus of Noblemen’) going to the mass
at midnight (ll. 675–76). Act III picks up a little later with Badeloch
recounting that she has slept past the time to go to church: ‘But look,
I overslept. / I will be late for church’ (‘ick heb mijn uur verslaepen, /
Om na de kerck te gaen’, ll. 825–26). In addition, it is said that the attack
has taken place when all the citizens have gone to church to celebrate
Christmas (ll. 844–45) – so just ater midnight. he further scenes do
not contain clear clues as to when exactly they take place, but working
back from the indication ‘dawn’ (somewhere between 7 and 8 a.m.) for
the last scene it is not too hard to give approximations for when the
various events onstage and ofstage are supposedly taking place.
However, besides the utterances of the characters, there is no need to
designate further the times of day or night with the help of other theatrical sign systems or to strive for realism with (for example) the lighting conditions. On the contrary, even, if one were to try and fully
emulate onstage Vosmeer’s ‘it is dark’ (l. 609), the ensuing conversation
with Egmont would probably be lost on most of the audience. At
the same time, however, it will be clear that the scene would lose its
from his forefathers to Broer Peter (l. 1879) since it is unlikely that he would have this
to hand outdoors.
27
Cf. ‘Ter middernacht, zijnde kersnacht, eer de maen op’ (Kort begrijp, ll. 14–15)
and ‘Het treurspel begint na middagh ten drie uuren en eindigt in den morgenstond’
(Kort begrijp, ll. 50–51).
296
peter g.f. eversmann
credibility when performed in a much brighter light than the preceding
scene. In 1638 this probably would not have been of much concern,
but a modern day performance with the extensive lighting techniques that are now available should certainly take such details into
consideration.
Reyen – Choruses
In the above analyses of time and space as portrayed in Gysbreght, not
much attention has been given to the reyen – the seventeenth-century
equivalent of the chorus in ancient tragedies – that form a characteristic structural element of Gysbreght and pose particular problems for
staging the play; both in terms of delivery and mise en scène as well as
in terms of content. here are four such reyen:
Table 1: he reyen in Gysbreght
Act/verses
Rey (Chorus)
I [415–50]
Rey van Amsterdamsche Song of praise for the
maeghden
liberation of
Amsterdam; invitation
to rejoice both at the end
of the hostilities and at
Christmas.
Rey van edelingen
Song of praise for the
Christ child: at once
divine ruler and humble
child.
Rey van Klaerissen
Lamentation on the
massacre of the
Innocents in Bethlehem.
Rey van burghzaten
Song of praise for the
love between Gijsbreght
and Badeloch; pity for
the latter who fears her
husband to be dead.
II [675–744]
III [903–50]
IV [1239–88]
Content
dramaturgy – gysbreght van aemstel
297
he structural function of these reyen is clear: they demarcate the end
of an act and lead on to the next one.28 As such they stand apart from
the continuum of the story, even though their names indicate groups of
Amsterdam citizens that might be said to play a role in the narrative.
In the case of the third one the members of the rey actually do have
such a supplementary role and function as characters in the act that
follows. However, these choral episodes are not on the same par as the
rest of the scenes; the metre of the verses is diferent and we know
that in Vondel’s time the stanzas were sung to the accompaniment of
musicians – probably by two singers taking turns.29 Yet one cannot
conclude that these are mere musical interludes. he content of the irst
two reyen is certainly designated to heighten the dramatic tension,
throwing into sharp contrast the festive mood of the unknowing citizens and the holiness of Christmas night with the devious plans of the
enemy and the preparations for the devastating attack. he Rey van
Klaerissen is diferent in that their lamentation of the massacre of the
Innocents not only comments on the slaughter of Amsterdam citizens
that occurs simultaneously but also foreshadows their own martyrdom. Besides, ater this Rey the nuns become directly involved in the
action onstage together with Bishop Willebrord and Abbess Klaeris
van Velzen. hey even sing another song (ll. 1007–18), but this time at
the behest of the bishop and – although taking up the theme of preparing for death – their singing is now embedded within the action, as is
also attested by Gijsbreght’s commenting on it (l. 1019).
he fourth Rey is diferent to the previous ones; sung by burghzaten
(‘denizens of the castle’), it is likely that these are already present
onstage at the preceding conversation between Badeloch and Arend.
At any rate, they are clearly aware of the situation and are commenting
directly on it, describing Badeloch’s anxiety and praying with her for
the return of her husband. heir involvement in the action is also clear
from the fact that – contrary to the three other reyen – this one does
not conclude the act proper. hat is done by Badeloch, who hears
28
On the functions that choruses can have in early seventeenth-century Dutch tragedy, see Van Gemert, Tussen de bedrijven door?, esp. pp. 48–94.
29
For a general discussion of music on the Amsterdam stage in the seventeenth
century see: Veldhorst, De perfecte verleiding, pp. 14–64. Speciic references to music in
Vondel’s plays, including Gysbreght, can be found in Grijp, ‘heatermuziek uit de
Gouden Eeuw’, http://www.camerata-trajectina.nl/display.php?l=nl&i=toelichtingen
#theater.
298
peter g.f. eversmann
Gijsbreght’s voice at the gate (ll. 1287–88). Nevertheless, just like the
other reyen, this one also retains a certain aloofness, by using extended
metaphors and by commenting (as it were) ‘from the outside’, causing
epic distancing – an efect that was no doubt enhanced by the singing.30
It is precisely this ‘distancing’ feature of the reyen that should be reckoned with when performing Gysbreght. It can be realised in a multitude
of ways, one of them being, of course, actual distancing in the mise en
scène whereby the performers are spatially separated from the rest of
the action. But to conclude therefore, as Albach does,31 that all reyen in
the irst production were probably sung on the balconies of the stage
building is a rather farfetched assumption that might be paying too little consideration to the involvement from the reyen on the level of the
dramatic action – especially from the latter two.
Costumes and Props
he implicit indications for the characters’ appearance, what they wear
and what props they use are somewhat more extensive than those for
places and times. Supposedly the characters that belong to certain religious or military groups and that are recognisable by their clothing –
such as Carthusian monks, Klaerissen or soldiers from both sides – will
have been dressed accordingly. But there is also quite a wealth of
detailed clues for some of the single characters. Vosmeer is shackled
(l. 347) and – probably – covered in mud (l. 301); later on he is wet and
his teeth are chattering from the cold (l. 609). Badeloch appears in a
ine and stately dress for Christmas night (‘my Christmas gown and
inery’, ‘mijn pronck en Kersnachts kleren’, l. 745) and Gijsbreght, when
going into battle, orders his servants to bring his helmet, armour and
sword (ll. 851, 883). Likewise the dying Arend wears armour (Gijsbreght
speciically mentions this and orders it to be removed from the body, ll.
1542, 1550) and it is quite safe to assume that in addition to this the
other characters involved in the skirmishes will have worn battle dress
and weaponry of some kind. he messenger probably enters with the
armour, sword and plumed helmet he has taken from a dead enemy to
disguise himself. Most extensively Vondel’s text details how onstage
30
In later productions the reyen were oten not sung but spoken in unison by groups
of actors in a bombastic and declamatory style.
31
Albach, Drie eeuwen ‘Gijsbreght van Aemstel’, p. 19.
dramaturgy – gysbreght van aemstel
299
bishop Gozewijn is helped into his inest chasuble and is handed his
full Episcopal regalia – mitre, golden ring and crosier:
But dress me irst, before they swoop down upon us.
Adorn this feeble body with most precious copes
Appropriate for a Bishop, lest I die in shame.
Crown me with the mitre: I’ve always worn it well
On my anointed head. hen bring the golden ring.
Put on this inger – my hand trembles – the wedding-band
[…] hen hand me the shepherd’s crook, […].32
Apart from the text there is also ample evidence from the ledger of the
Schouwburg that quite some money was spent on the costumes and
props for the extensive cast. One inds entries for payments to an
armourer and to a swordsmith, for feathers, bows, gloves and jewellery,
for boots, and for linen used to clothe the nuns and monks, for velvet,
for silk and even for the wings of a swan – the latter undoubtedly having served for Raphael’s costume.33 So apparently the actors’ attire merited a lot of attention and this is corroborated by Rembrandt’s drawings
of the Gysbreght characters with their elaborate clothing. However,
none of this means that the costumes were historically correct. Albach
supposes that the clothes were in essence seventeenth-century garments – ostentatious dresses for the women and parade armour with
feathered helmets for the men34 – and this might have helped a contemporary audience to identify with the characters, but at the same time it
seems probable from Rembrandt’s sketches that the clothing certainly
was not ordinary and within the conventions of the time will have been
recognised as ‘historical’. So again one sees that in 1638, just as with the
virtual coniguration of the ‘historical’ Amsterdam, the costumes probably presented an amalgam of old and contemporary features. And one
should further conclude that, although from a textual perspective
dressing the characters in a certain way and giving them certain props
cannot be avoided, the range of design and appearance is much greater
than the indications might seem to suggest.
32
Vondel, Gysbreght, ll. 989–94: ‘Maar treck me (dat mijn dood zy veer van schande
en smaed) eerst aan dit lamme lijf mijn prachtighste gewaad, gelijck een Bisschop
voeght, aleer zij ons verrasschen. Zet mij den mijter op: hy zal niet qualijck passen Op
mijn gezalfde kruin. breng hier den gouden rings, En steeck aen deze hand, die beet,
den vingerling […] Geef mij den harderstaf […].’
33
Albach, Drie eeuwen ‘Gijsbreght van Aemstel’, pp. 135–38. Also: Smits-Veldt, ‘3
januari 1638. Opening van de Amsterdamse Schouwburg met Vondels Gysbreght van
Aemstel’, pp. 206–07.
34
Albach, Drie eeuwen ‘Gijsbreght van Aemstel’, p. 21.
300
peter g.f. eversmann
he Angel Raphael
A particular problem with regard to staging and costuming is presented by the angel Raphael who appears as a deus ex machina at the
end of the play. here can be little doubt that in Vondel’s time this celestial being was presented in accordance with the conventional image
that we encounter at large in the pictorial tradition: a youngster in
white (?) robes with wings. One can also be sure that Raphael made his
entrance from the ‘heavens’ (above the central compartment of the
stage building) in a cloud that then descended to the ground level of
the stage. his machinery was one of the technical features of the new
Schouwburg that the management certainly would have liked to show
to the curious audience. In modern times, of course, it would also be
possible to call on all sorts of technical devices to stage a grand inale
with a winged angel descending from above. However, the question is
whether this would work as an acceptable end to the drama. Not only
is it likely that today’s audiences will have more problems than the
spectators in Vondel’s time with the divine intervention as such (and of
course this cannot be helped: it is a structural given of the play), but
also the appearance of the angel itself can be seen as a challenge that
should not necessarily be tackled by reverting to the traditional depiction with wings. It is therefore no surprise that diferent solutions have
been tried in this regard, including not showing the angel but presenting only a voice – one of the more popular options. Whatever approach
a theatre maker adopts it should be remarked here that in Vondel’s text
the angel is not a private igment of Gijsbreght’s imagination, but is
perceived by all the characters onstage. he words of Broer Peter –
‘Who was that? Raphael?’ (‘Zijt ghy dat Rafaël’, l. 1865) – make this
unequivocally clear.35
Our explorations up to this point have indicated some problems and
challenges inherent to any staging of Gysbreght but they do not seem to
be insurmountable. Indeed, the very vagueness of a lot of the features
that were discussed presents the possibility of staging the drama in a
large variety of ways and can be seen as one of the reasons that the tra35
his observation is also important because it throws some light on the interpretation of both Badeloch’s dream and Gijsbreght’s account of how he was led to the nunnery of the Klaerissen ater having heard a divine voice and having been led by a holy
light. Apparently both these admonitions to save the nuns and the bishop should be
considered more or less ‘false’ visions insofar as it was obviously not the intention to
save Gijsbreght’s uncle and sister. Cf. Raphael’s lines (ll. 1825–26): ‘[…] hadden wy ’t in
ons behoed genomen / ’t En waer met Amsterdam zoo verre noit gekomen.’
dramaturgy – gysbreght van aemstel
301
dition was able to survive the many changes in production habits for
well over three hundred years. And according to this analysis nothing
seems to stand in the way of a modern staging. Should one conclude,
then, that the verdict ‘unplayable’ for modern-day theatre makers has
in reality little to do with the technical or structural demands of the
drama, but is rather referring to matters of content, theme and unintelligible language? To begin answering this question one has to look at
the more structural aspects of the play concerning the relationships of
story and plot and of action onstage and ofstage.
heatricality of Gysbreght
In theatre, the action and characters are shown rather than described.
he spectator perceives the events and does not have to conjure them
up in the mind’s eye from a spoken or written text. It is this principle
– known as ostension – that functions as one of the major characteristics in distinguishing theatrical performance from other art forms –
especially literary ones – and it is also recognised as the leading
principle that underlies the speciic form and structure of a drama text.
Such a text distinguishes itself from the literary story by the relative
invisibility of a narrating instance and by mainly consisting of direct
speech.36
To give just one, rather normative example of this narratological reasoning on how stories are told in the theatre, I will cite a certain
Hasselbach, who wrote in his Overzicht der Stijlleer (‘Overview of
Stylistics’) as early as 1890:
Drama too creates an image of life – just as the epic poem and the novel
do – but here the events should not be narrated, they must be shown. […]
A drama – the word itself meaning action – should therefore consist of a
sequence of important events that quickly, without unnecessary delay,
develop before the eyes of the audience. […] It follows that the main
requirements for drama are action and delineation of character. But stories and lyrical utterances are not completely banned from the drama;
they can even clarify or embellish the [dramatic] poem, provided that the
playwright takes care that they do not take up too much room and are
ittingly embedded at just the right moment in time.37
36
Cf. for example Pister, he heory and Analysis of Drama, transl. Halliday, chapters 1 and 2.
37
Hasselbach, Overzicht der Stijlleer, pp. 45–46: ‘Evenals het epos en de roman
vormt ook het drama een beeld van het leven, doch hier mogen de gebeurtenissen niet
302
peter g.f. eversmann
Yet the emphasis on the showing of action that is expressed in this citation is somewhat biased and is not altogether conirmed by theatrical
practice. here are speciic moments when, onstage, stories are told
instead of shown and when, moreover, one should not designate these
stories as ‘clariication’ or ‘embellishment’ but rather deem them to be
quite important – if not crucial – in furthering the action and developing the plot. hese are the moments when characters relate in words
parts of the action that remain invisible to the audience and to the
other characters.
Confronting the above with Gysbreght one realises immediately how
much this play relies on narration to present the story and not on any
action shown onstage. In the Kort Begrijp that precedes the drama text
Vondel describes the course of events that make up the action of the
play and that can best be summarised by its motto, taken from Virgil’s
Aeneid: ‘urbs antiqua ruit’ (‘the old city perishes’). he taking of
Amsterdam on Christmas night, its destruction and the subsequent
exile from the city of Gijsbreght, his family and the refugees are related
in chronological order, but no distinction is made between what is
shown onstage and what is narrated. In the analysis of the manner in
which this story is staged – the plot – one learns, however, that very
little of the events can actually be seen directly by the audience; almost
everything pertaining to the hostilities is reported and has to be perceived through the narration by the characters.
Table 2 indicates the number of verses from each scene, the characters that are deinitely onstage and a short description of its main content. In these descriptions it is also indicated whether this content
actually shows events from the main story or is relating these events
through narration. In more technical terms it is indicated whether in a
scene the events related by the plot coincide with those of the story or
whether they have happened before and ofstage, outside the direct
perception of the audience. he former are designated by Action or
Conlict – all the other descriptions are essentially characterised by narration, leaving it to the spectators to conjure up before their minds eye
worden verhaald, ze moeten vertoond worden. […] Een drama – ’t woord zelf beteekent handeling – behoort dus te bestaan uit eene reeks van belangrijke feiten, die zich
ras, zonder onnoodig oponthoud, voor de ogen der aanschouwers ontrolt. […] De
hoofdvereischten van het drama zijn dus handeling en karakterschildering. Evenwel
verhalen en lyrische ontboezemingen zijn niet geheel en al uitgesloten; ze kunnen het
gedicht zelfs verduidelijken en versieren, mits de dichter zorg drage, dat ze eene niet te
groote plaats innemen en juist te pas zijn ingevlochten.’ My translation.
dramaturgy – gysbreght van aemstel
303
what has actually happened. A special case of the Action scenes is provided by those marked Conlict. In these scenes the actions onstage are
characterised by clearly opposed objectives of the characters: Diedrick
meeting resistance when he wants to gain access to the Carthusian
monastery; the refusal of the Klaerissen and Gozewijn to be led to
safety by Gijsbreght; the Heer van Vooren trying in vain to negotiate
the surrender of the castle; and Badeloch’s refusal to obey Gijsbreght’s
orders to lee the castle. In a sense these scenes can be considered to be
even more theatrical than the other ones in which the action dominates the narration but in which the characters comply with each
other.38
From the table it is now possible to estimate more or less accurately
how much of Gysbreght is devoted to direct action and how much the
play relies on narrative. he scenes actually showing parts of the military action itself or presenting a conlict between the characters present
onstage take up only about 50% of the drama: 957 of the 1896 verses.
And it should even be recognised that sometimes large parts of these
action scenes still contain long passages that can be regarded as predominantly narrative: for example, Vosmeer’s account of his past,
Badeloch telling her nightmare and Raphael prophesying the future. So
the actual number of lines that should be considered narration instead
of action is even considerably higher; the vast majority of the play actually consisting of stories and reports about what has happened in the
past, what is happening ofstage and what will happen in the future.
In this sense Gysbreght should deinitely be considered more of a
literary play than a theatrical one and it would not be much of an exaggeration to say that the drama does in fact comprise only a series of
messenger reports. he consequence of this is, of course, that the audience becomes somewhat removed from the events, focussing on them
through the interpretations and reactions of the characters, but not
experiencing these events themselves. his distancing efect might
even be furthered by the fact that the events are not told in everyday
language, but rather in elaborate, rhythmic and poetic verses – thereby
possibly strengthening the awareness of dealing with aesthetic constructions rather than with realistic characters. On the other hand the
38
he view that conlict is an essential element of drama is presented by various
aurhors. Cf. for example Pister, he heory and Analysis of Drama (tr. Halliday),
pp. 196–201 or Beckermann, Dynamics of drama: theory and method of analysis,
passim.
Vs.
I, 1
[1–162]
162
I, 2 [163–286]
I,3 [287–414]
turns
Vs./ turn
Characters
Content
1
162.0
Gysbreght van Aemstel
124
13
9.5
Gysbreght – Willebrord
128
15
8.5
Gysbreght – Arend – Vosmeer –
(possibly: servants / soldiers?)
Narration: Soliloquy in which G. relates the
events leading up to the siege of
Amsterdam. he scene ends with the
arrival of Willebrord whom G. sees
‘genaecken van ter zy’ [‘approaching from
the side’] [159]
Narration: W. relates how the Carthusian
monastery has fared during the siege and
reveals the reason for liting it: disagreement among the enemies on how to
proceed with the battle combined with fear
of a sally
Narration: A. tells about the light of the
hostile army and how Vosmeer was
captured. Action: V. relates his family
lineage, tells of his ruse to take the city and
points out the ship Het Zeepaerd loaded
with irewood [378]. He also tells of being
sentenced to death and how he managed to
escape. G. releases V. and orders him to
oversee hauling Het Zeepaerd in to within
the walls of the city.
peter g.f. eversmann
Act/scene
304
Table 2: Scene analysis of Vondel’s Gysbreght van Aemstel
I, 4 [415–50]
36.0
II, 1 [451– 503] 53
12
4.4
II, 2 [504–31]
28
15
1.9
Porter – Diedrick – monk
II, 3 [532–605]
74
22
3.4
(Porter?) – Diedrick –
Willebord – (soldiers?)
II, 4 [606–74]
69
7
9.9
Vosmeer – Egmond
II, 5 [675–744]
70
1
70.0
III,1 [745–826] 82
7
11.7
66
11
6.0
Badeloch – Gysbreght – Broer
Peter – (servants)
III, 3 [893–902] 10
5
2.0
Badeloch – Gysbreght – Broer
Peter – (servants) – allies – Arend
III, 2 [827–92]
Rey van Amsterdamsche maeghden
[‘chorus of Amsterdam virgins’] –
(Gysbreght, citizens)
Willem van Egmond – Diedrick
van Haerlem – hoplieden
Rey van edelingen [= chorus of
nobles]
Badeloch – Gysbreght (servants?)
Narration: Song of praise for the liberation
of Amsterdam; invitation to rejoice both at
the end of the hostilities and at Christmas
Action: E. en D. disclose the ruse to the
captains of their army and discuss the plans
for the imminent attack with them.
Conlict: D. seeks to enter the monastery
but is halted by the Porter; he demands to
speak to the abbot.
Conlict: W. refuses to let D. use the
monastery. D. threatens to use violence and
at the end of the scene his soldiers enter the
monastery.
Narration: V. tells E. how Het Zeepaerd has
been hauled into the city
Narration: Song of praise for the Christ
child, at once divine ruler and humble child
Action: B. recounts a nightmarish dream in
which the fall of the city is prophesied.
Action: Broer Peter announces the attack.
G. leaves to assess the situation from one of
the castle towers and returns with (almost)
a teichoscopy [874–82]
Action: G., A. and allies leave in order to try
to stop the attack and drive back the enemy
(Continued)
305
1
dramaturgy – gysbreght van aemstel
36
306
Table 2 (Cont.)
Act/scene
Vs.
turns
Characters
Content
Narration: Lamentation on the massacre of
the Innocents in Bethlehem
Action: Goz. asks the Klaerissen and K. to
leave the nunnery but they decide to stay.
K. helps Goz. to put on his chasuble and
mitre. he Klaerissen sing the song of
praise of the ‘old Simeon’ [1006]
Conlict: G. wants to escort Goz., K. and the
Klaerissen to safety but they refuse to leave.
III, 4 [903–50]
48
1
48.0
Rey van Klaerissen
IV, 1
[951–1018]
68
5
13.6
Gozewijn van Aemstel – Klaeris
van Velzen – Rey van Klaerissen
IV, 2 [1019–72]
54
6
9.0
IV, 3
[1073–1238]
IV, 4 [1239–88]
166
13
12.8
50
2
25.0
Gozewijn van Aemstel – Klaeris
van Velzen – Rey van Klaerissen –
Gysbreght
?? Entrance Witte van Haemstee
with soldiers??
Badeloch – Arend (and burghzaten
[‘denizens of the castle’]?)
Rey van burghzaten –
Badeloch – Arend
Action: Pantomime of the murder of the
Klaerissen, ending with a tableau vivant ??
Narration: A. tells B. how G. has been
organising the defence of the city. He
relates the struggle in the Nieuwe Kerk to
free Kristijn, the ighting for possession of
the Dam and how G. had to fall back to the
city hall.
Narration: Song of praise for the love
between Gijsbreght and Badeloch; pity for
the latter who fears her husband to be dead.
peter g.f. eversmann
Vs./ turn
104
5
20.8
V, 2
[1393–1520]
128
9
14.2
V, 3 [1521–27]
7
1
7.0
V, 4 [1528–50]
23
11
2.1
V, 5 [1551–1654] 104
22
4.7
Badeloch – Gysbrecht – Arend
(and burghzaten?)
Narration: G. narrates what has happened
ater A. let him defending the city hall that
was stormed and overtaken by the enemy.
He relates how he managed to reach the
nunnery of the Klaerissen, but that he
could not persuade them to leave with him.
He then crossed the Amstel in a little
rowing boat and witnessed the nunnery
going up in lames. In vain he tried to
defend the Doelebrugh, but in the end was
forced to lee to the castle with a host of
refugees.
Badeloch – Gysbrecht – Arend
Narration: Story of the messenger relating
(and burghzaten?) – messenger
the murder of Gozewijn, Klaeris van Velzen
and the Klaerissen. G. and A. exit for a sally
Gysbreght – Arend – soldiers from Action: pantomime of the sally and the
both camps
ighting with the besiegers ending with a
tableau vivant (?)
Badeloch – (burghzaten/
Action: B. tries to ind G.; teichoscopy?
refugees?) – (Broer Peter?)
Arend – Gysbreght – Badeloch –
Action: A. dies
Broer Peter – (burghzaten/refugees)
Gysbreght – Heer
Conlict: HvV. demands the surrender of
van Vooren – trumpeter
the castle, G. refuses.
307
(Continued)
dramaturgy – gysbreght van aemstel
V, 1
[1289–1392]
308
Table 2 (Cont.)
Vs.
turns
Vs./ turn
V, 6
[1655–1729]
75
40
1.9
V, 7
[1730–1822]
93
12
7.8
V, 8 [1823–96]
74
7
10.6
Characters
Content
Gysbreght – Badeloch – Broer
Peter – refugees –
Adelgund – Veenerick
Gysbreght – Badeloch – Broer
Peter – refugees – Adelgund –
Veenerick – messenger
Gysbreght – Badeloch – Broer
Peter – refugees – Adelgund –
Veenerick – messenger – Raphael
Conlict: G. orders Broer Peter to lee with
B. and the children to safety. B. refuses to
leave.
Conlict: in the end B. concedes, but faints.
Action: Raphael sends G. into exile – foretelling his future and the coming glory of
Amsterdam.
peter g.f. eversmann
Act/scene
dramaturgy – gysbreght van aemstel
309
stories make an appeal to the audience to imagine things for themselves and as such they might well be more efective than a cumbersome staging of the events. he suggestive accounts of the battle and
the atrocities – such as the murder of the nuns – could very well be
more haunting than a meticulous enactment of the events themselves.
Besides, from a producer’s point of view it is much more eicient to
employ a narrator than have to stage a whole battle. Obviously it is
much easier to sketch in words how the Zeepaerd was hauled into
Amsterdam or how Gysbreght tried in vain to defend the city hall than
to present these events on a stage. And telling the story instead of showing it has the additional advantage that one need not worry about good
or bad seats: the theatregoers in the back rows can enjoy the terrors just
as much as those in the front and the narrative can focus on details that
otherwise might be lost. herefore these evocative accounts of bloody
battles and unimaginable horrors form quite a challenge to the actors
who have to draw in the spectators, stirring their imagination and
invoking the necessary pity and fear by the powers of their declamatory
skills. No wonder then that the role of the messenger in the Gysbreght
was much sought ater and has been enacted by the most famous
actors.39
Nevertheless, bearing in mind Hasselbach’s requirements for good
drama and his admonition to the playwright that stories and lyrical
utterances should not take up too much room, one must confess that
having more than half of the verses in Gysbreght devoted to them is
rather a lot. It is therefore not too hard to understand or even sympathise with those critics who have found the play tedious and boring –
such as the nineteenth-century author Busken Huet who criticised the
drama iercely and remarked that ‘Gysbreght van Aemstel is a tragedy
at the performance of which […] everybody longs to get home’.40
Maybe, then, it is this dominance of narrative scenes over action-driven
ones that causes the drama to be thought of as unplayable for modernday audiences. Ater all, today’s spectator lives in an era where cameras
are ubiquitous, where the importance of pictures seems to be evergrowing and where the means of communication make it possible to
39
Cf. Albach, Drie eeuwen ‘Gijsbreght van Aemstel’, p. 9 and Prandoni, Een mozaïek
van stemmen, p.13.
40
Cf. Gemert, ‘3 januari 1638: De opening van de Amsterdamse Schouwburg’ pp.
232–33 and Prandoni, Een mozaïek van stemmen, p.18. he latter gives the quote from
Busken Huet: ‘Gysbreght van Aemstel [is] een treurspel bij welks opvoering niemand
treurt en de geheele wereld naar huis verlangt.’
310
peter g.f. eversmann
witness events and their outcomes as they happen and with one’s own
eyes. As such it should therefore not be very surprising that nowadays
in the theatre descriptive messenger stories ater the fact, however
eloquently worded, will be experienced as less exciting than the ‘real’
stuf: directly showing the actions and the characters in conlict
with each other.
he narrative overload of the drama and its consequences become
even more apparent when one calculates the average number of verses
per speaking turn in each scene. Figure 1 provides a graphic representation that also takes into account the (approximate) length of the
scene. he igure can be considered a rough blueprint of the overall
‘rhythm’ of the play, indicating the relative pace of each scene. he
lower the bars are the more lively the play tends to become: either
because the scene itself is very short and takes up only a few lines or
because there is a multitude of dialogical turns between the characters.
Conversely, longer bars mean relatively less turns and the drama will
tend to have a slower tempo and become more monotonous.
he igure readily demonstrates the lengthy exposition of Gijsbreght’s
prologue (I,1) and the four reyen that function as resting points between
the acts (I,4; II,5; III,4 and IV,4).41
It also becomes clear where the pace of the drama really quickens
and one can ind the more weighty moments of the action and especially of conlicts between the characters onstage. In chronological
order these are:
– the beginning of the second act where Vosmeer’s ruse is revealed
by Diedrick and Egmont to their captains and the subsequent quarrel to gain access to the Carthusian monastery (II,1; II,2; II,3 – 155
verses)
– he news of the attack by Broer Peter; Gijsbreght rallying the allies
and leaving for battle (III,2; III,3 – 76 verses)
– he ith act ater the story of the messenger till the appearance of
the angel: Badeloch seeking Gijsbreght, his return with Arend who
dies, the conlictual negotiation with De Heer van Vooren and the
quarrel between Gijsbreght and Badeloch who refuses to part from
the castle (V,3; V,4; V,5; V,6; V,7 – 302 verses)
41
For the sake of clarity of the whole igure the actual average number of verses per
speaking turn of these ive scenes is not represented by the length of the bars: they are
cut of at 25.
dramaturgy – gysbreght van aemstel
25
162
36
70
48
311
50
20,8
20
15
13,6
14,2
12,8
11,7
9,5
10
10,6
9,9
9
8,5
7,8
7
6
4,7
4,4
5
3,4
0
I,1
I,2
narration
I,3
I,4 II,1 II,2 II,3 II,4 II,5 III,1 III,2 III,4 IV,1IV,2 IV,3
I
Tableau?
action
2,1
2
1,9
IV,4 V,1
V,2
V,3 V,5
I
Tableau?
1,9
V,6
V,7
V,8
conflict
Average lines per speaking turn.
All the other scenes – even the ones depicting actions directly connected to the battle (such as Gijsbreght trying in vain to persuade
bishop Gozewijn and the Klaerissen to lee with him) – have a markedly slower tempo. his holds especially true for the relatively long
tales by Arend, Gijsbreght and the messenger who relate the progress
of the battle only to be interrupted by an occasional exclamation or
short question from the party being addressed (VI,3; V,1; V,2). So one
should conclude that the analysis of the overall tempo of the play corroborates the indings with regard to the large amount of narration in
the play. Only in a few instances does the rather slow rhythm really
pick up and strong (discordant) interaction between the characters or
a sudden turn of events ind expression. hese are relatively short
scenes, however, and the majority of them occur in Act V, so the spectator bent on seeing fast-paced action and quarrelsome dialogue has to
wait quite a while before his appetite is inally sated.
Tableaux Vivants and Pantomimes
With this dramatic structure, which is characterised by a clear
dominance of staged narrative and a rather drawn-out rhythm it is
312
peter g.f. eversmann
unsurprising that theatre makers have more than once tried to enliven
the drama; either by cutting considerable parts of the text or by providing the spectators with things to look at rather than to listen to. he
elaborate costumes of the irst performances have already been discussed and, although up till now we have only focussed on the characters that are mentioned in the text as being absolutely necessary for
each scene, there is ample evidence from the Gysbreght tradition that,
in addition to the main characters, a large number of supernumeraries
have oten been employed. Indeed, having a lot of actors onstage
enhances the possibilities for the visual layer of a performance and the
deliverance of large fragments of narrative can beneit from it – both
with regard to mise en scène and with regard to the range of the story’s
emotional impact that can be shown. And, of course, one can also try
to visualise the stories, thereby providing the audience with images of
the spectacles that otherwise are only conjured up in words. Famous
devices that have frequently been deployed to do this and that have
been especially important in the performance history of Gysbreght
are the pantomime and the tableau vivant. Indisputable evidence for
the production of 1638 is lacking but it has been surmised that already
at that time the taking of the Carthusian monastery, the murder of the
nuns and Gijsbreght’s sally from the castle were actually enacted as
pantomimed skirmishes.42 Furthermore, it is well documented that
tableaux vivants were very popular at the time and one or two of them
might well have been inserted into the performance. At any rate, there
is a lot of visual and documentary evidence from the 18th century and
onwards to the efect that a tableau vivant showing the murder of the
Klaerissen was an indissoluble and oten much-praised part of the performances. In a report by Louis Riccoboni one learns how this was
done in 1738:
Another peculiarity of the old theatre is what they call Vertoning (tableau
vivant): they lower the curtain in the middle of an act, and arrange the
actors on the stage in order to represent, in the manner of the pantomime, some main action of the play’s contents. hus in Gysbreght van
Aemstel they raise the curtain, &the theatre shows the soldiers of Egmont,
Gijsbreght’s enemy, who plunder a nunnery; each soldier takes hold of a
nun and treats her as it pleases him. he Abbess lies down in the middle
42
Albach, Drie eeuwen ‘Gijsbreght van Aemstel’, p. 20 and Smits-Veldt, ‘3 januari
1638. Opening van de Amsterdamse Schouwburg met Vondel’s Gysbreght van Aemstel.’
p. 205. Also Prandoni, Een mozaïek van stemmen. p. 107.
dramaturgy – gysbreght van aemstel
313
of the stage, holding on her knees the venerable Goswin, the banned
bishop of Utrecht, who is then slaughtered in his pontiical clothes, the
mitre on his head and the cross his hand.43
And Pierre Coste d’Arnobat is even more precise in his description dating from the end of the 18th century in which attention is also given to
the emotional impact of the scene:
All of a sudden […] an enemy chief, followed by his soldiers, forces his
way into the convent. he sacrilegious troop bursts into the choir, slitting
the throats of the bishop and the nuns, and desecration ills the sacred
place. In order to preserve the efect of every detail of this coup de théâtre, in order to be able to guess at the same time, among such horrors, all
those details that, due to the constraints of decency, cannot be shown in
live action, the curtain is lowered when the action is rapid and chaotic;
and it is raised the very next instant, in order to display the assassins and
the victims scattered in various poses of fury and horror, also giving
some indications of the soldier’s licentiousness. On witnessing this huge,
symmetrical pile of corpses and executioners, and how the scene is displayed in the utmost silence, the emotions of the Dutch are expressed in
redoubled applause, and everyone seems to be completely overwhelmed
by this beautiful, dramatic-tic [sic] image.44
43
As translated by Hogendoorn, ‘Dutch heatre, 1600–1848’, p. 421. Original by
Louis Riccoboni, Relexions historiques et critiques sur les diferens théatres de l’Europe,
p. 145: ‘Une autre singularité de l’ancien héatre, est ce qu’on nomme Vertoning
(Répresentation): on baisse le rideau au milieu d’un Acte, & on dispose les Acteurs sur
le héatre, de manière représentent, comme à la façon des Pantomimes, quelque action
principale du sujet. C’est ainsi que dans Gysbrecht van Aemstel, on léve le rideau, & le
héatre représente les Soldats d’Egmond ennemi de Gysbrecht, fui faccagent un Couvent de Religieuses, où chaque Soldat en a une qu’il traite comme il veut: l’Abesse est
étendue au milieu du héâtre, tenant sur ses genoux le vénérable Goswin, Evêque exilé
d’Utrecht, massacré dans ses habits Pontiicaux, la mître en tête & la crosse à la main.’
44
Pierre Coste d’Arnobat as reproduced in Albach, Drie eeuwen ‘Gijsbreght van
Aemstel’, p. 139: ‘Tout à coup, … un chef ennemi, suivi de ses soldats force le couvent.
La troupe sacrilege fait irruption dans le coeur, elle égorge l’évêque et les religieuses, et
la profanation est dans le lieu saint. Pour que l’efet d’aucun détail de ce coup de théâtre
ne soit perdu; pourqu’on puisse deviner à la fois, parmi tant d’horreurs, toutes celles
don’t la décence ne permet pas d’exposer le tableau mouvant, on baisse la toile au
moment où il s’opère à grands traits et en confusion; et on la releve l’instant après, ain
de déployer aux spectateurs les assasins et les victimes grouppés pêle-mêle dans
diverses attitudes du fureur et d’épouvante, qui laissent entrevoir aussi quelques indices
de la licence du soldat. Au spectacle de ce grouppe énorme amoncelé symétriquement de
morts et de bourreaux, et que la scene étale dans le plus grand silence, les transports
des Hollandais se manifestent par des applaudissemens redoublés, et tout le monde
paroît pénétré de cette belle image dramatiq-tique [sic].’ Cf. also Is. Disraeli (Curiosities
of Literature, 1820; but written at the end of the 18th century) as reproduced in Albach,
Drie eeuwen ‘Gijsbreght van Aemstel’, p. 140: ‘One of the acts concludes with the scene
of a convent; the sound of warlike instruments is heard; the abbey is stormed; the nuns
314
peter g.f. eversmann
From this latter quote it becomes clear how one should imagine this
scene and the relation between pantomime and tableau: Witte van
Haemstee and his soldiers enter the stage just ater Gijsbreght has let
and there is some struggling with the nuns. However, for reasons of
decency all the atrocities as later told by the messenger (such as Klaeris
van Velzen being raped) are not shown, but at some culminating point
the curtain is lowered and almost immediately raised again to show the
outcome of the slaughter.45
Conclusion
Having thus explored some of the possibilities of Gysbreght for its staging we can now return once more to our initial questions – from the
point of view of a theatre maker, what are the structural characteristics
and the technical demands of this text that might explain both the very
long, almost unbroken tradition of yearly performances from 1638
onwards and the ultimate cessation of that same tradition in 1968?
With regard to the former it should be remarked that the immanent
clues for spatial and temporal coniguration, for costumes and props,
for mise en scène and the delivery of the reyen are quite indeterminate.
hey leave a lot of room for diferent interpretations and can be accommodated by various and even opposed theatrical conventions. Realistic
or stylised, on a monotopic or polytopic stage, in elaborate settings or
on an almost bare stage, with choruses sung or spoken – Gysbreght is
vague enough in its indications to conform to them all. he question
as to the cessation of the tradition and why it has not been revived is
somewhat harder to answer. I suspect that it has to do not only with the
content of the play or the diiculties in understanding the seventeenthcentury language and the direct references to the historical situation
but also with structural characteristics of the play. he tragedy relies
heavily on telling the story instead of showing it, resulting in a relatively slow and monotonous overall rhythm. In a time where visuality
and fathers are slaughtered; with the aid of ‘blunderbus and thunder’ every Dutchman
appears sensible of the pathos of the poet. But it does not here conclude. Ater this terrible slaughter, the conquerors and the vanquished remain for ten minutes on the stage,
silent and motionless, in the attitudes in which the groups happened to fall! and this
pantomime pathos commands loud bursts of applause.’
45
In this respect it is important to note that the messenger story in act V is not
recounting exactly what the audience has already seen but gives additional information
on the gruesome events. Cf. also Prandoni, Een mozaïek van stemmen, p. 105.
dramaturgy – gysbreght van aemstel
315
and spectacle are regarded highly, where images are ubiquitous and
oten considered more trustworthy than just words, it is only natural
that staging a drama in which many of the main events of the story are
told and which has only a limited number of scenes in which something happens in terms of action or conlict is not so much en vogue.
And yet… reading Vondel’s verses with their almost magical power to
conjure up so vividly the attack on Amsterdam and its subsequent
destruction one wonders how a present-day theatre production might
be able to overcome these inherent challenges presented by Gysbreght.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CULTURAL ANALYSIS – THE JOSEPH PLAYS
Mieke Bal, Maaike Bleeker, Bennett Carpenter and
Frans-Willem Korsten
Images that Move, Words that Touch
For several of his plays, Vondel found a source of inspiration, or a irst
impulse to write, in seeing a print, sketch, or painting.1 In 1640, for
instance, he was moved to write the play Joseph in Dothan ater having
seen a picture by Jan Simonsz. Pynas: Jacob Being Shown Joseph’s
Bloodstained Robe.2 Vondel mentions the occasion in his dedication:
Joseph’s being sold came to my mind through the painting of Jan Pynas,
hanging next to other works of art by Pieter Lastman at the house of the
highly esteemed and experienced doctor Robbert Verhoeven; on this the
bloody cloak is shown to the father – just as we, at the end of this work,
in close analogy, tried to imitate by means of words the painter’s colours,
drawing, and passions. If this tragedy, when being played or read, will
afect someone, we will readily admit that this moving history itself has
helped the playwright and has afected him many times.3
A number of aspects addressed in this quotation may help to introduce
the issues discussed in this chapter. First of all there is the apparent
equivalence between seeing and reading, and by implication between
words and images or actions shown. Secondly these diferent forms of
art operate not so much in terms of their meaning but in terms of how
1
See the contribution by Grootes in this volume: ‘Vondel and Amsterdam’.
he painting was made in 1618 and can now be found in the Hermitage,
St. Petersburg.
3
Joseph in Dothan, ‘Dedication’, ll. 23–31: ‘Iosephs verkoopinge schoot ons in den
zin, door het tafereel van Ian Pinas, hangende, nefens meer kunstige stucken van Peter
Lastman, ten huise van den hooghgeleerden en ervaren Dokter Robbert Verhoeven;
daer de bloedige rock den Vader vertoont wort: gelijck wy in ’t sluiten van dit werck,
ten naesten by, met woorden des schilders verwen, teickeningen, en hartstoghten,
pooghden na te volgen. Indien dit treurspel, onder ’t spelen of lezen, yemants gemoedt
raeckt; wy willen gaerne bekennen, dat deze bewegelijcke historie zelf den toneeldichter geholpen, en menighmael aen ’t harte geraeckt heet.’
2
318
m. bal, m. bleeker, b. carpenter and f.w. korsten
Jan Simonsz. Pynas
they afect their viewer or reader. he story and its visualization ‘move’.
hen there is the curious statement that this story has ‘helped’ the playwright and has touched him many times. his suggests that the role of
the story and its visualization contribute to the shaping of subjectivity,
individually and, by implication, collectively.
Especially because of the constitution of individual and collective
subjectivity, we will deal with this in terms of cultural analysis. his
approach is concerned with the historically and culturally speciic construction, or, in a terminology relevant for this chapter, staging of
human subjectivity. In this analysis the scholar takes into consideration
both the aesthetic and political forces operative in and through art. As
the term analysis suggests, the object of study is not so much the object
itself, about which we get to know more (in historical terms, for
instance), but the active relation between object, individual and collective users, as well as the scholarly subject. In this analysis, framing is a
key concept for three reasons, as Mieke Bal has indicated. Firstly, framing serves to avoid the quasi-normal use of context, by means of which
the ‘unavowed motivation for the interpretation […] becomes entangled in a conlation of origin, cause, and intention’. Secondly, the act of
framing indicates an event, whereas the noun context implies it will
provide us with data. As a consequence, framing highlights the position
cultural analysis – joseph plays
319
of the scholar in terms of accountability, whereas context veils that
accountability. Moreover, framing indicates that one is both the subject
and the object of framing, whereas context appears to exist without a
positioned subject. hirdly, framing implies a process, and here the
important point is that we will not get to the end of the process in terms
of knowledge, but will always be involved in a cultural practice in the
present.4
When Vondel states that he has put into words what the painter had
depicted before him, the phrase ‘ten naasten by’ may concern the way
in which words are like images: as if or close to. he irst meaning, of
word and image being like one another, could well be a reference to
Horace’s ut pictura poesis – poetry is like painting. Rendered as such,
poetry and painting are analogous to each other, or they resemble one
another. his relation is embodied most forcefully by one of the most
popular seventeenth-century genres, the emblem. It is not coincidental
that Vondel’s irst appearance as a poet concerned his texts for a book
of emblems. He contributed to the Dutch translation of the Latin
Mikrokosmos, or Parvus Mundus that was irst published by the
Antwerp publisher G. de Jode in 1579. It was reprinted several times
since then and was published in 1613 under the title Den Gulden
winckel der konstlievende Nederlanders (he Golden Shop of Art-loving
Dutchmen). In it, as was standard, emblematic pictures were combined
with mottos and a so-called subscription: an added text that provided a
literal translation of the igural image.5
A considerable amount of historical research into the word-image
relation goes back to such kinds of emblematic igures and the emblematic relations between word and image.6 he idea is that words, or
4
Bal, Loving Yusuf, pp. 218–220. One exemplary collection of articles in which visual analysis is used as a form of cultural analysis is Brennan and Jay, Vision in Context.
As the collection illustrates, cultural analysis is determined by the twentieth-century
re-conceptualization of human subjectivity which was informed by Freudian psychoanalysis, Nietzschean philosophy, the philosophy of language (such as speech act theory),
Marxism, semiotics, feminism, ideology critique, and, most recently, the material turn.
5
he text with images can be found online on the website of dbnl: http://www.dbnl.
org/tekst/vond001dewe01_01/vond001dewe01_01_0021.php. In the WB edition, see
pp. 263–426.
6
In the context of Dutch literary studies and Dutch art history, one decisive step in
the study of word and image was made with the conference ‘Wort und Bild in der niederländischen Kunst und Literatur des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts’ (‘Word and Image in
Dutch Art and Literature of the 16th and 17th Centuries’) in Cologne, 1981. he contributions were published in 1984; see Vekeman and Müller Hofstede, Wort und Bild in
der Niederländischen Kunst und literatur des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts.
320
m. bal, m. bleeker, b. carpenter and f.w. korsten
better texts, are almost like images, and vice versa. As a result of this
similarity they can be translated into one another, and in the process be
used to explain one another. In general, however, this has turned out
not to be a simple matter of mutual translation, as the term subscription
might suggest. Instead, iconographical studies have taught us how to
read paintings or images on the basis of some kind of grammar; in fact,
the ability to somehow write and consequently to read images is at the
basis of the word icono-graphy. he reading of the image should then
result in a inal meaning captured in text, which is where similarity
turns into asymmetry. Despite the humble sub- in subscription, the
word ofers the true meaning for the image. his its in, partly, with a
millennia-old hierarchy and opposition between word and image, one
that is captured most succinctly in the negative conceptualization of
idolatry.7
To put it briely, and within the context of European history, the
abstract and symbolic relation between words and what they represent
allowed for the possibility that language was better suited to embody
the ideal-as-truth. In a sense, this hierarchy posited the ideal of the
word pitted against the alleged confusion of the complex and muddled
image or delated image. In this context, and historically speaking, it
was important to learn how to read images for their true or symbolical
meaning. his was done on the basis of books such as (for instance)
Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia of Uytbeeldinghen des Verstants (Iconology or
Depictions of Reason), which originally appeared in Italian and was
translated into Dutch by Dirck Pietersz Pers in 1644.8 he book contained the verbal description of many images that could be read as
depicting concepts such as melancholy, anger, or freedom. Recognizing
the images one would know what they meant, and choosing the words
one could know how to depict them.
7
For a telling example, see the website of the Utrecht project on emblems, where it
says: ‘he meaning of the whole is determined by the combination of the three parts.
he curiosity is roused by either the motto or the pictura, and then the subscriptio complements these two parts and provides a logical explanation on [sic] the whole’, http://
emblems.let.uu.nl/. As may be clear, the picture itself is described here as only arousing
curiosity in order to then be deined in language, by the subscript. A deconstruction of
both hierarchy and opposition between word and image can be found in Bal, Reading
Rembrandt.
8
he original appeared in 1593, entitled Iconologia overo Descrittione Dell’imagini
Universali cavate dall’Antichità et da altri luoghi, and it was translated throughout
Europe and reprinted many times. he printed version of 1603 was the irst one with
images.
cultural analysis – joseph plays
321
Yet the issue was not just one of translation, as is demonstrated by
the intense public debate in the seventeenth century on the relation
between word and image, especially between Protestants and Catholics.
With regard to this debate, it is relevant to recall that the age-old interest in the superiority of the word was rivalled by an equally old idea
that seeing is superior to speech. In the Tanakh and Bible seeing has
crucial epistemological and sometimes also spiritual value, and the igure of Joseph would be a good case to demonstrate both possibilities
because of his ability to read images. In his case these were dreams,
which could be ‘seen through’ for their true meaning. Hence another
hierarchy in play was that of clear vision as opposed to the opaqueness
of, and disturbance produced by language. Is should be possible, therefore, to consider the two opposed hierarchies as distinct but equally
important and as dynamically related.
In this context it may be worthwhile to reconsider the passage in
Horace’s Ars poetica in full: ‘A poem is a kind of painting / one captures
you more in proximity, the other from afar’.9 Here, the two are being
compared not so much for their similarity in terms of meaning but for
the comparable ways in which they are able to afect the reader, listener
or viewer. Consequently, it is not so much the ability to translate each
into the other that is at stake, but rather the contiguity of both in terms
of afect. hey stand next to one another because they enforce a similar
movement on the part of the reader or viewer, both in terms of distance
or proximity and in terms of ‘afect’. he latter is indicated by the fact
that text and image capiat: capture or catch. his is why Vondel can
state that his words tried to do what the painter had done with colours,
drawing and passions. Meaning is less important here than aesthetics.
Moreover, it is not so much the spirit that counts, but the material,
palpable quality of the work. his is not to say that we have let the
epistemological domain of knowledge and meaning. hat domain is
conceptualized diferently because form is no longer that which
opposes or hides meaning, but rather that which speaks itself.
here is, moreover, a second important shit traceable in Horace’s
contention. It seems to imply that we will be afected diferently because
Horace, Ars poetica, vs. 361–62: ‘ut pictura poesis: erit quae, si propius stes, / te
capiat magis, et quaedam, si longius abstes.’ Horace’s famous phrase has a slightly
lesser-known counterpart in the classic Greek poet Simonides’s contention that
‘poetry is silent painting and painting is mute poetry’. his phrase appears to contradict
any opposition or hierarchy between word and image.
9
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we look at some poems and paintings from a distance and at others
from close by. Proximity and distance are embodied in the poem. It can
ofer ininitely small details that make us feel very close, or vast overviews that put us at a distance. his is to say that Horace considers
poems to be working visually. Images are caught in text; as such they
are able to materialize in us as readers, and in that materiality are able
to touch us. As a consequence, the word-image opposition no longer
works. Image and text both operate in terms of materiality, and they
both do so visually. With regard to both it is then better to speak of
visual analysis. his is an approach markedly diferent from iconography or the study of emblems. Visual analysis is not so much concerned
with how text and image can be translated into one another, but rather
how they both afect us materially and visually, and consequently move
us, that is to say, shape us.10
A third important point in this discussion is the mutuality of the
relationship between words and images. Whereas Vondel notes the
inluence a certain painting had on his writing of the plays, the converse relationship also pertains. Painters depicted plays they saw performed, making visual images on the basis of words. It has been
suggested, for example, that Rembrandt’s two paintings on the subject
of Joseph in Egypt from 1655 were depictions of the play. he irst one,
now in Washington, would be based on the performance of (perhaps)
Ariana Nozeman, who also was the irst woman actress in a society
where female roles were routinely played by men. She disappeared in
the middle of the season, and her role of Jempsar was taken over.
Whether or not this unsubstantiated legend is true, the two paintings
are very diferent, although the scene they depict is the same, and so is
the cast of characters. Instead of speculating on unveriiable anecdotal
explanations, we propose that the major diference between the two
paintings is their theatricality, and Rembrandt’s contribution to the
debate which Vondel’s play initiated.
his is the point, then, where we wish to bring in theatricality. If
there is one art in which word and image are realized and used simultaneously and materially, and also in terms of proximity and distance,
it is the theatre. Moreover, since words and images (and sounds, one
might add) operate simultaneously, the one cannot easily be based on,
or brought back to the other. In the theatre ‘visuality happens’.11 At this
10
For an analysis of visuality in texts beyond the thematic of depiction, see Bal, he
Mottled Screen.
11
Bleeker, ‘Visuality Happens!’
cultural analysis – joseph plays
323
point, it is helpful to distinguish between theatrical as a quality, aspect
or characteristic of what is seen (as something of the theatre or like
theatre), and theatricality as a communicative afect emerging from a
process of spectatorship. heatricality, as Davis observes, emerges as a
separate term, distinct from theatrical, in the 18th century.12 he distinction between ‘theatrical’ as a quality, aspect or characteristic of
what is seen (of something being staged) and ‘theatricality’ as emerging
from a process of spectatorship is helpful in distinguishing between,
for example, how the story of Joseph is staged in Vondel’s play and the
efect or intensity produced within the relationship between (aspects
of) the text, this staging and both readers and viewers. his meaning
turns theatre into a ‘critical vision machine’ (Bleeker).
On the basis of the combinations of these considerations we propose
to distinguish between emblematic or iconographic studies, iconology,
and visual analysis. Iconography focuses on the way in which images
are used rhetorically as a form of language, organizing them on the
basis of a sociocultural lexicon and a distinctive set of rhetorical possibilities, in order to convey something by means of them. Iconology is
concerned with the speciic ways in which users and scholars understand, read and interpret images in historically and culturally determined ways. Michael Ann Holly recalls that Erwin Panofsky termed it
‘art history turned interpretative’.13 As Mitchell’s Iconology: Image, Text,
Ideology argues, iconology’s major concern is predominantly epistemological. Accordingly, both iconography and iconology can help us to
understand and read (for instance) seventeenth-century theatre as a
historical object, or to deine how people thought of and understood
the idea of an image.14 his is distinctly diferent from dealing with the
dynamic of theatricality. For the latter, we need visual analysis, as part
of what we have termed cultural analysis.
Human subjectivity is staged when inner theatres mingle with outer
theatres. Cultural analysis studies how the fantasies, relections, desires
and roles of individual and collective might meet in such inner and
material theatres. his both conirms and exceeds the realm of theatre
as an art form. Cultural analysis helps us to deal with theatricality.
12
See Davis, ‘heatricality and Civil Society’.
See Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts. On the origins of the work and context
of Panofsky, see Holly, Panofsky and the Foundations of Art History, p. 11, who considers Panofsky’s iconology as determined by the ‘tension between metaphysical idealism
and positivism’.
14
For a paradigmatic study in this domain see Sierhuis, ‘herapeutic Tragedy’.
13
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In this vein, we will explain below that the diference between the two
Rembrandt paintings can be seen as that between inner and outer theatricality, a distinction that, in turn, casts a new light on Vondel’s Joseph
plays. In relation to these plays one example of such cultural analysis
(combining visual and textual analysis) is Mieke Bal’s Loving Yusuf.
In this study Bal considers the many ways in which the story of the
love between Mut-em-enet (the name given by homas Mann and
adopted by Bal in its short version, Mut) and Joseph has been shaped.
he love between these two and the impossibility or possibility thereof
is determined by the sociocultural production of individual and collective subjectivity, in terms of gender, ethnicity and culture. In Bal’s study
theatricality plays an important role; a structuring principle in the
story of Mut-em-enet and Joseph is the struggle about who determines
the mise en scène.15 In this context the question we wish to pose in
what follows is how the idea of theatre as a ‘critical vision machine’ can
be thought, in the context of the baroque, for its relation to what we
will later propose to call a ‘critical moment’.16
Inner and Outer heatre: A Kiss that Disturbs Emblems
Both Joseph plays, Joseph in Dothan and Joseph in Egypt, conform to
the classicist requirement that the entire action take place within one
day. his leads to a form of narrative condensation in the plays that
resembles the forms of condensation in pictures and, as we will see, in
dreams. Accordingly, actions and events that are taking place through
time, in diferent episodes, are now brought together. One way to do
this, in the face of the threat of implausibility, is to condense scenes in
an ‘inner’ theatre.17
Joseph in Dothan takes as its major event the capture and selling of
Joseph by his (half-) brothers. hey are the sons of, on the one hand,
Jacob and Leah or her maid Bilha, and on the other Jacob and Rachel
(who begot Joseph and Benjamin), as a result of which there is considerable rivalry between them. his rivalry is only aggravated because of
the special attention that father Jacob is paying to Joseph. Another plot
On the way in which we use mise en scène in what follows, see Bal, Travelling
Concepts.
16
On theatre as a ‘critical vision machine’, see Bleeker ‘Being Angela Merkel’ and
Visuality in the heatre.
17
On this see Korsten, Sovereignty as Inviolability, chapter 2.
15
cultural analysis – joseph plays
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element is Joseph’s interpretation of a dream, which, according to him,
means that his brothers will have to serve him. Exasperated, his brothers plan to kill Joseph. he eldest son Ruben, however, pleads for
Joseph’s life, so that instead the brothers leave him in a deep pit. When
a little later Ruben, moved by feelings of remorse, is on his way to
relieve Joseph, he meets his other brothers who had an even better idea
when, coincidentally, a group of traders came by. hey saw and took
the opportunity to sell Joseph. Now they will make it look as if a wild
animal has attacked and eaten Joseph. hey will soak his cloak in goat’s
blood to sell that story to their father. hen, in Joseph in Egypt, Joseph
has been sold again, this time to an important member of the court of
the Egyptian pharaoh, a man named Potiphar. In his house he functions as the maior domus. Being a beautiful young man, however, he
also becomes an object of desire: Jempsar, the wife of Potiphar, falls
passionately in love with Joseph. In the day that the play represents
Potiphar will be away for business and Jempsar has decided to declare
her love again, a inal and decisive time. he climax is that Joseph lees,
leaving his cloak. When Potiphar returns this cloak is used as evidence
of Joseph’s alleged attempt to sexually assault Jempsar. he play ends
with Joseph’s being thrown into jail.
In relation to both plays, Vondel liked to work with emblematic or
iconographic possibilities, as well as with the distinction between inner
and outer theatre. One could argue that for many of his contemporaries
the story of Jempsar and Joseph was framed emblematically. Joseph
would be the emblem, then, of the beautiful but chaste and righteous
religious man who is troubled by the emblematic igure of the lustful,
uncontrolled and heathen woman Jempsar.18 As we will see, however,
such a closed reading (as opposed to a close reading) falls short when
dealing with decisive scenes in the play. According to Bal, it equally
falls short in relation to the canonical versions themselves, both biblical
and qur’anic ones. Rembrandt’s two paintings can serve as two sides of
a dilemma posed by the scene, in a more sophisticated, and open,
because ambiguous, reading.
One issue at stake is afect, and theatricality as its medium. In the
dedication to Joseph in Dothan, Vondel is concerned with the afective powers of theatrical materiality and visuality. When stating that he
18
A good example for a study with regard to the emblematic character of Joseph
and the woman, who in this case is called Sephirach, is Spies, ‘A Chaste Joseph for
Schoolboys’.
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tried to ‘capture’ Pynas’s work at the end of the play, he does not mean
that the bloody cloak will be shown on stage, as it is in the painting.
Jacob does not even appear in the play. Instead, the afect the cloak
produces is predicted on the basis of the visual imagination. In the inal
act, the eldest son Ruben, who is on his way to rescue Joseph, meets his
brothers, who tell him that Joseph has already been sold to some travelling merchants. In order to mask this exchange, they will use trickery
and tear the cloak apart a little, sprinkling it with blood, so that people
will think that Joseph has been killed by some wild animal. hen, when
the brothers leave with the cloak in order to report Joseph’s disastrous
fate to father Jacob, Ruben imagines how the latter will be afected:
My God, I am frightened. What a house it will be
When that treacherous messenger will report to father
How the cloak was found in the ield, and shows it to him,
Torn, dragged, hauled, smirched with dust and blood.
With what kind of ears will he hear? How will he stand it?
With what kind of eyes will he see his child’s blooded cloak?
It appears to me that I see the horriic igure of how
He will ling his arms apart, and fall back
With his bold head, his entire posture shaped
as that of a corpse. he girls, children, boys,
Our wives, mothers, and the entire household,
Come rushing to his cries. Little Benjamin
Standing at his feet…19
he scene does indeed seem to describe Pynas’s painting here, without
however referring explicitly back to that painting.20 Instead the image
is used diferently since, as a character, Ruben testiies to an internal
theatre, which is indicated by the phrase ‘It appears to me that I see…’.
his internal theatre is externalized when he presents the audience
with a mise en scène that is touching, both because of what the words
19
Joseph in Dothan, ll. 1539–51: ‘Myn Godt, ick schrick. och wat een huis wil ginder
leggen, / Wanneer die logenbo den vader aen koom zeggen, / Hoe ’t kleet gevonden zy
op ’t veldt, en toon hem dat, / Gescheurt, gesleurt, gesleept, van stof en bloet bekladt. /
Met wat voor ooren zal hy ’t hooren? hoe zich houwen? / Met wat voor oogen ’s kints
bebloeden rock aenschouwen? / My dunckt ick zie met wat een jammerlijck gestalt /
Hy d’armen smijt van een, en achterover valt, / Met zynen blooten kop; al ’t aengezicht
geschapen / Natuurlijck als een lijck: de maeghden, kinders, knaepen, / Ons vrouwen,
moeders, en ’t geheele huisgezin / Toeschieten op ’t misbaer: den kleenen Benjamin, /
Aen zyne voeten staende, …’
20
For the diference between the way in which Vondel deals with the scene here and
a French adaptation (where the scene is turned into a form of meditation), see Brachin,
‘Vondel in het Franse pak’.
cultural analysis – joseph plays
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mean and because of the scene they depict. he text works visually,
then, afecting character and audience by calling up a scene, with all
kinds of details that produce and leave their own traces. As a consequence it is hard to frame the scene, or image, in terms of an ultimate
meaning, as Walter Benjamin suggested in relation to baroque allegory.
hat is to say that, whereas medieval and renaissance allegory would be
aimed at reaching a inal or conclusive meaning, baroque allegory,
according to Benjamin, worked in the opposite way.
To be sure, iconography is in play, in several senses. he besmirched
cloak becomes an iconographic sign because it is a prop, acted upon in
a theatrical way. he sons showing the cloak will have to do their jobs
as actors in order to make the cloak a convincing piece of evidence
instead of just a prop, which brings the cloak beyond iconography into
the realm of theatricality. (Such a legal use of props, as evidence, recurs
in the story when Potiphar is confronted with Joseph’s torn cloak,
something that is elaborated in the Qur’an, sura 12, to prove that the
woman is lying.) Moreover, although it is an image, the cloak acts dramatically, both showing and speaking of the events of how Joseph was
attacked by a ferocious animal, had been dragged away, with the coat as
the only sign of his presence at the place.
Culturally speaking, the cloak would be known to the audience as
well. Joseph was Jacob’s favourite son and, as a sign of his special love,
Jacob had given him this particular cloak with many colours. As such,
the cloak has become much more than an individual git. It is symbolically charged in relation to a sociocultural history that is collectively
re-worked. In the Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions there is a
pattern – much more than a pattern, even – of fathers selecting one son
in particular, and most of the time this is not the regular, eldest one.
Consequently, brotherly competition and deceit come in, whilst the
human sphere becomes intertwined with the divine because of the
miraculous, perhaps also arbitrary or incomprehensible ways in which
God will save not just anybody, but this one in particular.
Yet another type of complex iconography verging toward theatricality is involved in terms of how Jacob’s body speaks. here are distinct
ways of expressing emotions, such as showing joy and grief. In this case
the scene with Jacob linging his arms apart and falling back like a
corpse expresses grief because in this culture or moment in time grief
is staged in this manner. he iconography becomes theatricality when
the viewers not only read the signs correctly but are afected by them,
feeling the grief themselves. Finally, as an iconographical motif, the
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cloak connects this scene and this stage in Joseph’s history to a later
one, in which he will be in Egypt as the irreproachable servant to his
Egyptian master Potiphar. Joseph will lose his cloak again, then, when
he lees from Jempsar. Now the cloak is narrativized, acting in the plot
like a character. It is also legalized, used as evidence. As such, it is open
to misinterpretation – lying – and thus solicits a more reined second
interpretation as evidenced in the Qur’an, when a witness comes forward. It becomes a semiotic object – a sign, which Umberto Eco in his
heory of Semiotics deined as everything that can be used in order to
lie.21 In this respect the cloak comes into the realm of theatricality;
viewers cannot help but ponder the issue of the lie in terms of justice,
presented in an emotionally compelling way. Propelling the plot
forward and captivating spectatorial interest through afect, the prop
becomes a narrative character, a theatrical prompt, and a source of
heightened reception.
Rembrandt’s two paintings ofer two diferent ways in which to
engage the moment – which, for all these reasons combined, becomes
what we call a ‘critical moment’. What the diference between the two
paintings explicates is this: the lie appears to be at odds with the dream,
for how can a dream lie? he Washington painting addresses this question. For a dream does give testimony of both individual and collective
tensions and desires, of cultural possibilities and impossibilities, as
is evident at the beginning of Act II, when Jempsar’s nurse (‘Voester’)
sees her mistress lying asleep, partly undressed, having a dream.
Jempsar is talking in her sleep and from what she expresses the nurse
induces that she is dreaming about Joseph. In Act I we have already
learned how passionately Jempsar is in love with him, and the latter has
already expressed his unwillingness to return her love. his has made
Jempsar desperate. In her dream, however, which is an inner theatre
because of her talking and representing it, something else happens:
Jempsar: Last long, oh sweet pain
Caused by love’s pangs, shut deep.
Does Venus’s ire melt your heart in mine?
Has she poured in mine your heart
And both hearts, of one mind,
paired together indistinguishably?
Nurse: Sweet dream, can you extinguish these lames?
I shall, in Joseph’s place, kiss her cheeks and mouth.
21
Eco, heory of Semiotics, p. 10.
cultural analysis – joseph plays
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Jempsar: hat’s medicine of someone’s mouth.
Who kisses my sick heart to health?
Are you thus sweetening this bitter sufering?
But oh Joseph, hide my morning star!
Run! Potiphar is threatening you there.
He has come to begrudge our joy.
here, he murders you in my lap.
Where to lee death?
Oh nurse, help, he murders, he rages, to get me.22
Jempsar is dreaming of a union, and the verb ‘paeren’ is not innocent in
this context. It can mean to pair, or to match, but also to mate, to have
intercourse. In thinking that the dream might help to cure her mistress
from her consuming passion, the nurse then decides to give the dream
a touch of reality. She wants to act as Joseph and kiss the sleeping
Jempsar. he text is ambiguous in terms of the nurse’s role. She either
takes the role of Joseph, acting as him, or she wants to kiss her mistress
instead of Joseph. his seems to work at irst. Jempsar expresses her joy
that the kiss cures her, but then the dream radically changes, for suddenly Potiphar enters it, turning it into a nightmare. Jempsar shouts
that Joseph has to run in order not to be killed in her lap (which brings
back the ‘paeren’ as having intercourse). hen Potiphar seems to be
turning on Jempsar herself. Consequently Jempsar wakes up in a fright,
only to see that she is with her nurse, who has some trouble in bringing
her back to her senses.
he dream clearly embodies an inner theatre, which, by means of the
kiss of the nurse, is glued to an outer theatre. In another sense this
outer theatre is an inner one still, as can be learned from several seventeenth-century critics of the theatre who described it as a dark and
closed-of space in which perversities were acted out. In addition, more
importantly, the theatrical character of society is what is at stake when
we consider the scene in terms of what roles men and women or masters and slaves are allowed to play, to act out, or try out, and to what
extent. Potiphar acts as the icon for a symbolical order that is deeply
22
Joseph in Egypten, ll. 215–30: ‘Iempsar: Duur lang, ô liefelijcke pijn / Van minneschichten, diep geschoten. / Smelt Venus vier uw hart in ’t mij? / Heet zy uw hart in ’t
mijn gegoten, / En bey de harten, eens geaert, / Ononderscheidelijck gepaert? / Voester:
Genoegelijcke droom, kunt ghy dees vlammen blussen; / Ick wil, in Josephs plaets, haer
mont en wangen kussen. Iempsar: Dat ’s artseny van yemants mont. / Wie kust mijn
quynent hart gezont? / Verzoet ghy zoo dit bitter lyen? Och Joseph, duick mijn morgenstar: / Och vlught: daer dreight u Potiphar. / Hy komt ons deze vreught benyen. /
Daer moort hy u in mynen schoot. / Waer heen gevloden voor de doot? / Och voester,
help, hy moort, hy woet, om my te krygen.’
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patriarchal, as a result of which women do not have the right to love
who they want, or to be with whom they want. As such he not only
appears in the dream to chase Jempsar and Joseph apart, but he also
appears in between the two women kissing. In that context it is telling
that Jempsar is not immediately framed here emblematically. Instead of
being the uncontrolled and lustful woman bothering Joseph, she is the
victim of forces that trouble her and that begrudge her feelings of love.
She appears as such in other contemporary texts as well. he play functions in what may be called a sociocultural argument developed
between works of art, which in turn can be deined as a collective form
of staging subjectivity.
One piece of evidence of this artistic dialogue is Rembrandt’s
Washington painting. While Potiphar is extending a possessive arm
toward the woman, and she is ambiguously pointing to some inner
vision between Joseph, standing at the other side of the bed, and the
red cloth, presumably his garment, hanging over the bed post, Joseph
seems to be in a diferent realm. Not only is he standing at the other side
(of the bed, of the couple), but his garment seems cut of and no legs
below the seam are visible. He appears to loat – an image, rather than
a reality. his is reinforced by his let hand, which is just a bit above his
arm, as if he were about to protest the allegation but refrains from
doing so, from doing anything. His gaze is inward. hese elements conspire to represent him as a dream image, conjured up by the woman
who, while accusing him to Potiphar, also continues to be under the
spell of his beauty – which is also her justiication. his painting, then,
‘argues’ that the scene of the kiss remains an inner theatre, and that this
is why the three protagonists can be together in the scene. According to
story-logic, this would be a stretch; according to dream logic, it would
be at the heart of the mechanism of dreaming, a condensation.
Representing the woman in the scene and the scene of the woman’s
dream in one image, Rembrandt is arguing for her right to desire
as well as for her semiotic ability; for her status as more than property.
His works participate here in a discussion surrounding the role of the
woman, or how she is being brought to life by means of a culturally
reworked memory (more on this below) to which a name must be
attached. In the Tanakh and Bible the woman does not have a name.
She is ‘the wife of ’. In the many relections on the story and the many
re-workings of it this becomes a primary matter of concern. She is seen,
and this ‘moment of recognition of the woman’s subjectivity […] must
be the moment of naming’ (Bal 2008:31). From medieval Zuleikha to
cultural analysis – joseph plays
331
Mut-em-enet (again, the name given by homas Mann and adopted by
Bal) the name determines the role that this woman can have, the ways
in which she can stage herself or can be staged in the public realm. his
is to say that her becoming a subject is staged by theatrical means.23
Where or when the name Jempsar or Iempsar was conjured up we
do not know. We can trace the texts that may have provided Vondel
with an example, however. he English author Joshua Sylvester (1563–
1618) lived in the Dutch Republic, in Middelburg, and was part of its
intellectual circles, in which English and Dutch mingled intensively.
In 1620, his he Maidens Blush: or, Ioseph Mirror of Modesty, Map of
Pietie, Maze of Destinie, or Rather Diuine Prouidence was published.
he text was a translation from the Latin version of the story by
Girolamo Fracastoro (1478–1553), who has become famous for his text
on syphilis and modes of infection, and, in general, was one of the
more radical renaissance authors. When exactly his Josephus was written is uncertain, but it was published in his Opera in 1555. his was
perhaps also the source for a play by the so-called Polish Pindarus,
Szymon Szymonowicz (1558–1629) or Simon Simonides, who had
travelled throughout Europe.24 In 1587 he had published Castus Joseph.
In all three texts the woman is named Iempsar. his does not mean that
she appears as the same igure. Even carrying the same name, the
Jempsar of Sylvester is distinctly diferent from Vondel’s, for instance.
A sign of this is the title alone, in which the woman is placed irst, and
one could argue that the same holds for Sylvester’s story itself. In he
Maiden’s Blush Jempsar is made to fall in love by means of a potion, or
poison, and is greatly confused as a consequence.
he diference between the Jempsar of Fracastoro/Sylvester and of
Vondel pertains to cultural memory. It may be seen as a strong argument for the qualiication of a so-called stable collective memory in
favor, rather, of an active communicative memory.25 his is to say that
collective memory does not exist as a stable entity through time, but is
constantly under construction. Such a memory must be meaningful
and palpable, emotionally invested and collectively relevant. In this
context emblematic igures can live throughout the ages as Joseph and
On the names given to the woman, see Bal, Loving Yusuf, pp. 30–33.
his name is a clear reference to the famous Greek poet Simonides from the ith
and sixth centuries before Christ. In Holland, he may have seen and been inspired by
Cornelius Crocus’s Ioseph (1535); see Crocus, Ioseph, ed. Bloemendal.
25
On this concept see Assmann, Religion and Cultural Memory.
23
24
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m. bal, m. bleeker, b. carpenter and f.w. korsten
Jempsar demonstrate. But whether it is a one-sided love or a mutual
one, the relation and love between them will have to be reworked again
and again in order to afect us and stay with us. Crucial in that reworking is the decisive scene between the two. he two come together in the
theatrical mise en scène of a critical moment.
Mise en scène: he Critical Moment
In a passage from his prospectus for the Arcades Project, Benjamin
cites the interior of the bourgeois apartment as a space for the staging
of subjectivity, in which the individual ‘brings together the far away
and the long ago’.26 In the crucial scene of Jempsar’s confrontation with
Joseph, it is rather the near-at-hand and soon-to-come that are being
staged. Nevertheless, some form of ‘inner theatre’ appears to be in play.
he scene is quite direct, at irst, when Jempsar begs Joseph:
Jempsar: I fall before your knees and pay homage to your feet.
his body and this soul are prepared to pay for their debt
with such a death, as is beitting for one so desperate.
Why turn your countenance, so shy, and so ashamed
away from my face? Ay, leave that being ashamed for awhile.
What shame cannot do, can perhaps pity do,
for one who must and can die, because of you.
Please, brush away my tears.
Joseph: You crooked crocodile,
Let me go, let me go: you murder with this deceitful moaning.27
he discrepancy between a woman who asks that Joseph brush away
her tears and his qualiication of her as a crocodile is considerable,
although on a metaphorical level the tears of a crocodile are, of course,
not real tears. Moreover, the metaphor of the crocodile for a woman
who desires a man’s love was well known at the time. hus the metaphor
enhances the discrepancy between Jempsar’s and Joseph’s focalization,
26
Benjamin, Selected Writings: 1935–1938, p. 38.
Joseph in Egypten, ll. 1161–64: ‘Iempsar: Ick val voor uwe knien, en ofer aen dees
voeten / Dit lichaem, en dees ziel bereit haer schult te boeten, / Door zulck een doot,
als een wanhopende betaemt. / Wat draeit ghy ’t aengezicht, zoo schuw, en zoo
beschaemt, / Van mijn gezicht? ay zet de schaemte een poos ter zyden. / Wat schaemte
niet vermagh, vermoge ’t medelyden / Met een die sterven moet en kan, om uwent wil.
/ Ay wisch mijn tranen af. / Ioseph: Doortrapte krokodil, / Laet los, laet los: ghy moort
met dit bedrieghlijck steenen.’
27
cultural analysis – joseph plays
333
because Jempsar is surely not feigning, or faking her tears. She is passionately in love and desperate. he scene ofers a clash between two
visions. hen, suddenly, there is the critical moment, ater which it is
uncertain, at irst, whether Joseph lees or is sent away:
Jempsar: You stubborn, what a mockery! Stubborn man, go!
Get you beyond, with the good name of this Morningstar,
for whom you shut your eyes. Go report to Potiphar
how manly, how chaste Joseph has behaved,
so that for eternity insults can be thrown in my face
by you: how Jempsar was not good enough for her slave
who posed himself for the entire house so decently.
But no, you will not cool your courage on me like this!
You found my love too low, and you will feel my revenge.
I know how to cover up that shameful spot with a cloak
of honourability. I will be ahead of you.
Oh nurse, slaves, help! Oh, who will listen to my complaints.
Help slaves, nurse, help! A slave wants to rape me.
Oy Potiphar, assist; oy nurse, help your woman.
Where is the entire family now? Is no one faithful?
here he goes, running, ay he lees. What good is my complaining?
his is that cold servant. He let me his cloak
as a witness. You slaves, go ater him.
Oy, take me aside, until this is past.28
Jempsar delivers a speech that concludes the story, and yet anticipates
further action. In a manner analogous to Ruben’s speech at the end of
Joseph in Dothan, Jempsar imagines a scene that is still to come. Rather
than the crucial scene of Joseph’s report to Potiphar being staged, this
scene is imaginatively projected by Jempsar, whose declaration ‘I will
be ahead of you’ (l. 1180) rings true in multiple ways. he play is literally ‘getting ahead of itself ’, just as in Joseph in Dothan the scene with
28
Joseph in Egypten, ll. 1170–88: ‘Iempsar: Hardtneckige, o wat hoon! hardtneckige,
ga henen, / Ga henen met dien roem van zulck een morgenstar, / Voor wie ghy d’oogen
sluit. ga melt nu Potiphar, / Hoe mannelijck, hoe kuisch zich Joseph heb gequeten; / Op
dat het eeuwigh my in ’t aenzicht werd verweten, / Van hem; hoe Jempsar veronwaerdight van haer’ slaef, / Zich hebbe, voor al ’t hof, ten toon gestelt zoo braef: / Maer neen,
ghy zult noch zoo uw’ moedt aen my niet koelen. / Ghy hebt mijn min versmaet, ghy
zult mijn wraeck gevoelen. / Ick weet die schantvleck wel te decken met een’ schijn /
Van eerbaerheit: ick zelf zal in de voorhael zijn. / Och voester, slaven helpt. o wie verhoort mijn klaghten. / Helpt slaven, voester helpt: een slaef wil my verkrachten. / Och
Potiphar, sta by. och voester, help uw vrouw. / Waer blijt nu al ’t gezin? is niemant my
getrouw? / Daer vliedt hy: och hy vliedt. wat moght mijn kermen baten? / Dat is die
koele knecht. hy heet my ’t kleet gelaten, / Tot een getuigenis. ghy slaven jaeght hem
na. / Och leit my aen een zy, tot dat dit over ga.’
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m. bal, m. bleeker, b. carpenter and f.w. korsten
Jacob seems to arrive in advance without ever quite making it onto the
stage. Here the mise en scène occurs elsewhere: ofstage or, as in
Benjamin, invisibly, but here visually caught in words. Potiphar’s precipitous arrival, as with that of Jacob, occurs within an interior theatre,
and the ‘scene’ which the audience is asked to (en)vision cannot be
‘seen’ but is literally present.
Consequently, rather than looking at characters, as in traditional
representative theatre, here the spectator is asked to look with Jempsar,
to see what she is seeing. he importance of this shit in perspective
should not be underestimated, as it entails a dramatic change in the
locus of the viewer. he latter is asked to adopt the position of the character or at least to enter into the theatre of her consciousness. ‘Looking
with’ entails a reversal of the classical Cartesian (theatre) subject, whose
autonomous place outside the stage of action is suddenly called into
doubt. Exterior vision would then be replaced with a shocking intimacy or, as Bal would have it, with ‘sym-pathy’, a seeing- and suferingwith’.29 Sympathy also plays an important part in Davis’s elaborations
on theatricality. In her argument, however, theatricality is opposed to
sympathy. It is ‘the act of withholding sympathy that makes us spectators to ourselves and others’.30 Being critical, in her argument, involves
a shit from the emotional involvement she associates with sympathy
towards a situation in which we choose to withhold sympathy. It also
requires a theatricality that is outer.
Yet the point concerning the subjectivity of vision is that we cannot
simply choose how to see what we see. Instead, how we see what we see
is a culturally and historically speciic response to the address presented to us by the mise en scène, which is, here, the mise en scène of
this scene in Vondel’s play. Moreover, neither the conditioned choice to
withhold sympathy nor the failure to sympathize necessarily leads to
critical thinking.31 In order to understand the critical potential of withholding sympathy we must ask what turns such an act of withholding
sympathy into a critical act rather than being a simple dissimulation or
a plain refusal. he example of this scene in Joseph in Dothan suggests
the critical potential of the opposite movement, as a result of which
change in perspective becomes useful to understand theatre as a ‘critical
Bal, Loving Yusuf, pp. 95–116.
Davis, ‘heatricality and Civil Society’, p. 154.
31
For a more extensive elaboration of this critique of Davis, see Bleeker ‘heatre of/
or Truth’.
29
30
cultural analysis – joseph plays
335
vision machine’. his is to say that theatre is not so much the locus of
illusion, masking, and play-acting, but of questioning and altering the
perspective from which one is acting and experiencing. Or, to put this
diferently still, the audience is not so much looking at something
that is placed in perspective, but is taken up in a perspective instead.
he diference, which is critical, also emerges from a confrontation between the two Rembrandt paintings. In the one in Berlin, the
theatricality appeals to a sense of outer theatre. Rather than presenting
us with an inner vision of the love-sick Jempsar, we see before us,
clearly, a mise en scène that embodies the question of what would happen if…: if Joseph would participate in his own trial; if he were to
answer the false accusation; if he and Potiphar would actually engage in
a confrontation. Here the woman accuses, by means of her gesture of
pointing to the garment on the bed post. Potiphar, coming closer to her
and thus being more possessive in his gesture, is no longer a judge but
a participant. Joseph’s gesture of protesting his innocence is a clear
indication of an outer theatre. Whoever sees this can ‘hear’ all three
voices, see the gestures, interpret the scene. Such a scene absorbs the
viewer as one who is taken up in its perspective.
he notion of a ‘change of perspective’ entails the use of a term from
visual analysis, and as such it can be deployed in the listening to, or
reading of, a dramatic text. Drama can be seen to possess a certain
visual logic analogous to that of perspective in painting. Just as perspective structures our reading of a painting, so too ‘dramatic structure
functions as a framework that presents the audience with a perspective
on what is there to be seen as a result of which the audience knows how
to look and how to understand what it sees’.32 In both drama and painting, such structures must themselves remain invisible in order to fulil
their function, which, to put it succinctly, is that of naturalizing the
representation as truthful. Perception of what one might call the construction of perspective risks the dissolution of its intended efects.
hat is to say, it risks destabilizing the apparent self-evidence of its
alleged truthfulness and drawing attention to the construction of its
mise en scène.
Far from desiring to produce a Brechtian estrangement avant la lettre, Jempsar’s imagined scene attempts to enact the perspectival shit
unnoticeably. Rembrandt, we can speculate, brought this up, not in
32
Bleeker, Visuality in the heatre, p. 10
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m. bal, m. bleeker, b. carpenter and f.w. korsten
either painting but in the combination of both. he critical moment
occurs in the gap between the two paintings; that between inner and
outer theatre and the question of how truthful visual representation
can be.33 With respect to this, all the verbal exchanges of the preceding
acts in Vondel’s play can be seen as upholding that shit. Acts II and III
present us with a seemingly endless series of arguments and digressions
whose purpose would be to lead us to a critical moment without triggering awareness of the change that will occur, and thus to ‘naturalize’
the shit from dramatic action to narration, and from representation to
a kind of interior theatre. he fact that this shit entails an enormous
risk would thus serve to justify the verbal machinations of the preceding acts. But why, one might ask, take this risk? Why stage the climactic
scene by means of an interior theatre, both here and at the conclusion
of Joseph in Dothan? Questions such as these lead us to deine the theatrical moment at stake here as a critical moment, in a double sense of
the word. Analogously, Rembrandt draws attention to this by presenting an inner and an outer theatre and submitting the question of truth
and justice to a viewer caught up inside a perspective.
Whereas Benjamin’s discussion of internal theatre(s) of consciousness occurs in the context of the late nineteenth century, during the
heyday of phantasmagoria, the inner theatre we see here is closer to the
rhetorical structure of allegory as Benjamin elaborated it in he Origin
of German Tragic Drama. One aspect of his deinition of allegory concerned the ‘nonexistence of what it presents’.34 Elaborating on this
Benjaminian idea of allegory, Bainard Cowan stated that an ‘unfaithful
leap constitutes the essential discontinuity of allegory; in the allegorical
drama it is concomitant with a breaking of the ictional “contract” of
consistency in the level of realism by the author’s suddenly introducing
a higher ictionality into the scene’.35 And indeed, Jempsar’s speech, in
her inner theatre, introduces a higher level of ictionality into the scene,
redoubling the staging by pointing towards a scene that is not there.
hese two elements – a (suddenly) heightened iction, and a ‘pointing
towards’ that which is absent – already provide the simplest deinition of allegory. Jempsar’s act of ‘pointing towards the absent scene’ is
quite literal. More importantly, the sudden shit recalls Carl Horst’s
33
We are not claiming an intentional ‘debate’ here. For the problematic nature of
any appeal to artistic intention, see Bal, Travelling Concepts (ch. ‘Intention’).
34
Benjamin, he Origin of German Tragic Drama, p. 233.
35
Cowan, ‘Walter Benjamin’s heory of Allegory’, p. 120.
cultural analysis – joseph plays
337
description of allegory, quoted by Benjamin, as entailing ‘a crossing of
borders into a diferent mode’, a ‘violation of frontiers’, and a ‘disruption’.36 hat shit is literally embodied in the diference between the two
paintings.
Relevantly for our discussion, Benjamin analyzes this change of
mode within drama as revealing a longing on the part of the text to
transform into the visual:
he desire to guarantee the sacred character of any script – there will
always be a conlict between sacred standing and profane comprehensibility – leads to complexes, to hieroglyphics. his is what happens in the
baroque. Both externally and stylistically […] the written word tends
towards the visual.37
Benjamin’s usage of the term ‘hieroglyphic’ recalls the formulation of
Diderot, for whom the ideal drama would present itself as a ixed tableau, or a series of tableaux, whose meaning could be read at a single
glance. As in the inal scene in Joseph in Dothan, the scene here does
indeed seem to tend towards the pictorial, but the tableau to be realized
remains invisible, or rather, only internally visible.
he tableau-like efects, here made evident in the a-temporal simultaneity of Joseph’s light, Potiphar’s wrath and Jempsar’s duplicity,
suggest a similarity of the medium of theatre itself with Rembrandt’s
paintings of this scene, in which Potiphar appears not at the door but
by the bed, so that the failed seduction and the ensuing confrontation
overlap in a single image.38 But in Vondel’s case such simultaneity is
created only imaginatively. It is almost as if Vondel, while admittedly
inspired by a painting, succumbs to a certain iconoclasm, an admission
of the ultimate paucity of visual representation, recalling Benjamin’s
description of the baroque’s ‘deep-rooted intuition of the problematic
character of art’.39 Dramatic action seems inadequate to depict the climactic scene but, ultimately, so too is visual representation, so that the
text must resort to the conjuration of an internal (invisible) theatre as
the only remaining ‘stage’ for representation.
36
Benjamin, he Origin of German Tragic Drama, p. 177.
Benjamin, he Origin of German Tragic Drama, pp. 175–76.
38
For more on the Rembrandt paintings, see Bal, Reading Rembrandt, pp. 139–62.
On simultaneity as characteristic of baroque allegory, see Benjamin, he Origin of
German Tragic Drama, p. 194.
39
Benjamin he Origin of German Tragic Drama, p. 176.
37
338
m. bal, m. bleeker, b. carpenter and f.w. korsten
his sort of pushing of the text against its own aesthetic limits (be
these textual or visual) in turn suggests a inal resonance with allegory.
In its presentation of what is deinitely ‘not there’ as still present (one
could say, somewhat awkwardly, in its presentation of absence as presence) the text suggests that emotive force, like ‘truth’ in allegory, can
only be produced but never ixed; in other words, afect is an efect.
Benjamin makes the distinction here between truth and knowledge.
Whereas ‘knowledge is possession’, truth is only ever ‘bodied forth’. It is
in fact, always ‘already representing itself ’ (bereits als ein sich-Darstellendes) and comes to exist only through and in this representation.40
Here we could say that Vondel’s text only manages to move us properly
through the movement or shit that occurs in this passage, a shit that
can only ever be ‘traversed’ but never grasped; that exists only as, and
in, representation.
he moment as such would thus appear ungraspable; and yet, precisely at this moment, something is deinitely being grasped. As Jempsar
recounts her ‘vision’ of Joseph’s report to Potiphar, and then determines
to forestall this confrontation (theatrically) by adopting the role of
honourability (a role that is imaged, signiicantly, in the emblem of the
cloak), something changes hands. ‘here he goes, running, ay he lees.
What good is my complaining? / his is that cold servant. He let me
his cloak.’ Joseph’s cloak, already weighted with signiicance, will
become the key evidence – or as she puts it, her ‘witness’ – in Jempsar’s
accusation of rape, and yet there is, curiously, no sense of struggle over
its possession. In the biblical account she chases ater Joseph and rends
his coat; in the Qur’an, it is speciied that it is rent from behind. Here
there is neither chase nor rending, but rather a changing of hands
whose manner is entirely obscured by the narration. One moment,
presumably, the cloak is in Joseph’s possession, and the next it is
Jempsar’s, without our ever being certain as to the manner in which
this change came about. he actual ‘moment’ of contestation, or of this
change of hands, remains in doubt: we cannot grasp how Jempsar
grasped it.
All this allows us to radicalize the deinition of theatricality as a critical vision machine, in considering diferent modes of the moment as
critical. One concerns the shit from external to internal theatre, and
40
Benjamin he Origin of German Tragic Drama, pp. 29–30. Portions of translation
modiied.
cultural analysis – joseph plays
339
from looking-at to looking-with. But the latter pair can no longer be
projected onto the former, as Rembrandt demonstrated in the Berlin
painting. One can be enticed to ‘look with’ in outer as well as inner
theatre; what changes is the cast of characters. his insight, more
than the identity of the cast of actors, is what makes Rembrandt’s
response to Vondel’s play an important source for the understanding of
word and image relations. he other of these modes, coextensive but
not entirely equivalent, is this obscured instant of a possession changing hands which remains outside of our (but not Jempsar’s) grasp.
In the moment of internal, imaginative visioning a material change
occurs, but this material shit is itself unseen and seemingly unmotivated. We are dealing with a moment of heightened vision combined
with the inexplicable transformation (or, at least, transference) of material substance that can be read as analogous to the inal movement of
allegory in Benjamin’s Trauerspiel. According to Benjamin, the nearunbridgeable gap between inite phenomena and the ininite realm of
the idea is enacted in the baroque through a process extrinsic to the
properly dramatic action; allegory traverses this disjunction, at the
end, by means of divine transubstantiation. Yet in the case of Joseph in
Egypt, transubstantiation is not the work of divine powers. It is rather
as if this force, which has the power to emotively move us, possesses
also the power to literally move things. In other words, there is a parallel between these movements. Just as the shit between external and
internal theatre occurs suddenly and without apparent cause, so too
the movement of the cloak from Joseph’s to Jempsar’s possession seems
to occur without causality.
Such a radical shit demands our attention, since the moment is critical both in terms of importance for the development of the story and
in the sense that it cannot be seized, or grasped, but only traversed.
his leads to a form of heightened critical attention that is provoked by
a decisive, that is to say a critical moment in a here-and-now that we
have to enact. he critical moment can be deined in a twofold way,
then, in terms of theatricality. First, the moment itself is critical in
the sense that it embodies an epistemologically ungraspable but ontologically pivotal shit. Secondly, as such the moment is not something that leads to intensiication only, but to a heightened attention
that is critical because it provokes us to ask what it is we are participating in. In terms of cultural analysis, the enactment of that moment as
here and now is decisive. Consequently, the mise en scène of Joseph
and Jempsar’s confrontation, and the critical moment it entails, is not
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m. bal, m. bleeker, b. carpenter and f.w. korsten
determined or framed beforehand, either in terms of emblems or
iconography. It is part of a ‘scenic memory’ that is always a ‘communicative memory’ in which we, in whatever times or circumstances, participate. Analysis, then, in taking things apart, also demands that we
touch, and connect to what we handle, bringing our own inner theatre
in play in relation to a collective theatricality that is outer. What matters is that theatricality is a communicative afect emerging from a process of spectatorship, and that turns the theatre, when practiced by
such subtle subjects as Vondel, into the key medium in which to pose
social dilemmas before spectators capable of engaging with them in
integrated fashion on the levels of reason and afect, morality, justice
and emotion.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE HUMANIST TRADITION – MARIA STUART (1646)
James A. Parente, Jr. and Jan Bloemendal
he Play, its Subject and its Sources
Maria Stuart of Gemartelde Majesteit (Mary Stuart, or Martyred
Majesty) was published anonymously in 1646. According to the title
page, it was printed ‘in Cologne, at the old printery’ (‘te Keulen, in
d’oude druckerye’), which in fact was Vondel’s publisher Abraham de
Wees. It was also this printer who paid the poet’s ine when he was condemned to pay one hundred and eighty guilders.1 hrough the Roman
Catholic ‘cruciied royal heroine’ and ‘crowned martyr’2 Mary Stuart,
who had died some sixty years earlier, Vondel indirectly but unmistakably honoured his contemporary King Charles I, and through the igure of the ambitious Elizabeth I, criticized Cromwell, the leader of
Parliament and Charles’s rebellious opponent.3 For the Amsterdam
Protestants and the administrators of the Amsterdam Schouwburg,
this alignment with the Roman Catholic Queen of Scots was unacceptable. From their point of view, the play was polemical, blasphemous,
and inlammatory, and they ensured that the court ined Vondel for his
stance. he play was ostentatiously dedicated to Edward, Mary’s only
great-grandson and Count Palatine of the Rhine and Duke of Bavaria,
who, like Vondel, had recently converted to Catholicism.4 Vondel also
1
he text is published in WB, 5, pp. 162–238. Kristiaan P. Aercke translated the play
into English as Mary Stuart, or Tortured Majesty; the translations of Maria Stuart in
this chapter are either taken from this translation or based on it.
2
Maria Stuart, dedication to Eduard, WB, 5, p. 164, ll. 3–4: ‘Koningklijke
Kruisheldin en gekroonde Martelares’.
3
See Parente, Religious Drama and the Humanist Tradition, p. 200; Smit, Van Pascha
tot Noah, 1, pp 416–17; Vondel, Maria Stuart, transl. Aercke, pp. 11–12. Aercke also
points to Vondel’s simpliication of the parallel opposition between Catholics and
Protestants, and monarchists and republicans, ibidem, pp. 10–11.
4
See Vondel’s letter of dedication, WB 5, p. 166, ll. 51–54: ‘Ick nam de vrymoedigheit
dit treurspel uwe Vorstelijcke Doorluchtig5heit op te dragen, die d’eerste van uwe
Grootmoeders nakomelingen haer heilige asschen en geest verquickt met den Katholijcken Roomschen Godtsdienst t’omhelzen, en haer godtvruchtige voetstappen na te
342
james a. parente jr. and jan bloemendal
had a personal reason for this choice of subject: Mary was executed in
the year of his birth, 1587. his symbolic connection between both
events allowed him to celebrate his own conversion. More importantly,
Mary Stuart’s execution sixty years earlier ofered Vondel a possibility
of responding to the English political situation in his own times.
Ironically, the poet himself never saw the play staged.5
In Maria Stuart Vondel chose a much-debated subject.6 he story
was familiar enough: Mary I, Queen of Scots, or Mary Stuart (1542–
1587) was six days old when her father King James V of Scotland died,
and she inherited the throne. In 1558, she married Francis, Dauphin of
France, who, however, ater becoming King Francis II, died in 1560.
She returned to Scotland, and ive years later she married Henry Stuart,
Lord Darnley, who died in an explosion in 1567. She then married
James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, who was considered Darnley’s
murderer. Ater an uprising against the couple, she was forced to abdicate the throne in favour of her one-year-old son James VI. She led
to England, seeking protection from her cousin Queen Elizabeth
I. Elizabeth, however, immediately ordered her arrest: Mary presented
a threat to Elizabeth’s reign, since many English Roman Catholics considered her the legitimate sovereign of England. Ater twenty years in
custody, Mary was sentenced to death for treason. On 8 February 1587,
she was beheaded. Vondel’s play begins on 7 February 1587, the day
before the execution, and ends on Mary’s inal day.
Although the general subject was familiar, Vondel consulted several historical works on Mary’s life in fashioning his play.7 Vondel
acknowledged a major source on the colophon of his play: ‘Testimony
volgen’. (‘I took the liberty to dedicate this tragedy to your Royal Highness, since you
are the irst of the grandchildren of your grandmother to invigorate her holy ashes and
spirit by embracing Roman Catholic faith and by following in her pious footsteps.’) On
Vondel’s conversion, see the chapter by Pollmann in this volume. As Kristiaan Aercke
put it (Vondel, Maria Stuart, transl. Aercke, p. 8): ‘Mary Stuart was an act of faith on
the part of its author: faith, in spite of evidence to the contrary, that the Queen of Scots
was innocent; faith in the justice of the political and religious causes which the poet
himself had come to embrace; and, last but not least, faith in his interpretation of the
theory and practice of poetic drama’.
5
But it was printed. On Vondel’s proofs of Maria Stuart, see Bloemendal, ‘New
Philology’, elsewhere in this volume.
6
He may have had the wish to interfere in topical debate; on the relationship
between literary culture and public opinion see Bloemendal and Van Dixhoorn,
‘Literary Cultures and Public Opinion’.
7
Since his sources are treated at length in the Volledige Werken (WB, 5, pp. 940–44,
annotations made by C.G.N. de Vooys and C.C. van der Grat), we can be brief about
them here. See also Van de Grat, ‘De bronnen van Vondels treurspel Maria Stuart’.
the humanist tradition – maria stuart
343
from Camden, Elizabeth’s historian, a Protestant’ (‘Getuigenis uit
Kamdeen, Elisabeths historischrijver, een Protestant’).8 his testimony
is the translation of a passage from William Camden’s Annales rerum
Anglicarum et Hibernicarum regnante Elizabeth (Annals of English and
Spanish History during the Reign of Elizabeth).9 As always, one has to be
cautious with the author’s own statements, for more sources are traceable. hese would later be printed in a compilation work by Samuel
Jebb, De vita et rebus gestis Mariae Scotorum reginae (he Life and
Deeds of Mary, Queen of Scots, 1725): a part of L’Histoire de l’incomparable
Reyne Marie Stuart (History of the Incomparable Queen Mary Stuart)
by the French Jesuit Nicolas Caussin,10 and Florimond Remond’s
Opgang, Voortgang, en Nedergang der ketteryen dezer eeuwe (Rise,
Advancement and Fall of the Heresies of this Age).11 Other sources for
Vondel’s play included in Jebb’s compilation were Jacques-Auguste du
hou, Historiae sui temporis (History of His Own Times, 1604–1608)
and Romoaldus Scotus, Summarium de morte Mariae Stuartae (Short
Report of the Death of Mary Stuart, 1588). Except for Camden, all these
authors were Roman Catholics. In these ‘historical sources’, Vondel – as
an heir to the humanist tradition – went ad fontes.
Vondel’s commingling of Catholic and Protestant sources did not
mitigate his unabashed partisanship for the Catholic ‘martyr’ in the
eyes of his contemporaries. But his historical ecumenicalism was
intended not to inlame sectarian tensions but to bring together
Catholics and Protestants under the aegis of an idealized vision of an
irenic, universal Roman Catholic Church.
Vondel and the Humanist Tradition
By the time Vondel published Maria Stuart in 1646, tragedies in Dutch
generally appeared in neo-classical form.12 he neo-classical style originated in the humanist school plays of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries that were written by the teachers of grammar and
rhetoric in humanist (i.e. Latin) schools for the ediication of their
8
WB, 5, p. 940.
he irst part appeared in London, 1615. Editions of the entire work were printed
Leiden 1625, London 1627, and Leiden 1639.
10
Jebb, De vita et rebus gestis Mariae Scotorum reginae (1725), vol. 2, pp. 53–104.
11
Its subtitle runs: Uit het Frans in ’t Nederduyts vertaelt door v[ander] K[ruyssen] P
Antwerpen, 1646.
12
See also Parente, Religious Drama and the Humanist Tradition, passim.
9
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james a. parente jr. and jan bloemendal
students in Latin style and elocution, and, most importantly, Christian
ethics and the Christian (Catholic or Protestant) interpretation of historical or contemporary events. Latin school drama enjoyed an elorescence in the Low Countries of the sixteenth century, and some of the
acknowledged masters of the form, Gulielmus Gnapheus (1493–1567),
Georgius Macropedius (1487–1558) and Cornelius Schonaeus (1540–
1611), who honed their crat in schools in he Hague, ’s-Hertogenbosch, Utrecht, and Gouda, published works that were disseminated
across Northern Europe, chiely in the lands of the Holy Roman
Empire.13 In the sixteenth century, the comic language and form of the
Roman dramatist Terence was especially popular, but as the century
ended, the tragedies of Seneca were more widely imitated. In keeping
with the late antique prescription that tragedy should illustrate the fall
of kings or the tumultuous afairs of state, academic playwrights turned
to historical events from antiquity through the early seventeenth century for their dramatic material. he rediscovery of Seneca as a stylistic
model coincided with the outbreak of the Eighty Years’ War, and
humanist tragedians from the Catholic and Protestant camps turned
the school stage into a forum for debating the politics of the day. Caspar
Casparius (1569–c. 1642) and Daniel Heinsius (1580–1657) adapted
Seneca for their historical tragedies on the heinous assassination of
William of Orange.14 In the Catholic provinces, however, Panagius
Salius (d. 1595) presented arguments against revolution, and the proliic Leuven playwright, Nicolaus Vernulaeus (1583–1649) encoded
political messages of contemporary relevance about kingship, prudentia, and the primacy of the Roman Church over secular kings in his
medieval and early modern historical dramas. Alongside these Latinlanguage works, Dutch-language playwrights such as Guilliam van
Nieuwelandt (1584–1635) and Jacob Duym (1547–before 1624)
adapted and even ‘classicized’ the traditional form of rhetoricians’
plays to convey lessons in political deportment, and, as is well known,
P. C. Hoot (1581–1647) was an early proponent of the tragic form as a
vehicle for moral-philosophical and political instruction.15 At the turn
13
See, for instance, Bloemendal, Spiegel van het dagelijks leven? and Bloemendal and
Norland, Companion to Neo-Latin Drama.
14
See Heinsius, Auriacus, ed. Bloemendal and Bloemendal, ‘De dramatische moord
op de Vader des Vaderlands’.
15
See, for instance, Porteman and Smits-Veldt, Een nieuw vaderland voor de muzen,
pp. 278–83 on Van Nieuwelandt and pp. 215–28 on Hoot; Grootes and Schenkeveld,
‘he Dutch Revolt and the Golden Age’, pp. 197–98; 203–07.
the humanist tradition – maria stuart
345
of the seventeenth century, historical plays, be they in Dutch or Latin,
relected the passionate fervour of the Eighty Years’ War, and the form
was readily used to celebrate the heroic grandeur of the past – such as
the revolt of the Batavi, or the defeat of the assassins of Count Floris
V – in order to stoke the patriotic enthusiasm of the Dutch, and to
contrast ancient and medieval moments of dire adversity with later
seventeenth-century political and economic achievements.
By the late 1640s Latin historical tragedies were rapidly disappearing
from the academic stage, displaced by Dutch-language translations, or
even completely new historical works. Vondel’s Maria Stuart is, to a
certain extent, a conservative retreat into a once popular dramatic
form. When viewed against the formal sophistication of Gysbreght van
Aemstel and the complex characterizations of the Old Testament Joseph
and his brothers in Joseph in Dothan, Maria Stuart seems unidimensional and uninteresting. Is Maria Stuart a step backward for Vondel?
To what extent has he been able to incorporate his zeal for Catholicism
into his dramatic work without sacriicing the complexities of his earlier plays? How does Vondel transform earlier humanist treatments of
the subject into a worthy subject for neo-classical, Aristotelian drama?
For most of the twentieth century, Vondel scholarship has betrayed a
tendency to diminish the importance of works such as Maeghden
(Maidens) and Maria Stuart in order to reclaim Vondel as a great Dutch
(lege: Protestant) playwright. In the analysis that follows, we re-examine Vondel’s work in light of earlier humanist dramatic treatments of
Mary Stuart. Although it is unlikely that Vondel knew these works
because of their limited circulation in print, the comparison will reveal
the way in which Vondel transformed previous neo-Senecan explorations of the topic into a more Aristotelian tragedy of action.
Adrianus Roulerius’s Stuarta Tragoedia (Stuart, a tragedy)
Stuarta tragoedia,16 written by the Catholic neo-Latin poet and priest
Adrianus Roulerius or Adrien de Roulers (d. 1597) is one of the irst
tragedies on Mary Stuart’s death ever written.17 his Roulerius was
16
Roulerius, Stuarta tragoedia, ed. Woerner; see also Woerner, ‘Die älteste Maria
Stuart-Tragödie’; Kipka, Maria Stuart, pp. 94–103; Phillips, Images of a Queen,
pp. 193–95.
17
See Kipka, Maria Stuart, pp. 94–103 and Woerner’s introduction. he very irst
play was the Maria Stuarta tragoedia by Jean de Bordes, printed in Milan, 1589, and
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james a. parente jr. and jan bloemendal
born in Lille, where he also died. He became a priest, who taught at the
Benedictine Abbey of Marchienne at Douai and later became a vicar
and the rector of the seminary in his native city.18 As a teacher of poesis
at the Douai Abbey he wrote his Latin tragedy, which was performed
by his pupils on 13 September 1593. he play, the full title of which
runs Stuarta tragoedia sive Caedes Mariae serenissimae Scot[orum]
Reginae in Anglia perpetrata (Stuart, a Tragedy, or the Murder of Mary,
the Most Illustrious Queen of Scots, Committed in England), was thus
performed and published only six years ater the execution.
he play is well-documented and based on historical sources, even
down to the smallest detail.19 Roulerius mentions them himself, but as
Woerner, the editor of Stuarta, has shown, some sources were mere
‘name-dropping’, since they did not even treat the inal events.20 he
humanist will have used the ‘Brevis chronologia vitae et gloriosi per
martyrium exitus Mariae Stuartae’ (‘Short Chronology of the Life and
Glorious Martyr’s Death of Mary Stuart’), which was a supplement to
the irst edition of Romoaldus Scotus’s Mariae Stuartae […] supplicium
et mors pro ide catholica constantissimae (he Punishment and Death
for the Catholic Faith of the Most Constant Mary Stuart) of 1587.21
twice produced before May 1590; see Phillips, ‘Jean de Bordes’ “Maria Stuarta tragoedia” ’ and Phillips, Images of a Queen, pp. 189–93.
18
On him M.A. Nauwelaerts, Moderne Encyclopedie van de Wereldliteratuur, 8,
p. 177; Roulerius, Maria Stuarta, ed. Woerner, pp. iii–xx; A. Roersch, Biographie
Nationale de Belgique, 20, coll. 219–21.
19
Woerner, in his edition of Stuarta tragoedia, pp. iii–iv: ‘Er verwertet bis ins kleinste eine Flugschrit von Augenzeugen über die Enthauptung, ja er gewinnt die besten,
fast realisitsch anmutenden Dialogstellen seines Werkes, wie die Gespräche Marias mit
Buckhurst, Beale und Paulet, durch sorgfältige Nachbildung des eigenen brielichen
Berichtes der Königin über die Vorgänge in Fotheringay an den Erzbischof von
Glasgow.’ (‘Right down to the last detail, he uses a pamphlet about the beheading written by witnesses, and indeed he attains to the best, nigh on realistic-seeming dialogues
of his oeuvre, such as Mary’s discussions with Buckhurst, Beale and Paulet, through
careful emulation of the queen’s actual letter to the Archbishop of Glasgow on the
events in Fotheringay.’)
20
Woerner in Stuarta tragoedia, p. viii: ‘Die drei [John Lesly von Ross, De origine,
moribus et rebus gestis Scotorum (Rome, 1578) Natalis Comes, Universae historiae sui
temporis libri XXX (Venice, 1581) or Gilbertus Genebradsu, Chronographiae libri IV
(Cologne, 1584)] also werden von dem Professor der Rhetorik lediglich aus
Gelehrteneitelkeit vorgechoben. Und es fragt sich, ob er sie je geöfnet hat.’ (‘hus the
three are put forward by the Professor of Rhetoric merely for reasons of academic vanity. And it has to be asked whether he ever opened them.’)
21
Romoaldus Scotus, Mariae Stuartae Scotorum reginae, principis catholicae, nuper
ab Elisabetha regina et ordinibus Angliae post novendecim annorum captivitatem in arce
Fodringhaye interfectae supplicium et mors pro ide catholica constantissimae. In Anglia
the humanist tradition – maria stuart
347
Another of Roulerius’s direct sources was some letters of Mary Stuart’s,
compiled by Adam Blackwood in 1587, Martyre de la royne d’Escosse
(Martyrdom of the Queen of Scotland).22 As a humanist, Roulerius went
ad fontes; as an apologist, however, he selected his sources carefully.23
As a literary work the tragedy is modelled on the ive-act scheme of
Seneca’s tragedies, and moulded into his loty style as well. In the irst
act Roulers makes the ghost of Henry VIII appear from hell. In the
second scene he depicts Elizabeth as a monstrous malefactrix in a dialogue with ‘Dudelaeus’ (Dudley, i.e. Leicester). his criminal creature is
contrasted with the innocence of Mary in Act II, shown in a conversation with her doctor. Her only ‘sin’ is the Scots’ Catholic faith.24 She is
told that the court is formed and will meet soon. he main scene of the
third act is a discussion between Mary, Buckhurst, Beale, and Paulet.
She ponders on the injustice that will be done to her, now ‘impiety has
triumphed over the good’.25 Mary’s innocent martyrdom is highlighted
vernacula lingua primum conscripta, […] Additis succinctis quibusdam animadversionibus et notis, brevisque totius reginae eiusdem vitae Chronologia, ex optimis quibusque
auctoribus collecta (Cologne: Godefridus Kempensis, 1587). A second edition, without
the ‘Brevis chronologia’, was published in Ingolstadt (at Wolfgang Eder’s printery),
1588.
22
he second edition has the title: Martyre de la royne d’Escosse, douairiere de
France, Contentant le vray discours des trahisons à elle faictes à la suscitation d’Elisabeth
Angloise, par lequel les mensonges, calomnies et faulses accusations dressees contre ceste
tres-vertueuse, tres-Catholique et tres-illustre Princesse sont esclarcies et son innocence
averée. Avec son oraison funebre prononcée en l’Elgise nostre dame de Paris. Pretiosa in
conspectu Domini mors sanctorum eius (Martyrdom of the Queen of Scotland, Dowager
of France, containing the true story of the treason committed to her on the initiative of
Elizabeth of England, in which the lies, calumnies and false accusations brought forward
against this highly virtuous, highly Catholic and highly illustrious Princess are elucidated
and her innocence is proved. With her funeral oration delivered in the Church Notre
Dame of Paris. he death of his saints is dear to God) (Edinburgh [= Paris], Jean Naield,
1588). Mary Stuart was a patron for this Adam Blackwood (1539–1613); she enabled
him to study at Paris and Toulouse. Blackwood taught philosophy at Paris. At the time
of Mary’s death, he was Judge at the Court of Poitiers on her behalf. Woerner, in his
edition (pp. xii–xvii), shows exactly which source inspired each scene.
23
As Phillips, Images of a Queen, pp. 194–95, states: ‘[he] relied heavily, if not exclusively, on the principal propaganda documents produced by Mary’s supporters on
the continent, and particularly on those written by Adam Blackwood’. hese texts
were particularly available in Douai, the centre of Counter-Reformation, because of the
mercantile connections between Douai and England, and because in this city the irst
English seminary was established; see Kipka, Maria Stuart im Drama der Weltliteratur,
p. 95.
24
Roulerius, Stuarta, l. 449: ‘idei professus dogma Romanae Scotus’ (the Scots
believing in the dogma of Catholic faith). he quotations are from Woerner’s edition;
unless stated otherwise, the translations are my own.
25
Roulerius, Stuarta, l. 770: ‘Vicit impietas bonos’.
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by a comparison to David: ‘hus Saul in madness wreaked havoc on
Abraham’s descendant David; but he was able to lee the threat of the
ruler who chased him. For us in our captivity there is no window open,
no Michol who can let us go.’26 But she is prepared to die for ‘ancient
faith’.27 In the fourth act she is told that Elizabeth actually wants her
death. Her desperate position is underlined by Paulet’s warnings not to
try and lee. In the ith act the scafold is ready, even though it is not
visible throughout the act. Two maidens relate the beheading itself,
whereupon the executioner brings Mary’s head in.
Just as in Seneca’s hyestes, Roulerius opens the play with the monologue of a ghost, and just as in Seneca’s dramas, the irst four acts are
concluded with a chorus song. he style and metres of these songs,
however, are derived from Virgil and Horace, while the other parts of
the acts are written in the iambic trimeters of Seneca’s plays. In line
with his classical model, Roulerius viewed the protagonist more as a
victim of fate and political machinations.28 But he was also convinced
that piety with regard to Mary Stuart involved assailing the Protestant
heresy that had martyred her.29 he action of Stuarta concentrates on
the last few hours of Mary’s life and on her friends’ and foes’ eforts to
save her or to persuade Elizabeth to have Mary executed, and, inally,
on Mary’s fate – and the freedom of her soul to be a voluntary martyr:
Do you have the same power over my soul as you
Mistreat my body? And will you prohibit me to get
A foretaste of my heavenly Father’s love, in sweet hope?
I only place my hope on that. he God who shed
His blood for me, will see from heaven my blood
Shed for Him, and for the sake of the ancient rites
Of the great Church.30
26
Roulerius, Stuarta, ll. 901–05: ‘Sic in Abramiden Saul / Davida demens saeviit
motu truci; / Sed ille tecto fugit instantis minas / Potentioris; nulla captivis patet / nobis
fenestra, nulla qua emittat Michol.’
27
Roulerius, Stuarta, ll. 906–13: ‘Te, rex paterque caelitum, testem invoco, / quem
praeterire consili nostri potest / Nihil: subire praesto, quodcumque imperi / Deiecta
mulier culmine alienum ad iugum / Exsulque potis est, millies decies neci / Adsum
parata, si tot animabus feras / Abolere pestes impiae haereseos genus / Atque revocare
liceat antiquam idem.’ (You, King and Father in Heaven, whom none of our thoughts
escapes, are my witness: I am ready to sufer whatever a woman who is cast down from
the top of power under another’s yoke and who is an exile, can sufer, and I am prepared to die hundreds of thousands of times, if it is possible to destroy impious heresy,
that curse that assails so many souls, and to restore ancient faith.)
28
Parente, Religious Drama and the Humanist Tradition, p. 200, n. 105.
29
Phillips, Images of a Queen, p. 193.
30
Roulerius, Stuarta, ll. 808–14: ‘An quam male exercetis in corpus, foris / Animae
est potestas? Siccine erga me patris / Praecipere studium spe bona aetherie vetes? / Illa,
the humanist tradition – maria stuart
349
As such, the history of Mary Stuart illustrated for the students and their
audience, and indirectly for the audience ‘out there’, the necessity to
choose sides.
Jacobus Zevecotius, Maria Stuarta / Maria Graeca
Zevecotius’s Maria Stuarta was never published as such. Before the
publication its author, Jacobus Zevecotius or Jacob van Zevecote
(1596–1642), removed any allusion to the history of the Queen of
Scots.31 He made the protagonist a Byzantine princess, the wife of the
Emperor Constantinus VII, and published the tragedy as Maria Graeca
(he Greek Mary, 1623). his remake had to do with his conversion to
Protestantism.32 He changed the play once more ater his migration
from Ghent in the southern Netherlands to the Dutch city of Leiden in
1624, where he lived under the protection of men such as his relative
Daniel Heinsius. he revisions to the Maria Graeca stemming from
this period were particularly extensive.
It is telling that the play could rather easily be changed from a Roman
Catholic tragedy into a Protestant or even Reformed one. his has to do
with his literary model, the tragedy in pure Senecan style Auriacus, sive
Libertas Saucia (Orange, or Liberty Wounded, 1602) of his kinsman
Daniel Heinsius. he question is whether Senecan literary imitation
prevailed over topicality, even though the ‘Argumentum’ of the Maria
Stuarta version is explicit:
Mary Stuart, once the wife of the King of France Francis II, ruler of
Scotland, and true Queen of all Great Britain (declared to be illegitimate
by her father Henry VIII because of Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne
Boleyn), having taken refuge in England ater having sufered several
illa spero. Qui Deus pro me suum / Fudit cruorem, fundier pro se meum / Ecclesiaeque
veteribus magnae sacris / Caelo videbit.’ he translations from Latin are made by
Bloemendal.
31
On him W.J.C. Buitendijk in Moderne Encyclopedie van de Wereldliteratuur, 10,
pp. 341–42; IJsewijn in his synoptic edition of the play in Humanistica Lovaniensia,
pp. 258–64.
32
For instance, he changed the names: ‘Maria Stuarta’ into ‘Maria’, ‘Haeresis’
(‘Heresy’) into ‘Haeresis Iconoclastarum’ (‘Heresy of Iconoclasts’), and ‘Joanna’ into
‘Melicerta’, but also some allusions such as ‘Haeresis / Foecunda’ (‘widespread heresy’,
ll. 11–12), which he turned into ‘omnium / Libido’ (‘lust of all’) and ‘nulla foedifragae
idem / Damnaret Anglae’ (‘no woman would condemn the faith of the treacherous
Anglian Queen’, ll. 115–16) into ‘nulla damnaret sui / Fidem mariti’ (‘no woman would
condemn the faith of her husband’).
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james a. parente jr. and jan bloemendal
tokens of injustice, having been held in custody for twenty years by order
of the same Elizabeth in the castle of Fotheringay, is beheaded by
the sword.33
In contrast to Roulerius’s play, in Zevecotius’s Maria Stuarta the characters are abstracted from historical persons, bearing rather ‘timeless’
names, except for the protagonist ‘Mary Stuart’. he others were called
Heresy, Joanna, Old Man, Headman, Messenger, Faith and Chorus.34 In
the adaptation, the ‘Chorus of fugitive English men and women’
became a ‘Chorus of Greek men and women who led the tyranny of
Constantinus and the heresy of heodora’.35
In the Mary Stuart version, Mary expresses an acquiescent, StoicChristian worldview. It is as if Vondel’s irenic desire to have done with
schism is given an equivalent here in the transhistorical desire not to
take sides but to contemplate:
Father, will at last that day come that I
Begged for so long in prayers, that last day
Of my sorrow, on which You will give me
For the lost Scottish crown an eternal one?
Recede, false world, now I am bound to die,
I have no debts to you anymore; everything the fatal day
Will take from my remains, is stolen from me by life.
And before death, my raging, peridious cousin ordered that
I should be beret of the purple, the sceptre, and my belongings.36
Being a creative imitation of its model, Heinsius’s Auriacus, sive Libertas
saucia (1602), the tragedy ends with a funeral lamentation. Whereas
33
IJsewijn, ‘Jacobus Zevecotius: Maria Stuarta / Maria Graeca’, p. 275: ‘Maria
Stuarta, Francisci 2. Galliae regis olim coniunx, Scotici sceptri domina, ac totius maioris Britanniae (ob Elisabetham, Annae Bolaenae iliam, iussu patris Henrici viii. illegitimam declaratam) vera princeps, in Anglia profuga post varias perpessas iniurias et
viginti annorum carceres iussu eiusdem Elisabethae in arce Fodringana securi
percutitur.’
34
IJsewijn, ‘Jacobus Zevecotius: Maria Stuarta / Maria Graeca’, p. 275: ‘Maria
Stuarta, Haeresis, Joanna, Senex, Comes Executor, Nuncius, Fides, Chorus.’
35
IJsewijn, ‘Jacobus Zevecotius: Maria Stuarta / Maria Graeca’, p. 282: ‘Chorus
Anglorum et Anglarum fugientium’, ‘chorus Graecorum et Graecarum tyrannidem
Constantini et heodorae haeresim fugientium’.
36
Zevecotius, Maria Stuarta, ed. IJsewijn, ll. 1009–17: ‘Ergone, Genitor, illa tam
lentis diu / Petita votis imminet tandem dies / Mei laboris summa, qua pro perdita /
Scotiae corona, non relinquendam dabis? / Abscede fallax Munde, nil ultra tibi /
Moritura debeo, quidquid a liquis dies / Fatalis aufert, vita praeripuit mihi; / Et ante
funus purpura, sceptro, bonis / Carere iussit neptis inidae furor.’ In the Maria Graeca
version the words ‘Scotiae’ and ‘neptis inidae’ are replaced by ‘mundi’ (world) and
‘coniugis diri’ (my awful husband) respectively.
the humanist tradition – maria stuart
351
Heinsius made the character of Liberty mourn William of Orange,
Zevecotius has the lamentation performed by the Chorus and by Faith
(Fides). he entire world and even the cosmos itself should mourn this
deceased monarch. his too is a martyr drama, but its form is Senecan,
and its scope is not so much pagan-fatalistic as Christian.
Humanist Poetics: Gerardus Joannes Vossius, Poeticae Institutiones
In 1647 the professor of history at the Athenaeum illustre in Amsterdam
and a good friend of Vondel’s, Gerardus Joannes Vossius (1577–1649),
published his Poeticarum institutionum libri III (Institutes of Poetics, in
hree Books).37 It ofered no ‘new’ literary theory; rather it was a compilation of everything known about poetics from Antiquity and his
own time. For instance, both the Horatian principles of utile dulci and
probability, and the Aristotelian unities and the theory of katharsis are
treated. Its major contribution to poetical theory is, then, the structuring and arrangement of known poetical ideas.
It is tempting to read Vondel’s play alongside this manual, since he
and Vossius were close friends and valued each other.38 Vondel wrote
poems of consolation for his friend at the death of his son Dionysius
and his daughter Cornelia. hey discussed matters of poetics, and the
professor’s rich library was always open to the studious Vondel. he
poet dedicated his Gebroeders (Brothers, 1640) to the humanist professor, who in his turn highly praised this play and assured its author that
he had written for eternity.39
he Poeticae institutiones is divided into three parts. Part 1 treats
poetic iction and invention, character, meaning, order, style and
metre. In this part, the classiication of poetry according to the medium
(language, harmony and rhythm), the object (good or bad people)
and the mode of representation (narrative, dialogue or mixed) are
treated, as well as the division of the genres. Genres are discussed in
the second part, beginning with drama: tragedy, comedy and other
37
On Vossius, see Rademaker, Life and Work of Gerardus Joannes Vossius and idem,
Leven en werk van Gerardus Joannes Vossius. See also Vossius, Poeticarum institutionum libri tres / Institutes of Poetics in hree Books, ed. Bloemendal.
38
See Rademaker, Life and Work of Gerardus Joannes Vossius, pp. 260–63; 305–06. It
is somewhat remarkable that the Roman Catholic Vondel and the Protestant Vossius
were close friends, but Vossius was quite moderate; they were also both born in the
German Empire (Cologne and Heidelberg respectively).
39
Brandt, Leven van Vondel, ed. Verwijs and Hoeksma, p. 187: ‘scribis aeternitati’.
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dramatic genres. he third part is devoted to epic and other genres.
Since Vondel in his Maria Stuart renders the protagonist both a tragic
and an epic heroine, we will concentrate on two issues: Vossius’s discussion of tragedy and his treatment of the epic hero.40
Vondel’s Maria Stuart, he Humanist Tradition and Beyond
Vondel was part of the humanist tradition. As a beginning dramatist,
he wrote plays imitating the style and structure of Senecan drama.
In the mid 1640s, he became acquainted with Aristotelian poetics with
their mixed characterization of the hero. For this reason, in the dedicatory preface to Maria Stuart, Vondel felt the need to defend the tragic
heroine’s status as neither virtuous nor evil. However, his attempt to
disguise his enthusiasm for the martyred queen only cast her moral
qualities in even greater relief.
Aristotle’s laws of the theatre hardly allow a character who is so
completely innocent, as perfect as she is, to serve as the protagonist of a
tragedy […]. My solution for this problem was to shroud Stuart’s innocence and the justice of her cause with the fog of contemporary gossip,
slander, and evil, so that her Christian and royal virtues that are obscured
now and then would shine forth even brighter.41
his may have been intended to serve as an apologia for his non-Aristotelian approach to his protagonist, but given the unpopularity of
Mary Stuart in the Protestant Netherlands Vondel’s expectations may
have been overly optimistic.
he hagiographical tone of the last hours of Mary Stuart recalled the
panegyrical representation of Mary’s life and death by earlier humanist
playwrights. In the plays by Roulerius and Zevecotius, Mary had been
a heroine without fear or reproach. She is portrayed as a woman who
40
In accordance with Aristotle, Vossius associates tragedy and epic in Poeticae institutiones, 3, 2, 4: ‘Epic, too, only has to do with plot, characters, diction and thought, but
tragedy observes both these four and moreover spectacle and melody. Hence Aristotle
writes: “Anyone who knows about tragedy, good and bad, knows all about epic, too,
since tragedy has all the elements of epic poetry, though the elements of tragedy are not
all present in the epic.” ’
41
WB 5, p. 165, ll. 30–38: ‘De tooneelwetten lijden by Aristoteles naulicks, datmen
een personaedje, in alle deelen zoo onnozel, zoo volmaeckt, de treurrol laet spelen; […]
waarom wy, om dit mangel te boeten, Stuarts onnozelheit en de rechtvaerdigheit van
haere zaeck met den mist der opspraecke en lasteringe en boosheit van dien tijdt benevelden, op dat haer Kristelijcke en Koninklijcke deugden, hier en daer wat verdonckert, te schooner moghten uitschijnen.’
the humanist tradition – maria stuart
353
shows a lawless perseverance in her inal hours, aware that she will
exchange a temporary crown for an eternal one. Both authors portrayed her as a moral example for their pupils, so that they might learn
Latin and be imbued with pious zeal. Moreover, the history of Mary,
Queen of Scots was dramatized to serve as Catholic propaganda in the
battle against heresy. It was not accidental that Roulerius made the
Chorus of captive boys and girls compare the evils in Scotland resulting
from neglect of religion with the apostasy of the Jews.42
As a result of the authors’ overtly didactic and political purposes,
their protagonist became a rather ‘lat’ character, who is unquestionably a blameless martyr. he humanist Mary Stuart plays could relect
the pamphlet literature disseminated by Mary’s ardent supporters and
especially by Blackwood.43 Vondel, as a more Baroque author, can use
Mary to symbolize his own conversion to Catholicism. Her mistreatment could at the same time evoke the turmoil of Cromwell’s revolution, so that ‘the ires of Vondel’s heated defence of Mary Stuart were
not so much stoked by her tragic death almost sixty years before […] as
by contemporary events in England’.44 But what is more, in his preface
Vondel constructed an elaborate parallel between Christ’s Passion and
Mary’s inal hours. Mary dies as a sacriicial lamb for her people, just as
Jesus did. She celebrates a ‘Last Supper’ with her maidens, she forgives
her enemies and she commends her soul to God.45 As such, Maria’s fate
served as a post-iguration of the Passion. Moreover, she is an exemplary Queen, rendering Maria Stuart a ‘Fürstenspiegel’ (‘mirror of rulers’) too: ‘Sovereignly and patiently, she bent her shoulders under
the cross, and served thus as an example to all Christian rulers’.46
Vondel combines this exemplary function with her royal ancestors,
42
Cf. Phillips, Images of a Queen, p. 194. his is explicitly summarized in the
‘Synopsis’ that preceded the play; see Roulerius, Stuarta, ed. Woerner, p. 8: ‘[…] captivorum chors iuvenum et puellarum mala Scotiae religionibus neglectis comparet veteris Iudaeae malis.’
43
Cf. Phillips, Images of a Queen, p. 191.
44
Parente, Religious Drama and the Humanist Tradition, p. 200; Smit, Van Pascha tot
Noah, 1, pp. 416–17.
45
WB, 5, p. 164, ll. 10–12: ‘Weinigen streecken hier die kroon van (Gode en zijn eere
ten dienst) een zichtbare kroon en dit leven te versmaden. In de heilige boecken wort
Moses en Kristus alleen die lof toegeschreven.’ (Not many people can boast that they
have spurned on earth, for the sake of God and religion, a crown, or even life itself. As
an example in the holy books, you will ind only Moses and Christ who have thus distinguished themselves.)
46
WB, 5, p. 165, ll. 24–26: ‘Zy buight haer vrye schouders gewilligh, geduldigh
onder het kruis, ten spiegel van alle Kriste Vorsten.’
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thus stressing the righteousness of her claim to the throne and consequently her innocence of the charges of revolution brought against her
by Elizabeth.
Vondel also equates Mary Stuart and Mary, the mother of Jesus.
According to Vondel, it is ‘perfectly just’ that the martyred queen ‘is
seated at the feet of Mary. For Mary’s name she bore very worthily, and
she resembled her far more than any other queen; indeed, like Mary,
she carried her cross no less than twenty years, and she, too, was pierced
with the daggers of solemn vicissitude’.47 In the play itself, the chorus of
Mary’s ladies-in-waiting add to this parallel by highlighting the resemblance of the New Testament Mary going to see her cousin Elizabeth,
and Mary Stuart seeking refuge from her homonymous cousin.48
As indicated above, Vondel was aware that the protagonist of his play
was too innocent in the eyes of God and the Church to really be an
Aristotelian tragic hero who was both virtuous and lawed. herefore,
in the letter of dedication to Edward of Bavaria he made a feeble attempt
to weaken Mary’s excellence. But he also added to her ‘humanity’ by
having Mary ascribe her untimely end to her own sinfulness:
My own sins were to blame, they deserved such a penalty.
Most warnings go unheeded; he from whom God withdraws His
Protection does not see the trap that lies before his feet.
You become wise through disasters, and notice too late
hat you are loating at your neighbour’s mercy.49
Later, however, she declares once more her own innocence (‘I, devout
and blameless’; ‘ick, vroom en zonder smette’), which is perhaps a
political, but certainly a moral and spiritual innocence. She avows her
sins in Vondel’s weak attempt to make her an Aristotelian character,
but all in all, she is perfect. ‘By likening his heroine to the Virgin Mary,
Vondel had acquitted her of all evil, including the most grievous of all
47
WB, 5, p. 165, ll. 27–28: ‘aen de voeten van Maria, wiens naem zy zoo waerdigh
gedragen heet.’
48
his choral ode is an imitation of poem 16 in Romoaldus Scotus’s collection
Summarium de morte Mariae Stuartae (Ingolstadt: Sartorius, 1588). he poem and the
chorus hint at the same comparison of the two Marys by stating that both had sought
comfort from their kinswoman Elizabeth (cf. Luke 1:39–45), although with contrasting
success.
49
Vondel, Maria Stuart, ll. 336–40, WB, 5, p. 181: ‘Mijn schulden hadden schult, die
zuclk een straf verdienden. / Men waerschuwt al vergeefs: wien Godt zijn hoede ontzeit,
/ Bemerckt den valstrick niet, die voor zijn voeten leit: / Men wort door rampen wijs,
en ondervint te spade, / Hoe los men henedrijve op ‘s nagebuurs genade.’
the humanist tradition – maria stuart
355
human alictions: original sin.’50 But this portrayal of her innocence
eventually serves a secular purpose. By these religious parallels, the
injustice of Mary’s foes and of her martyrdom is underscored, and her
political goals – and indirectly that of Charles I against Cromwell’s
attacks – are justiied.
Mary’s martyrdom in Maria Stuart does not attain the complete otherworldliness of the Jesuit martyrs, but attests to the proud attitude of a
dishonoured queen. Ultimately she never forgives her enemies; in fact,
she is not able to relinquish the throne. Indeed, she cannot keep her
stoic calm, nor the resignation of the world she expresses in the lines:
‘What is the world, with all its vanities, but smoke? / An instant, a
naught!’51 Although she even consoles the Chorus bewailing her imminent death ‘Entrust yourselves to God, for He’ll make good the loss.
he king of kings will protect and feed His children’52 later on in the
play she will declare her sovereignty, without stoic calm, without
Christian endurance, and without any sign of Christ’s mercy, when she
begs the earls to grant the presence of some conidants at her
execution:
[…] I beg by the eternally living God,
Do not refuse the niece of Henry the Seventh,
Elizabeth’s kinswoman for eternity,
Surviving heiress of all France and Valois,
Anointed Queen of Scotland, this simple request now,
A request made in distress, which no savage Turk, no Mongol
Has ever refused a Christian!53
According to Vossius – in Aristotelian tradition – the tragic hero or
heroine should occupy the middle ground between good and evil.
Another requirement, one in line with tragedy, concerns the social
50
Parente, Religious Drama and the Humanist Tradition, p. 202; he mentions as an
example of a Christian author who considers Mary to be free from original sin
Augustine’s De natura et gratia, 36.42.
51
Vondel, Maria Stuart, ll. 1242–43, WB, 5, p. 219: ‘De weerelt is maer rook met al
haer ydelheden, / Een oogenblick, een niet.’
52
Vondel, Maria Stuart, ll. 1250–51, WB, 5, p. 219: ‘Betrouwt op Godt, die kan uw
schade licht vergoeden: / Die groote Koningk zal zijn kinders wel behoeden.’
53
Vondel, Maria Stuart, ll.1402–08: ‘Ick bezweer u by dien eeuwigh levenden, /
Ontzeght toch nu de nicht van Henderick den Zevenden, / Elizabeths verwante en
maeghschap voor altoos, / Een boedelhoudster van gansch Vranckrijck en Valois, En
dit gezalfde hoot der Schotten niet een bede, / Een nootbe, van geen Turck, noch
Tarter, woest van zede, / Oit Kristensch mensche ontzeit.’ Cf. Parente, Religious Drama
and the Humanist Tradition, p. 203.
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status of epic characters: ‘Persons should preferably be grand and illustrious, like heroes, kings and rulers.’54 Both represent heroic, outstanding and weighty actions.55 In an epic, the heroes are oten virtuous,
such as Aeneas in Virgil’s Aeneid. However, irst and foremost an epic
hero must be consistent.56 Another marked diference between the two
genres is that, while epic represents people through narrative, tragedy
does so through action, although epic ‘commonly refers to mixed
poetry because the epic poet introduces persons who use direct
speech.’57 Due to historical circumstances, then, one could argue that
Vondel has infused tragedy with epic.
Vondel did follow Aristotle’s rule that a protagonist should be neither virtuous nor evil – as expressed in Vossius’s Poeticae institutiones
and probably discussed by the scholar and the poet – more than he had
wished to. he presentation of the protagonist, however, went much
further than school drama had done. Presentation became representation – of Mary, Queen of Scots murdered by Elizabeth, of Roman
Catholicism challenged by Protestantism, of the rebellion of Cromwell
against Charles; in sum, representations of several forms of legitimate
and illegitimate sovereignty. Presentation became representation,
which is characterized by likeness or resemblance between two phenomena; by genesis, the presentation of one phenomenon arousing the
other; by identity or correspondence; or by embodiment.58 In humanist
Latin drama, the representing and represented subjects remained distinct, since plays were mainly part of a pedagogical programme that
aimed at pupils learning Latin and being shaped morally. Its public was
always relatively limited and part of the pedagogical project. In this
situation Latin drama played a role in public debate, indirectly, behind
and beyond its primary educational function. hat is to say that the
54
Vossius, Poeticae institutiones, 3, 1, 3: ‘Personae potissimum sunt grandes et illustres, ut heroes, reges, duces.’
55
Cf. Vossius, Poeticae institutiones, 3, 2, 1.
56
Vossius, Poeticae institutiones, 3, 5, 5: ‘But such a character has to be sustained to
the end as it has been fashioned at the beginning. his is Horace’s advice. […] he poet
[…] relates everything in such a way that there seems to be no inconsistency in a character.’ (Talis vero ad extremum servanda est persona qualis ab initio fuerit constituta.
Monet hoc Horatius [Ars Poetica, 126–27]. […] Poeta […] ita omnia exsequitur ut
nihil pugnans in persona videatur.)
57
Vossius, Poeticae institutiones, 3, 1, 9: ‘[…]epopoeiam vulgo ad mixtam referri
poesin eo quod poeta epicus personas etiam directa oratione loquentes inducat.’ Cf.
ibidem, 3, 2, 3.
58
On this see Korsten, ‘Macropedius’ experimental plays’.
the humanist tradition – maria stuart
357
dramatic situation, stressing the pre- or post-iguration of the protagonist, created a distance and distinction between object and image so
that drama could work indirectly as a consequence. In Vondel’s Maria
Stuart, post- or pre-iguration and post- or pre-igurated coincide to a
far larger extent due to the more publicly direct operation of theatre,
the sacrosanct character of Baroque theatre and its desired afective
pull. It was this iconic aspect that turned Vondel’s dramas into dangerous public vehicles. To be sure, Maria Stuart was not performed on
stage. It was not made part of public opinion through direct staging,
whereas many earlier humanist dramas were. But Maria Stuart was
made public through the printing of the play and as such the work presented a character that was not to be explored pedagogically, but that
embodied, artiicially, a divine presence. Whether in the minds of audiences reading the printed version or on stage, the actor or actress playing Mary became identical to the Mother of Christ – and through that
identiication to Charles I and to Roman Catholicism. In this way, as
Vossius observed, drama is potentially more immediate than other
genres, for following the Greek philosopher, a poet represents actions
rather than characters.59
Aristotle also requires that tragedy arouse pity and fear to bring
about a katharsis in the audience. he audience must be able to identify
– again! – with the characters, especially with the protagonist. For this
(rhetorical) reason, the protagonist should be neither entirely spotless
nor extremely bad; he or she must exhibit the laws inherent in all
human beings. his is the main result of the turn from Senecan to
Aristotelian drama. Neo-Senecan playwrights revelled in the rhetorical
exploration of the emotions and placed their characters in a reactive
mode; in Aristotelian neo-classical drama, action rather reaction or
passivity is central to the representation. In the humanist Mary Stuart
plays of Roulerius and Zevecotius, drama provides the occasion for stasis and relection; in Vondel’s martyr play, Maria re-enacts the passio
Christi in thoughtful preparation for her death.
Vondel is clearly not writing for schoolboys, nor is his Mary Stuart a
fearless or irreproachable heroine. She is simultaneously the embodiment of Christ and a lawed human being beset by sin – even if she is
morally and religiously superior to others. Vondel wished to legitimize
59
Vossius, Poeticae institutiones, 1, 2. Vossius deals with character – and the
Aristotelian middle course – in 1, 5. here Vossius combines Aristotle’s law with the
rhetorical – Horatian – demand of appropriateness.
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political action, or discussed questions of sovereignty,60 so that Mary
Stuart could become immortal, not by Christ’s grace, but by her act of
imitation of Christ, an imperfect but thereby all the more convincing
imitation. his delineation of her character, and the more direct role
ascribed to theatre in the seventeenth century as the locus for political
debate and action, made Maria Stuart a dangerous drama, and its poet
a potentially subversive force in Calvinist Amsterdam.
60
See Korsten, Vondel belicht and idem, Sovereignty as Inviolability.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
DECONSTRUCTION – UNSETTLING PEACE IN
LEEUWENDALERS (1647)
Stefan van der Lecq
From an international perspective, early modern Dutch studies inevitably appears to be a fairly traditional and, one might argue, even
staunchly conservative discipline. Whereas the likes of Shakespeare
and Milton have been extensively studied from a wide range of modern
theoretical perspectives, the literary igureheads of the Dutch Golden
Age are still irmly ensconced in the paradigmatic frameworks of classical philology and positivist historicism. As Jürgen Pieters has recently
argued, Dutch literary historians have a propensity to meet ‘poststructuralist’ theory either with indiference or with marked hostility.1 heir
most fervent objection to incorporating the thinking of theorists such
as Foucault, Althusser, Derrida, or Deleuze into the study of historical
literature is that this would yield ahistorical analyses: instead of being
concerned with reconstructing the function of a particular play, poem,
or treatise in the context in which it was created, such analyses would
wrest the text from history in order to transform it into a vehicle for the
ventriloquisation of modern concerns. Marijke Spies, for example,
describes the distinction between the two approaches as one between
historical research and interpretation per se.2 Her choice of words is
signiicant, implying as it does a host of further binary oppositions:
1
See Pieters, ‘New Historicism Revisited’, p. 48. here are, however, a few notable
exceptions to the general tendency towards the so-called ‘Old Historicism’ in early
modern Dutch studies. Apart from Frans-Willem Korsten, whose work will be discussed below, Pieters names two other scholars who have attempted to introduce
insights from such diverse ields as semiotics, gender studies, and deconstruction into
the debates on early modern Dutch literature: Lia van Gemert and Arie Gelderblom.
See Van Gemert’s inaugural lecture (Norse negers) and Gelderblom’s book Mannen en
maagden in Hollands tuin. he article was taken up in Pieters’s Historische Letterkunde
vandaag en morgen.
2
Spies, ‘Vondel in veelvoud’, p. 239. For a thorough evaluation of Spies’s position
and approach, and the importance and inluence of that approach in the Low Countries,
in relation to international methodological and theoretical debates and developments,
see Pieters, Historische letterkunde, pp. 19–92.
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objectivism versus subjectivism, factuality versus conjecture, representativity versus particularism, a focus on authorial intention versus
an interest in the modern critic’s response to the text, and so on. Spies’s
rigid demarcation of what counts as valid historical research within
literary departments leaves no doubt as to her opinion of theories that
would question the very possibility of such impartial positivism.
he fact that the rigorous battle lines which Spies drew in 1987 are
largely still adhered to within Dutch departments proves the tenacity of
the discipline’s ‘resistance to theory’.3 he reactions to Frans-Willem
Korsten’s recent book Vondel belicht (Sovereignty as Inviolability), in
which the author makes use of the work of both early modern and
post-modern thinkers in order to analyse the concept of sovereignty in
the plays of Joost van den Vondel, serve as a good case in point. Riet
Schenkeveld and Marijke Meijer Drees, for instance, both begin their
reviews by indicating that Korsten is no specialist in seventeenth-century literature. his rhetorical disqualiication of the author is followed
by a litany of methodological objections that is as defensive as it is
unsurprising. Korsten is accused of slapdash eclecticism, presentism,
and a perverse neglect of the time-honoured criteria of the properly
historical method: representativity, linear chronology, and systematic
contextualisation.4 Without critically examining the traditional historicist practice that inspires their own counterarguments, both reviewers
adamantly deny the merit of Korsten’s modern theoretical approach to
historical literature.
Rather than simply taking sides in this rather old debate,5 my contribution to the present volume is an attempt to blur the apparently
3
I am alluding to Paul de Man’s essay of the same name.
See Riet Schenkeveld, ‘Vondel geïnterpreteerd’ and Marijke Meijer Drees,
‘Nomadische voorstellingen’. Meijer Drees does discuss Deleuzian philosophy, but
refuses to take Deleuze’s far-reaching challenge to the historicist paradigm seriously
and dismisses his thinking as an incentive to artistic creativity (p. 180–82). Schenkeveld,
on the other hand, does ofer one interesting point of critique next to her more conventional objections: despite Korsten’s explicit intention to show the fundamental dialogism of Vondel’s plays, his own book eventually amounts to a monologue (Vondel
belicht, p. 140 et passim; Sovereignty as Inviolability, p. 140 et passim). I will come back
to this profoundly theoretical argument below.
5
Pieters traces the debate back to the two research paradigms distinguished by
German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey: positivism and hermeneutics (‘New Historicism
Revisited’, pp. 55–56). Within an Anglo-Saxon context, however, the debate is also
reminiscent of the ierce disputes in the early 1980s, when Steven Knapp and Walter
Benn Michaels denied the possibility of ‘doing’ literary theory altogether. In their wellknown essay ‘Against heory’, they argued that (textual) meaning and (authorial)
4
deconstruction – leeuwendalers
361
impermeable boundary between ‘historicist philology’ on the one hand
and ‘poststructuralist theory’ on the other. Can the traditional humanist critic, if he fully accepts the consequences of his practice, avoid
searching epistemological questions? And can reading practices based
in contemporary theory only result in historically untenable interpretations? To answer these questions I will take a closer look at deconstruction, a critical approach that many would consider to be the single
most ruinous chimera of literary theory. In order to test its productivity
when it comes to early modern Dutch literature, this approach will be
confronted with a play that explicitly asserts its own lightheartedness:
Vondel’s pastoral comedy Leeuwendalers (Inhabitants of Leeuwendaal).
One of the crucial insights of deconstruction, a term coined by French
philosopher Jacques Derrida in the late 1960s and propagated in the
English-speaking world by the so-called Yale school of criticism, is its
challenge to the assumption that language can be used to convey lucidly
a determinate meaning. Derrida uses the term diférance – the ininite
process of signiication, which amounts to a movement that unstoppably progresses along a chain of diferent signiiers and continually
defers the production of ultimate sense – to demonstrate why linguistic
utterances can in principle never acquire a ‘true’ meaning. he illusion
of such an absolute meaning can only be sustained when the alternatives that inevitably present themselves are pushed away, suppressed, or
radically excluded. In Western thought, a prevalent strategy to establish ‘meaning’ has been to set up structures of binary oppositions: male
versus female, speech versus writing, nature versus culture, and so on.
he terms of these oppositions are oten ordered hierarchically and
aspire to a status of transcendental or universal validity. In his writings,
Derrida characteristically proceeds to read a (philosophical) text in
order to expose where it unwittingly shows traces of alternative meanings that directly contradict what it purports to argue.6
In adapting Derrida’s thinking for literary criticism, the irst generation of deconstructionist critics has made heavy use of the New
intention are falsely treated as separate terms by contemporary theorists. he empirical
diiculties of such an enterprise notwithstanding, Knapp and Michaels claimed that
the proper task of literary criticism is simply to ascertain the author’s intention through
his writing. For their essay and the wide range of replies from the ield they sought to
abolish, see Mitchell, Against heory.
6
My summary overview of Derrida’s work is based on Jonathan Culler’s insightful
discussion in On Deconstruction.
362
stefan van der lecq
Criticism’s practice of close reading. By meticulously uncovering that
which a text must not say in order to constitute a meaningful whole,
early Derrida enthusiasts such as Paul de Man and J. Hillis Miller have
demonstrated how the struggle between conlicting forces within a text
unfailingly ends in aporia: the reader is faced with a tangle of antithetical alternatives that logic cannot dissolve. To see how such a reading
tactic might be productive, the work of Barbara Johnson, a onetime
student of De Man’s, is extremely helpful. In he Critical Diference, she
succinctly deines deconstruction as ‘an attempt to follow the subtle,
powerful efects of diferences already at work within the illusion of a
binary opposition’.7 According to Johnson, binary oppositions are illusory because they rely on the repression of internal diference: diference between entities is oten an outward projection of diference within
entities. To read a text deconstructively is to trace the intricate ways in
which it represses its self-diference in order to appear homogeneous,
stable, and whole. Rather than seeing diference as a reliable method of
discrimination, Johnson claims it is a textual unknown that works to
produce meaning. As she puts it in A World of Diference, a deconstructive reading sets itself up for an encounter with the surprise of otherness, which is ‘that moment when a new form of ignorance is suddenly
activated as an imperative’.8
Deconstruction has been accused of being a largely apolitical practice, and this may be one of the reasons why the works of Jacques
Rancière and Giorgio Agamben have become more and more important in the Americas at present – or the works of Antonio Negri and
Michael Hardt, for that matter.9 Terry Eagleton, for instance, with his
highly political, Marxist background, describes Anglo-American
deconstructive criticism as ‘blank ammunition’ that airms nothing
and Jacques Derrida’s own work as ‘grossly unhistorical, politically
evasive and in practice oblivious to language as “discourse” ’.10 Richard
Beardsworth, on the other hand, reads Derrida more subtly and
describes the experience of aporia, the moment when reason fails in the
face of undecidability, as the very condition of decision and action
(Derrida & the Political). If approached from this angle, deconstruction
7
Johnson, he Critical Diference, p. xi.
Johnson, A World of Diference, p. 16.
9
Especially Rancière, he Politics of Aesthetics; or Giorgio Agamben with his State
of Exception and Means Without Ends. Recently Negri and Hardt have been inluential
with their studies Empire, Multitude, and Commonwealth, respectively.
10
Eagleton, Literary heory, pp. 147–48.
8
deconstruction – leeuwendalers
363
becomes an inherently political process: it shows any meaning with a
claim to inality to be a provisional decision founded on ideology rather
than a irmly grounded truth based on logic or reason. With respect to
this, it is not so much that there is a rit in the history of poststructuralist thought in the US, between, say, on the one hand Foucault and
Derrida, and on the other Rancière, Agamben, Negri and Hardt. Rather
there are decisive nodes and connections in the work of all these.
It is precisely the political potential of deconstruction that makes it a
relevant theoretical framework for a reading of Leeuwendalers. Since
the play is a self-proclaimed celebration of peace, the deeply political
questions it touches upon have oten gone unnoticed. In my analysis, I
will seek to activate the ‘otherness’ embedded in the seemingly familiar
and uncomplicated concept of peace. I propose, in other words, to pursue seriously the deceptively simple question that the play suggests:
how can we ‘know’ peace?
Within the body of Vondel’s theatrical work, the allegorical play
Leeuwendalers appears to occupy an anomalous position. he play is
the only comedy in a long line of tragedies and is usually read as a celebration of the Treaty of Münster, which put an end to eight decades of
conlict between the newly formed Dutch Republic and the Spanish
Habsburgian dynasty. he treaty was part of the Peace of Westphalia,
which in turn settled the bitterly violent religious struggle between
Protestant and Roman Catholic nations in Central Europe that came to
be known as the hirty Years’ War. By ratifying the Treaty of Münster,
Spain and the Holy Roman Empire recognised de jure the Republic as
a sovereign nation-state. Vondel did not wait for the oicial signing of
the peace on 30 January 1648: he completed Leeuwendalers in 1647,
when the news of a general agreement was already circulating. Chiming
in with the generally jubilant mood at the prospect of peace, Vondel
chose to cast his early celebration in the form of a comedy. Since the
comic genre traces a shit from social upheaval to a renewed sense of
harmony, it must have seemed a proper literary accompaniment to the
occasion.11
11
Many critics have tried to distil Vondel’s political views on the Treaty of Münster
from the text of Leeuwendalers. As a recent convert to Roman Catholicism and an
outspoken proponent of the idea of a single, uniied Dutch state, Vondel could have
had many reasons to be dissatisied with the treaty’s legal airmation of the division
between the northern Republic and the Spanish Netherlands in the south. For an overview of the arguments in favour of and against such interpretations, see Anton van
364
stefan van der lecq
he plot of Leeuwendalers, which Vondel largely borrowed from
Torquato Tasso’s Aminta (1573) and Giovanni Battista Guarini’s Il pastor ido (1589), can be summarised as follows. In the land of
Leeuwendaal, a violent civil conlict has claimed the lives of Waerandier,
ruler of the South and son of the Forest God, and Duinrijck, ruler of
the North and son of the god Pan. Since the wives of both men died as
a result of the fray as well, their two children are orphaned. Adelaert,
the infant son of Waerandier, is entrusted to the care of Lantskroon, the
new lord of the South. Vredegunt, Duinrijck’s widow, has died in childbirth, but her daughter was safely delivered by the nurse Kommerijn.
In her desperation to lee the war-torn countryside of Leeuwendaal,
Kommerijn leaves the girl as a foundling. Vrerick, the new leader of the
North, discovers her and raises the unidentiied child as his own. he
play starts twenty years later, when the old nurse Kommerijn returns to
Leeuwendaal. She soon inds out that the bloodshed is far from over:
the gods have not yet forgiven the Leeuwendalers for the deaths of their
children. Each year, a youth from either the North or South, to be
selected at random by the priestess, must be sacriiced to Pan in order
to appease his wrath.
On the day that the fatal lot is about to be cast, the beautiful huntress
Hageroos sets out to track a white deer that she hopes will serve as a
replacement sacriice. Adelaert, who is madly in love with Hageroos,
follows her around to woo her, but his desperate pleas only meet with
rejection: since Hageroos is an orphan of unknown parentage, she
believes herself to be an unsuitable choice for the rich and noble
Adelaert. Passionately lamenting his misfortune but nonetheless undeterred, Adelaert continues to chase ater her. In the woods, Hageroos
suddenly inds herself sexually harassed by some unknown assailant:
Adelaert arrives just in time to rescue her. In spite of his heroic defence
of her honour, however, Hageroos still refuses to give in to Adelaert’s
desire.
Meanwhile, Vrerick and Lantskroon, the lords of the North and the
South, must quell the civil unrest that continues to grow as the time of
the sacriice draws near. Despite their mutual desire to cease all hostilities, they see no way to prevent or even delay the sacriicial rite. he lot
is cast, and Adelaert’s name comes up. Unlike his foster father, who is
utterly distraught, Adelaert gladly accepts his fate: he welcomes the
Duinkerken’s introduction to the play (1948). As will become clear, my own approach
to Leeuwendalers is somewhat less topical.
deconstruction – leeuwendalers
365
chance to be rid of the pain of his unrequited love. As Pan’s servant, the
terrifying Wild Man, is about to pierce him with arrows, Hageroos has
a change of heart and suddenly jumps in front of Adelaert. Before the
Wild Man has the chance to kill them both, Pan himself intervenes:
Hageroos is his own lesh and blood, and no further sacriices will be
required. Kommerijn, who has slept all day ater her exhausting journey back home, is able to explain Pan’s words to the perplexed bystanders: she testiies that Hageroos is Duinrijck’s daughter and, consequently,
a granddaughter of Pan. At the close of the play, the chorus celebrates
the upcoming marriage of Adelaert and Hageroos, which will inally
reunite North and South and bring peace to the whole of Leeuwendaal.
Whereas Vondel’s tragedies are oten characterised by a strong
classicist impulse, staging complex political, social, cultural, or religious problems from a variety of conlicting viewpoints, Leeuwendalers
insists on presenting itself as an innocuous eulogy of peace. he play’s
subtitle, ‘A Pastoral’, already announces that its setting is bucolic: it is
far removed from the city and its corruption, the elevated concerns of
the courts, and the grave matters of religion and politics. In his introductory dedication to the diplomat Michel le Blon, Vondel explicitly
warns those who would seek to read the play as anything more than
harmless entertainment:
Anyone delving in too deep, pedantically looking for covert meanings in
all the characters, verses, and words, will not ind any. We have only
selected and blended some paints and perfumes that would be able to
serve our purpose and have thus roughly sketched, on a smaller scale, the
course of war and peace so as to avoid all animosities […].12
he rhetoric of this short passage would have us believe that
Leeuwendalers is inofensive and purely ornamental: its simple sensuous pleasantries hold no hidden depths. Nevertheless, this ostensible
avowal of modesty skilfully uses the metaphors of painting and horticulture to smuggle in an intensely political pair of terms: war and peace.
Although the speaker claims that the play at hand is only fanciful decoration, he already subverts his own claim by invoking this iercely
12
‘Wie hier te diep in verzinckt, en neuswijs, in alle personaedjen vaerzen en
woorden, geheimenissen zoeckt, zalze’r niet visschen. Wy hebben slechts eenige
verwen en geuren, die ons voornemen dienen konden, uitgezocht, en onder een
gemengt, en het beloop van oorloge en vredehandel aldus in het klein ten ruighsten
ontworpen, om alle hatelijckheit te schuwen […].’ (‘Dedication to Michel le Blon’, ll.
57–62); Vondel, WB, 5, p. 265. All further quotations are taken from this edition; all
translations are my own (SvdL).
366
stefan van der lecq
debated opposition and all the politically sensitive material it touches
upon. he rhetorical structure that manifests itself here, as well as in
Vondel’s choosing the pastoral comedy, is that of the paralipsis: while
explicitly denying any interest in the profoundly political questions of
war and peace, the play delves deeply into the structure of diference
upon which this binary opposition is based. Instead of simply extolling
the virtues of peace, Leeuwendalers demonstrates how peace can never
be stably ‘thought’ at all. In questioning the primacy, singularity, and
uniformity of this concept, Vondel’s play works towards a veritable
deconstruction of peace.13
Like many a binary opposition, the dichotomy of war and peace
implies a hierarchical relation between the two terms. Although this
relation has not been a transhistorically stable one in Western European
tradition, Leeuwendalers already makes its position clear on the title
page by way of its motto – pax optima rerum, or ‘peace is the best of all
things’. Peace is the preferable state of afairs, and war amounts to an
undesirable interruption of that condition. he play represents a transition from a period of violent conlict to an era of peace ushered in by
the marriage of Adelaert and Hageroos. Consequently, Leeuwendalers
describes a return to an originary state of harmony. In the inal act, the
chorus describes the bounteous rewards of that state as it celebrates the
wedding: the people are enjoying the festivities, there is good cheer, the
cows give milk and cream, and the barrels are brimming with real butter (ll. 2013–20). All is well that ends well. Ironically, however, it is precisely these ‘virtues’ of peace that were identiied earlier as the roots of
the conlict. When Lantskroon complains of the unforgiving attitude
and blind hatred of the masses, he accuses them of ill will and ingratitude. He blames
[…] peace, which gave birth to trade, and wealth, and abundance;
hese in turn gave birth to haughty, headstrong, and scornful vanity:
his caused the dissent, too excessive and reckless,
In the midst of the feast in honour of the glory of Pan.
13
Van Duinkerken suggests that we should take Vondel’s advice and decline to look
for ‘deeper’ meanings (‘Introductie’, p. 40). I, however, agree with Korsten, who reminds
us that we are not dealing with a straightforward statement from the author here but
with a textual persona instead. his ‘orator’ produces complex rhetorical constructions
that need to be carefully analysed in their own right (Vondel belicht, pp. 19, 121;
Sovereignty as Inviolability, pp. 25, 113).
deconstruction – leeuwendalers
367
All ate, and drowned their senses in their jugs,
Until querulous words turned to blows and knives.14
Apparently, the sumptuous abundance engendered by peace also carries the seeds of discord within it. In its excesses, peace can bring forth
that which supposedly is diametrically opposed to it, war. As a result,
the two terms cannot be neatly distinguished from each other.
Lantskroon’s account of the drunken brawl at Pan’s feast makes clear
that the threat of violence is always embedded in the potential of peace
to go beyond itself. If peace can produce its antithetical other, then the
symmetry of this pair of opposed terms is broken: war is no longer
inversely proportionate to peace but rather the result of a driting apart
within peace itself. Although it is possible to read Lantskroon’s lines
as a plea for moderation, this does not change the fact that it is always
possible to reap the rewards of peace immoderately. When read in
this light, the jubilant description of the joys of peace that the chorus
gives at the end of the play becomes problematic: if peace can come to
difer from itself, how then can it ever be guaranteed?
At this point, it is important to note that the problem of war and
peace is structurally related to the question of diference and identity.
Peace, ater all, is commonly taken to denote harmony, unity, and stability; in order to ‘make’ peace, diferences have to be settled or, at the
very least, suspended. War, on the other hand, bears connotations of
conlict, antagonism, and violent opposition. Peace uniies, and war
divides – or so it appears. In the play, peace and identity are coupled for
the irst time as Adelaert attempts to persuade the huntress Hageroos
to return his afections. Since Hageroos deems them socially incompatible, she will have none of it. When Adelaert passionately ofers himself
as her prey, she brusquely retorts that ‘[e]quals are best and most peacefully paired with each other’.15 hen Adelaert replies:
Not equality in wealth and standing, but equality of minds:
Equality of minds best nourishes peace and friendship:
If that is lacking, peace and friendship cannot exist;
14
‘[…] pais, die neering baerde, en weelde, en overvloet; / Die baerden hoovaerdy,
verwaent, en trots, en smadigh: / Zoo quam de tweedraght voort, te byster en baldadigh, / In ’t midden van het feest, geviert ten roem van Pan. / Men at ‘er, en verdronck de
zinnen in de kan, / Zoo dat men tot gevecht en messen quam, van woorden.’ (ll.
644–49)
15
‘Gelijckheit paert zich best en vreedzaem by malkandere’ (l. 266).
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stefan van der lecq
Without them, I value neither wealth nor blood and birth.
It is peace and friendship that keep the world within bounds.16
he speech continues with an extensive image of nature as a series of
amorous couples that all act according to ‘the music of like minds’:17 the
surf kisses the beach, the sea embraces the dunes, pigeons coo together,
ivy lovingly wraps itself around the bark of a tree, and harts and hinds
tenderly lick each other. Adelaert can only pray that Hageroos will one
day emulate nature as well.
he word ‘peace’ does not refer to armistices, truces, and other pacts
of non-violence between states here. Seeing as Adelaert explicitly uses
music as a metaphor, ‘peace’ should probably be understood as ‘harmony’: what is evoked is the idea that nature is a properly orchestrated
whole. All internal diference in nature is overcome by the single amorous disposition that all its elements share. his identity of minds,
Adelaert claims, even countermands all social stratiication. Without
the homogenising impulses of peace and friendship, distinctions based
on lineage and wealth lose their value and the world will spin out of
bounds. What Adelaert accuses Hageroos of, in other words, is that she
disrupts natural harmony. Her obstinate incongruence causes overcast
skies and makes him wither away ‘[l]ike faded green, or grass on walls
and tiles’.18
For Hageroos, however, who sees identity and diference as cultural
rather than natural categories, ‘peace’ can only exist between class
equals. As an insigniicant girl of unknown parentage, she is all too
aware of the severe impact that diference can have in the social sphere.
Whereas Adelaert hears the ‘music of like minds’ and sees the world as
a harmonious concordance, she only registers a monotonous whining
(ll. 294–95) that glosses over a very real abyss between them. Adelaert’s
utopian fantasy of peace must repress this abyss in order to sustain
itself, and in so doing commits the violence of indiference upon those
on the other side of the class divide. By adamantly rejecting Adelaert,
Hageroos exposes the idea that ‘peace and friendship’ can bridge any
gap as a sentimental and dangerously oblivious myth.
16
‘Gelijckheit niet van goet en staet, maer van gemoedt: / Gelijckheit van gemoedt
best vrede en vrientschap voedt: / Waer deze ontbreekt, moet vrede en vrientschap ook
ontbreken; / Waer buiten ick noch goet, noch bloet, noch akomst reken. / De vrede en
vrientschap houdt de weerelt in den bant.’ (ll. 267–71)
17
‘[…] ’t muzijck van een’ gelijcken aert’ (l. 275).
18
‘Gelijck vertreden groen, of gras op muur, en pannen’ (l. 289).
deconstruction – leeuwendalers
369
In its guise as a ‘natural’ condition of harmonious identity, peace is a
highly ideological concept that cannot tolerate internal diference. he
disruptive potential of social inequality must be suppressed if the term
‘peace’ is to function at all. In a similar fashion, political peace – a state
of non-violence guarded by certain institutions – must project the volatility of self-excess onto ‘war’, its binary opposite, in order to maintain
the illusion that a neat separation between the two concepts is possible
at all. In Leeuwendalers, these two convergent concepts of peace – the
ideology of a harmonious world order and the pact of non-violence –
meet in the prospective marriage of Adelaert and Hageroos. At the crucial moment when Pan, in a sudden act of divine intervention, rescues
them both from the Wild Man’s murderous arrows, he proclaims:
Let the marriage of a pair sprung from the Gods of the Fields
Unite Leeuwendaal ater so much discord and sorrow.19
Pan makes clear that the renewed uniication of Leeuwendaal is inextricably bound to this particular marriage. In retrospect, then, the
peace that constitutes this play’s happy ending is completely dependent
on the question of whether or not Hageroos yields to Adelaert. his
goes a long way to explain the youth’s eager persistence: within the
structure of the play, his wooing is a crucial political project. he fate of
an entire nation depends on it. Tellingly – but, from a historical perspective, unsurprisingly – the object of this project is a female body.
In his book Vondel belicht (Sovereignty as Inviolability), Korsten has
argued that Adelaert’s role is an ambiguous one: although he rescues
Hageroos from a mysterious assailant, the text also suggests that
Adelaert and this would-be rapist can be conlated. Adelaert is repeatedly compared to a dog chasing ater a hare, his behaviour is almost
animalistic, and, like the rapist, he is mad with desire for Hageroos.
Consequently, Adelaert can simultaneously be seen as a protector and
an aggressor.20 In both roles, however, the crucial issue is sexual possession. his observation is further sustained by the fact that Adelaert’s
texts are rife with erotic innuendo. A few examples will suice:
If only fortune would turn me into a dog,
A partridge, or a fast hare, I would ly into your mouth:
19
‘Het huwelijck van een paer, geteelt uit Ackergoden, / Vereenigh’ Leeuwendael, na
zoo veel twist en smert.’ (ll. 1865–66).
20
Korsten, Vondel belicht, pp. 129–29; Sovereignty as Inviolabiltiy, pp. 114–19.
370
stefan van der lecq
I’d want to give you all that’s mine and would humbly ofer you
My body, my soul, and my life as bounty for you to plunder.21
he maid relieves the cattle’s dugs twice a day,
When they are crammed with milk and cream:
And I, though I constantly complain of my misery to you,
Am never relieved of the yoke of lovers’ cares.22
My salvation would be complete if my morning star,
My sweet Hageroos, could be present here,
And would deign to catch my spirit with her mouth
When life’s essence departs through the heart’s wound,
Still red and warm with blood – blood that I will gladly
Commend to her, if I were to die in her favour.23
If one were to put it anachronistically, these passages could be called
masochistic, racy, and morbid respectively. In all of them, Hageroos’s
body is turned into an object to which Adelaert has to gain ‘access’.
Whether this is to be accomplished by a fantasy of ingestion, an appeal
to a woman’s duty to ofer ‘relief ’, or an attempt at ghostly possession, he
will in any case become one with her. Even when Adelaert is about to
die, his overwhelming desire to claim the body of his love interest is the
irst and foremost thing on his mind. As a inal request, he asks his
foster father to make sure that Hageroos and he will be interred in the
same grave. Should she die a virgin, her pure corpse can be used to consecrate his burial place (ll. 1758–61). he inscription he would like to see
on their tombstone, however, proves that his own intentions for that
corpse are anything but pure: ‘Here slumbers Hageroos, lying next to
Adelaert: / Her cold bones can still ignite his ashes’.24 Adelaert’s desire
to physically possess Hageroos’s body persists even beyond death.
In Leeuwendalers, the female body is constantly in danger of being
ravished, utilised, or overtaken by men. Even their supposed concerns
for its safety should in fact be read as silent airmations of the female
21
‘Veranderde ’t geluck my heden in een’ hont, / Patrijs, of snellen haes, ick vloogh
u in den mont: / Ick woude u al het mijne, en lijf en ziel en leven / Ootmoedigh tot een’
buit en roof ten beste geven.’ (ll. 259–62)
22
‘De meit ontlast het vee zijn uiers, stijf gespannen / Van zoete melck en room, wel
tweemael alle daegh: / En ick, die, dagh op dagh, u mijn ellende klaegh, / Wort nimmermeer ontlast van ’t juck der minnezorgen.’ (ll. 290–93)
23
‘Ick zaegh mijn heil voltoit, zoo nu mijn morgenstarre, / Mijn lieve Hageroos hier
tegenwoordigh stont, / En my gewaerdighde mijn’ geest met haren mont / Te vangen,
als de ziel ter hartwonde uit zal vaeren, / Noch root en warm van bloet, van bloet, het
welck ick gaeren / Ten beste geve, indien ick in haer gunste sterf.’ (ll. 1808–13)
24
‘Hier sluimert Hageroos, by Adelaert gezoncken: / Haer koudt gebeente kan zijn
assche noch ontvoncken’ (ll. 1763–64).
deconstruction – leeuwendalers
371
body’s vulnerability. When Hageroos explains how she narrowly
escaped from the clutches of a rapist, the chorus replies that such a
thing is bound to happen to women who roam the woods ‘[a]lone and
unaccompanied’ (‘Alleen, en onverzelt’, l. 893). What the chorus implicitly chides Hageroos for here is her earlier refusal of male protection: in
order not to become a possible target for any man’s wild desires, she
should have given in to those of a single man. To yield means being
protected, to resist means being at risk. In a scene that similarly revolves
around the idea of the female body being an object created for the use
of men, Heereman, Lantskroon’s steward, has devised a scheme to save
Adelaert from his grisly fate. He asks Hageroos to don a beautiful dress
and ‘enthral’ the executioner, the fearsome Wild Man, with wine and
music. Hageroos, however, realises full well what ‘enthralling’ means
in this context. ‘I have only just escaped from the abuser’, she replies,
‘[a]nd do not want to betray myself so recklessly’.25 Heereman’s ruse
amounts to using Hageroos’s sexual allure as a trap; in his view, the possible loss of honour – the devaluation of her maidenly status – is a small
price to pay if there is a chance to rescue Adelaert. He is quite willing to
accept the danger of rape and proposes to ‘trade’ Hageroos’s bodily
integrity for Adelaert’s life. his cynical gesture once more bespeaks a
utilitarian view of the female body: it is a tool that can be employed in
the political dealings of men, a prized object that has to be acquired or
defended, and a vessel for male fantasies of sexual possession.
Within a world that invests the female body with such problematic
and potentially destructive meanings, the marriage that Pan inally
ordains might seem to be the most blissful solution. Yet, upon closer
inspection, it turns out that the supposed nuptial bliss and subsequent
peace in fact rely upon an act of silencing. When Hageroos intercedes
at the sacriicial ritual and challenges the Wild Man to kill her irst, she
explains her sudden readiness to die to Adelaert: ‘Your devotion obliged
me: now I will ofer up my body / And take your place’.26 Tellingly, she
does not give her body to Adelaert here: just as Adelaert prevented her
from being raped, Hageroos now shields him from a diferent type of
violent penetration. She is willing to give her life to repay him, but
nowhere does she explicitly concede to Adelaert’s will. From the
25
‘[I]ck ben den schender pas ontgaen, / En wil zoo reuckeloos my zelve niet verraên’ (ll. 1465–66).
26
‘Uw trouw verplichte my: nu geef ick ’t lijf ten beste, / En trede in uwe plaets’
(ll. 1836–67).
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stefan van der lecq
moment that Pan intervenes and ‘pronounces’ the wedding, Hageroos
has no more lines. he stage is let to the male authorities, who can
conclude their business: Lantskroon appoints himself ‘Father of Peace’
(‘Vredevader’, l. 1984), plans the future political constellation of
Leeuwendaal, and orders his subjects to give thanks to their divine saviour. Hageroos’s unwavering resistance to male political desires, her
adamant refusal to conform to an ideology of peace that would seek to
erase diference, and her freedom to dispose of her body as she sees it
are all ignored in the end: when Pan resolves the diferences between
North and South by a display of divine force, he also smothers the play’s
one dissenting voice.
It may be surprising that Pan, the one who grants peace, simultaneously functions as an agent that curbs discordant elements here.
However, the ambiguity of this particular character has been the subject of some debate. Since Leeuwendalers is an allegory and Pan is the
only god who is continually being invoked, he is usually taken to be a
representation of the one true God. In his dedication to Le Blon, Vondel
takes ample time to justify his choice: since ‘Pan’, in Greek, means ‘all’,
he is the most appropriate igure to refer to the divine origin of everything in nature. Apart from being a particular pastoral deity, then, Pan
also preigures the Christian God by way of his transcendental aspects.
As stated by Van Duinkerken, Vondel’s use of Pan skilfully balances
two equally undesirable alternatives: the unabashed portrayal of heathen polytheism on the one hand and a direct representation of the
conlicts of a deeply divided Christian world on the other.27 W.A.P. Smit
has further endorsed the notion that Vondel’s Pan suggests the one
true God without actually being Him. In that way, or so Smit claims,
the didactic message that the Peace of Münster was an act of divine
grace could be conveyed without abandoning the inofensive guise of
the Arcadian iction.28 What both Smit and Van Duinkerken propose,
in other words, is to separate Pan’s pagan traits from his properly monotheistic aspects and only read the igure allegorically when its presentation does not conlict with orthodox Christianity. his proposition is
profoundly ideological, since it entails interpreting selectively in order
to achieve a certain sense of hermeneutic unity: contradictory elements
within a single character are explained away as simple reminders of the
play’s ictionality.
27
28
‘Introductie’, p. 46.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 1, pp. 456–58.
deconstruction – leeuwendalers
373
Korsten provides an elegant solution to this interpretive conundrum
by arguing that the play juxtaposes pagan polytheism and Christian
monotheism as sovereign religious cultures within the same body:
instead of being supplanted by Christianity, classical traditions are activated and start to create a complex interdiscursive ield of meanings.29
Korsten’s subsequent suggestion that Pan presents a full-ledged alternative to the Christian logic of the necessary sacriice, however, is
somewhat more problematic. It may be so that this highly ambiguous,
semi-bestial classical deity cannot be stably translated into the one true
God, but neither can he simply serve as the latter’s positive antithesis.
Korsten, however, seems to suggest as much when he distributes the
binary pairs reasonable/unreasonable, peacegiver/warmonger, and
compassion/ruthlessness between them. Although Pan eventually puts
a stop to the civil war, this momentary display of reasonability is actually an integral part of the theatrics of absolute power. Precisely because
it is an act of grace, Pan’s intervention is also an airmation of divine
omnipotence. In ‘giving’ peace, he simultaneously quells Hageroos’s
resistance to homogenisation, forcibly expunges diference, and reafirms his sovereign right to grant (or withhold) his bounty as he pleases.
In doing so, he does not become a real alternative to divinely authorised violence but a diferent type of potentate instead.
To further illustrate my point, I will return to the third act. Hageroos
has just informed the chorus of the attempted rape and has let to worship Pan in the chapel. Adelaert, who has captured and released her
mysterious assailant, is now secretly spying on her from behind a column. At this point, the chorus observes that no one can seem to love a
woman without displaying beastly behaviour: all love-smitten men
grunt like boars or howl like dogs. hen, the chorus suddenly makes
mention of some crucial myths concerning Pan:
But they say that Pan sought his diversions in the East,
Near a stream, and that he chased them through the reeds:
hat he, to impregnate the ancient moon by night,
Disguised himself as a goat, yes, even had to become a goat;
If one is allowed to say so, since it is seen or heard by no one.30
29
Korsten, Vondel belicht, pp. 141–42; Sovereignty as Inviolability, pp. 129–30.
‘Al pratenze dat Pan, in Oostlant, bij een’ vliet, / Zijn mallicheden zocht, en naerpeurde in het riet: / Dat hy, om d’oude maen by avont te begorden, / Ging mommen, als
een bock, ja zelf een bock most worden; / Indien men ’t zeggen magh, daer ’t niemant
ziet, en hoort.’ (ll. 1053–57)
30
374
stefan van der lecq
Like Adelaert, Pan can apparently fall prey to his lusts and quite literally become a beast. Unlike Adelaert, however, he does not transfer his
wild desires to the heated discourse of fantasy: as a brutish but powerful god, he simply takes what he wants. In a footnote, Smit euphemistically calls the mythical narratives that are referred to in these lines
‘erotic adventures’31 – they have no other purpose than reairming that
Pan is an Arcadian iction that can never be totally converted into a
symbol for God. In the case of a play that is charged with male sexual
desire, that features at least one attempted rape, and in which the political fate of a nation eventually depends on whether a young woman
yields her body, such a reading falls painfully short. he implication
that the peacegiver, the one who is responsible for the long-awaited
comic ending, is also a rapist changes the entire play. If Pan has the
power to freely indulge his animal impulses, hounding and impregnating nymphs and goddesses – unseen, unheard, and, consequently,
unchecked – the peace that he proclaims is dangerously dependent
upon his whims. In fact, the chorus’s reference to the rape narratives
makes clear that the entire plot centring on Hageroos is structured in a
disturbingly similar way: a man can hardly contain his desire for a
woman who refuses him, ater which she is forced into submission and
silenced by a superior power. When Pan simply ordains the marriage,
exploits his granddaughter’s body for political reasons, and suppresses
her resistance to male domination, his actions metaphorically constitute rape.
In Leeuwendalers, peace is anything but peaceful. he continual
blazoning of the word throughout the play is an attempt to veil a diferent kind of violence. Stemming from internal repression, this aggression is systematically directed at the levelling of all diferences that the
ideology of harmony cannot tolerate. Social inequality is ignored,
female dissent is overruled, and past injustices are erased by decree. It
is this tension that is epitomised in the verb ‘to pacify’, which bears the
connotation of ‘restoring the peace’ but also of ‘violently subjugating’.
By entwining the course of war and peace with the narrative structure
of rape, Leeuwendalers deeply unsettles the seemingly unproblematic ideology of a harmonious unity and deconstructs its claim to superiority. he play suggests that peace, a harmonious state of non-violence,
can only come about by violently suppressing self-diference and
otherness.
31
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 1, p. 458, n. 3.
deconstruction – leeuwendalers
375
In his Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas, Derrida contrasts Kant’s use of
the concept of peace to that of his late friend. He concludes that Kantian
peace is a condition that must be instituted by nation-states in order to
ward of a return to the natural state of war. As a promise, however, it
‘indeinitely and inevitably retain[s] within it a trace of the violent
nature with which it is supposed to break’.32 his threat permanently
contaminates even the most sincere promise of peace: ater all, there is
always the potential for renewed hostility. In Leeuwendalers, Pan’s sovereign position allows him to violate his self-proclaimed peace whenever he would see it. Since his track record includes human sacriice
and rape, the play does not end on an unequivocally comic note. he
very institution of Pan’s peace is at the same time a threat of further
violence: what an absolute power gives it can just as easily withdraw. It
is this notion of a whimsical and violent divine sovereignty that
Lantskroon questions when he asks: ‘Is a deity not able to relinquish
her rights?’– and it is also this notion that Vrerick docilely airms: ‘he
master does not allow the servant to reproach him’.33
he opening question of this essay was whether deconstruction, a
modern theoretical approach, would be absolutely incompatible with
traditional philology. On one level, the answer would have to be that it
is. A deconstructionist cannot subscribe to the notion that a text can be
reconstructed according to its author’s original intentions. he slippery
system of language itself would make that enterprise futile. On a diferent level, however, the deconstructionist is in fact the ultimate philologist: he continues to pursue the text until its fabric of signiication
becomes too intricate to perceive. As Barbara Johnson has argued,
the humanist critic stops reading when the text ‘stops saying what it
ought to have said’ – he stops, in other words, when his interpretation
its into a familiar (historical) frame.34 he deconstructionist, however,
can allow mutually exclusive readings to exist simultaneously, thereby
allowing the past to speak with many voices.
In her review of Vondel belicht, Schenkeveld indicts Korsten for
turning the internal dialogues of Vondel’s plays into a monologue.
he orthodox Christian Vondel, who in the end accepts the human suffering that is part and parcel of God’s inscrutable purposes, has been
32
Derrida, Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas, p. 89.
‘Vermagh een Godtheit niet te scheiden van haer recht?’, (l. 683); ‘De meester laet
zich niet bedillen van den knecht’ (l. 684).
34
Johnson, ‘Teaching Deconstructively’, p. 140.
33
376
stefan van der lecq
iltered out and is replaced by a suspiciously modern Vondel – a Vondel
who rejects religiously motivated violence and emphasises the sovereign potential that is intrinsic to human society itself.35 Bearing in
mind my own experiences in the case of Leeuwendalers, however,
I would put it somewhat diferently: Korsten’s questioning, passionate,
life-airming igure is placed next to the ultimately submissive believer.
he polyphonous ingenuity of Vondel’s verses makes it maddeningly
impossible for the reader to opt safely for either interpretation. It is this
aporia that enables us to fully appreciate the impact of Vondel’s theatrical works, without either locking them in the past or forcibly jerking
them into our postmodern age. In the end, only a reading that allows a
historical text its self-contradictions, suspensions, subversions, and
uncertainties can do justice to both its historicity and its existence in
the present.
35
Schenkeveld-van der Dussen, ‘Vondel geïnterpreteerd’, p. 140 et passim.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
RELIGION AND POLITICS – LUCIFER (1654) AND MILTON’S
PARADISE LOST (1674)
Jan Frans van Dijkhuizen and Helmer Helmers
Ever since the seventeenth century, Vondel’s Lucifer (1654) has been
the subject of controversy. he bone of contention has always been the
play’s portrayal of the relationship between religion and politics. Soon
ater its irst performance, a pamphleteer denounced Lucifer as hypocritical on the grounds that it concealed a political message in a religious cloak. According to this early critic, Vondel wrote the play
‘supposedly for pious ediication / so that he may rage against England’.1
Late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century scholars have
similarly read Lucifer as a veiled political attack, though not always on
the English revolt. Some interpreted the play as an allegory of the
Dutch revolt against Spain,2 while one critic even suggested that Lucifer
is an allegory of the Wallenstein revolt of 1634.
Modern Vondel scholars have rightly resisted reading the play as a
straightforward political allegory. Joris Noë’s observation that Vondel’s
piety did not permit him to write biblical plays with a topical purport –
that it would have amounted to blasphemy if he had reduced sacred
stories to secular allegories – is not without ground.3 Yet in exploring
new ways of reading Vondel’s plays, and especially his biblical plays,
critics have increasingly de-politicised and de-historicised them.4 Only
in the 1990s did scholars like Henk Duits, Bettina Noak, and Jill Sterne
overcome the reluctance to historicise Vondel’s plays and to read them
1
‘Kwansuis tot stichtelijke leer, / Opdat hij tegen England ga te keer’, Anonymous,
‘Warachtig God, geen Jupiter’ (1654). his poem was published in Apollos Harp (1658).
Cf. Te Winkel, Ontwikkelingsgang IV, p. 258.
2
Jonckbloet, ‘Vondel’s Lucifer eene politieke allegorie’; Vondel, Werken, ed. Van
Lennep, V, pp. 291–314.
3
Noë, De religieuze bezinning van Vondels werk, p. 93.
4
See, for instance: Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah; Langvik-Johannessen, Zwischen
Himmel und Erde; King, ‘he Sacramental hought in Vondel’s Drama’; Parente, ‘he
Biblical Tragedies of Joost van den Vondel’; Konst, ‘ “Het goet of quaet te kiezen” ’.
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politically, with an eye for topical concerns. However, they focused on
the secular plays: Batavische gebroeders (Batavian Brothers), Maria
Stuart, and Faëton respectively.5 It seems that the reluctance among
earlier critics to read the biblical plays with an eye for the political
implications continued to afect later readers. But it would be a mistake
to posit a distinction between Vondel’s religion and his politics.
Frans-Willem Korsten has recently argued that ‘[i]n Lucifer the
divine or theological type of sovereignty stands opposite to the political
type’.6 In more historical terms, the opposition is between divine right
theory and a contractual conception of government in which power
derives from the people instead of God. On Korsten’s reading, Lucifer
is the tragic character of the play: accused of hypocrisy by Rafael and
the other loyal angels, he is himself a victim of God’s ‘ultra-hypocrisy’.
He is assigned an oice which gives him responsibility for maintaining
peace and order among the angels. To live up to this task, Lucifer needs
to act independently; he needs to ‘re-present God’ yet lacks the tools to
do so. Before God’s all-seeing eye, he ‘has no room for political manoeuvring’. In fact, Lucifer, despite his oice, has no real power, and either
has to feign possessing the sovereignty allotted to him, or has to break
the existing order.7
Korsten carefully deines the issue of sovereignty that sits at the heart
of Vondel’s Lucifer but his is essentially a secular, presentist reading, not
unlike William Empson’s famous reading of Milton’s Paradise Lost.8
his does not necessarily disqualify his argument. Indeed, the play
does seem to portray God as a tyrant to any secular reader, past or present. Yet anyone seeking a historical reading of a play written by a pious
Catholic for an audience which – although obviously pluriform – at the
very least believed in the existence of a good God, has reason to be
alarmed when God emerges from his analysis as an ultra-hypocrite.
From a historicist point of view, the possibility or even plausibility of
such an interpretation of Lucifer is a problem. Our purpose here is not
to refute Korsten’s reading, but to come to understand what makes him,
as well as earlier critics, arrive at a conclusion that would seem to be at
5
Duits, Van Bartholomeusnacht tot Bataafse opstand; Stern, ‘A Playwright in his
Time’; Noak, Politische Aufassungen im niederländischen Drama des 17. Jahrhunderts.
6
Korsten, Vondel belicht; Sovereignty as Inviolability.
7
Korsten, Vondel belicht, p. 199; Sovereignty as Inviolability, p. 178.
8
In Empson, Milton’s God argues that the hero of Paradise Lost is in fact Satan. Very
much like Korsten, Empson contends that Milton struggled ‘to make his God appear
less wicked than the traditional Christian one’ (Milton’s God, p. 11).
religion and politics – lucifer
379
odds with Vondel’s own sensibility, and arguably with many contemporary interpretations of the play.
he presupposition of a separation between religion and politics
seems to be hard-wired into Vondel criticism. When Korsten states
that the tragic conlict in Lucifer is the impossibility of politics in the
face of an all-powerful and perfect God, he approaches Vondel’s play
with pre-established modern ideas about the relationship between religion and politics.9 In fact, the problem he signals is a reformulation of
the problem of evil: how can there be evil (or imperfection) when God
is at once wholly good and omnipotent? Ater all, had heaven been
perfect, there would be no need to preserve order. For the same reason,
Peter King even goes as far as to call Lucifer a ‘failed theological play’.10
he problem with these readings is that the politico-religious argument
of Lucifer is precisely what its critics reject a priori. By depicting heaven
as a state,11 Vondel is making an essentially religious claim: he shows
what he perceives to be the essential analogy and continuity between
religion and politics – between sacred eternity and secular history, as
well as divine and human authority. Far from being blasphemous, we
will argue, this is an essential part of his religious outlook.
In its emphasis on the religious dimension of the political in Lucifer,
this essay draws on the recent ‘religious turn’ in literary studies, analysed, for instance, by Ken Jackson and Arthur Marotti.12 Part of the
argument of this religious turn is that literary critics, in their accounts
of religion, have too oten seen the spiritual as a mere smokescreen for
the supposedly more real concerns of power in its various manifestations. In this way, they efectively reformulate the religious in political
terms. As Jackson and Marotti argue, especially New Historicists and
cultural materialists, ‘when they dealt with religious issues, quickly
translated them into social, economic and political language’.13 Religion,
for these critics, was almost a form of ‘false consciousness’.14 Recent
scholarship has shown a renewed interest in what may be termed
9
Of course, Korsten is not unaware of the intimate relationship between religion
and politics in the seventeenth century. In fact, he devoted an entire chapter to ‘Politiek
en religie in omarming’ (he Embrace of Politics and Religion).
10
King, ‘Vondels Lucifer’.
11
Cf. Osterkamp, ‘Joost van den Vondel: Lucifer’.
12
Jackson and Marotti, ‘he Turn to Religion in Early Modern English Studies’.
13
Idem, p. 167
14
Ibid, pp. 167–68.
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‘religion as religion’, turning to issues such as the nature of spiritual or
mystical experience, ritual, and theological doctrine – precisely the
topics that seemed to be resistant to the politicised critical vocabulary
of the 1980s and much of the 1990s. In a sense, this essay seeks to contribute to this development not by depoliticising religion but by making the political religious, that is to say, by treating the notion that
monarchical power is sacrosanct as rooted in a serious and sincere conviction. It is worth noting that there is a kind of methodological mirror
efect at work here. he historical question that we are investigating – is
power sacred? – is intertwined with the methodological developments
we have outlined. In their relentless politicising of religion, late twentieth-century critics showed themselves in part to be the descendants of
the political debates of the mid-seventeenth century.
In order to throw into relief the politico-religious claim made in
Lucifer, and to clarify the terms of the debate in which it intervened, we
will read the play in relation to John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667/1674).15
Both texts investigate the nature of authority by appropriating the same
basic narrative of Lucifer’s rebellion against God, and the political
import of this myth in Lucifer becomes clear if we contrast it with
Paradise Lost. Milton scholars have frequently pointed out that the
political upheavals of the mid-seventeenth century called for a reinvestigation of the consequences of this central Christian myth.
Indeed, any conlict about authority and government on earth was ultimately bound up with the question of the Fall. As William Poole
phrases the question, ‘[i]f man was fallen and wayward, how should he
be governed?’16 he tale of the rebellion and fall of Satan in itself begged
the question of the relation between politics and the sacred, between
power in its earthly and divine manifestations: how are we to conceive
of a human political concept like rebellion in a heavenly context? Both
Paradise Lost and Lucifer are concerned with the nature of Satan’s
revolt, of Adam’s sovereignty, and of God’s kingship. Can Satan’s rebellion be adequately understood in the terminology of worldly politics,
and can the hierarchy that God created in heaven be construed in these
terms? Conversely, can earthly authority derive its legitimacy from a
divinely ordained order? hese questions, prompted by the political
15
For an earlier comparison, see Bekker, ‘he Religio-philosophical Orientations’.
Bekker focuses on the diferences between Catholic and Protestant representations of
Lucifer.
16
Poole, Milton and the Idea of the Fall, p. 9.
religion and politics – lucifer
381
upheavals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, were essentially
theological in nature.
As we will argue, the solutions to these questions presented by
Milton are diametrically opposed to the theological argument of
Lucifer. A comparison between the two works is enlightening because
it foregrounds the issue that is at stake: the relation between sacred
power and postlapsarian human government. It is the Protestant
republican Milton, rather than the Catholic royalist Vondel, who imagines an unbridgeable divide between divine and worldly power, and it
is Milton for whom Satan’s rebellion and the Fall of mankind justify a
revolt against tyranny (although he does so emphatically without sympathising with Satan’s rebellion, and without presenting God as a
tyrant).
In the light of the above, it is striking that the earliest surviving
response to the play should have chastised Vondel for blending the religious and the political, since modern scholarship has grappled with
exactly the same issue. It is imperative to realise, however, that this irst
critique approached Vondel’s play from a Reformed perspective that is
akin to Milton’s, and that has since come to dominate Western political
thought. Similarly, those modern critics who read Lucifer as a political
allegory efectively apply Milton’s perspective – the validity of which
they presuppose – to Vondel. In order to arrive at a historical understanding of Vondel’s investigation of the relation between politics and
the sacred, it is necessary to accept the seventeenth-century debate in
which he was participating on its own terms, and to appreciate that it
was as yet unresolved in Vondel’s time.
he Debate on Royal Authority in the Anglo-Dutch Context
he question of the sacredness of political authority was one of the
central issues in the politico-religious debates and struggles of seventeenth-century Europe. he Dutch revolt against Spain, the Bohemian
rebellion, the hirty Years War, the Fronde, and the English Revolution
were separate manifestations of a broad, largely religious, pan-European conlict that had its roots in the uninished business of the
Reformation. In this section we will focus on the Anglo-Dutch dimension of the debate.
Although the Dutch Republic was on one level the product of a
revolt against a sovereign king, its defenders claimed not to reject
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divine kingship per se, but rather to stand up against the tyranny of the
king’s representatives. Indeed, the more fundamental debate about the
sacred nature of authority did not reach full strength until the midseventeenth century. In the case of England, 1603 saw the accession to
the throne of a monarch who believed irmly and vocally in sacred
kingship, yet the Revolution of the 1640s was premised in part on
a secular, contractual conception of monarchy. Moreover, if the
Restoration was greeted by some as the return of absolutist monarchy,
less than thirty years later, the Revolution of 1688 resulted in a radical
delimiting of monarchical power in favour of the authority of
Parliament, even in so vital a matter as royal succession.
he seventeenth-century debate about political hierarchy was partly
conducted in literary texts. he poetry and drama of the period confronted diferent notions of authority with each other, and investigated,
through the lens of the literary imagination, the implications of the
various competing models. William Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1605–
1606) and King Lear (1603) are two particularly resonant examples. If
the murder of Duncan is presented as a violation of divine monarchy –
‘Most sacrilegious murther hath broke ope / he Lord’s anointed temple’ (2.3.67–68) – Duncan’s death also marks the demise of sacred
Scottish royalty.17 Malcolm, the new Scottish king, is explicitly distanced from the divine healing powers attributed to the English
Edward, while Duncan is ultimately remembered only as ‘the old man’
(5.2.39). King Lear stages a similar deconsecration of monarchy, in
which the royal body loses its thaumaturgic powers and inally ‘smells’
only ‘of mortality’ (4.6.133). Both plays also recoil from their disenchanted visions of kingship: they present the demotion of monarchy as
traumatic, as a matter for tragedy, and King Lear arguably attempts to
salvage some of what it dismantles in the moral and political authority
which it confers on the igures of Kent and Edgar. Both plays seem to
be caught between demystiication and nostalgia.
Deeply involved as it was in justifying and deining a new state without a sovereign monarch, and in providing it with a history, the drama
of the early seventeenth-century Dutch Republic rarely challenged the
divine nature of royal rule directly. he issue was oten simply evaded,
which amounted to tacit support for the prevailing ideology. P.C.
Hoot’s Baeto (1616) is a case in point. In this mytho-historical tragedy,
17
References are to he Riverside Shakespeare, ed. Blakemore Evans.
religion and politics – lucifer
383
Bato, Prince of the Cats and heir-apparent, renounces his rights to the
throne in order to prevent civil war in his native country Vinland. With
his followers, he goes into exile, where he establishes the future state of
Holland. When he is ofered the sovereignty of this new state, however,
Bato pledges to govern only ‘by the council of the noblest and inest of
the citizenry’.18 he play enacts the double, almost paradoxical foundations of the Dutch Republic’s form of government. While providing
Holland with a royal founding father, it simultaneously furnishes its
civilians with ancient rights of participation and council. Although it
ends with a warning to ‘high princes’ not to abuse their power, it nevertheless recognises their ‘holy thrones’.19
hese examples suggest that if literary works in England and the
Dutch Republic alike expressed no unqualiied celebration of monarchy, they also skirted the fundamental issue of the source of royal
power. In the mid seventeenth century, when England experienced a
civil war that culminated in the execution of Charles I, and the Dutch
polity witnessed William II’s bid for sovereignty in the face of Holland’s
republican resistance, this evasive treatment of the sacredness of
authority became increasingly problematic. Ater 1649, fundamental
questions about social order had to be addressed. And in this period,
‘fundamental’ meant ‘religious’.
Vondel’s Drama and the Divine Order
It is a commonplace to remark that the most prominent feature of
Vondel’s drama is its profound Christianity.20 he fact that the majority
of his plays have a biblical subject suices to make the point. Yet the
language, the structure, and the genre of Vondel’s plays, and even his
justiication for writing them in the irst place, are also rooted deeply in
his biblical knowledge, in his (evolving) theological views, and his
piety. In Vondel’s view, theatre and drama were even religious in a metaphysical and an epistemological sense. Human mimetic art occupies a
central position in his longest poem, Bespiegelingen van Godt en
Godtsdienst (Relections upon God and Religion, w. 1659, pr. 1662),
which seeks to refute the arguments of ‘ongodisten’ (‘deniers of God’)
18
‘By raadt van d’ edelst’ en de best’ der burgerije’ (Baeto, l. 1540).
‘[H]ailighe thrónen’, (Baeto, l. 1516).
20
See, for example, Brom, Vondels geloof and Noë, De religieuze bezinning van
Vondels werk.
19
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(among whom Vondel presumably counted Spinoza) by demonstrating
God’s existence.21 In Vondel’s poetic argument, although God is
unknowable, it is possible to come nearer to him indirectly, by being
sensitive to his ordering hand in nature and society. His eternal light
cannot be faced directly, but can be seen on earth as in a mirror. his
notion of mirroring, so central to Vondel’s religious experience and his
drama, is also important for a historical reading of Lucifer.
In the (Neo-Platonic) theology that Vondel developed in the
Bespiegelingen, poetry and drama, like painting and architecture, were
more than simply media which could ofer biblical education or help to
shape Christian morality: their very existence had a profound religious
meaning. Because of their aestheticism and orderliness, the arts, as recreations of the world, could never have existed without a design, and
were therefore relections of the created order in nature and society.
Indeed, Vondel imagines God as an Artist, and every Christian artist as
an imitator of God. For Vondel, such relections were not just analogies. Relections of the divine were the way for humans to come nearer
to God, while at the same time they were the only possible proof of His
existence. Indeed, in the Bespiegelingen, Vondel echoed the De heologia
Gentili (On Pagan heology, 1641) by his friend Gerardus Joannes
Vossius, which presents the existence of an ‘amplum mundi amphitheatrum’ as an argument for God’s existence.22 he notion of the theatrum
mundi, so central in seventeenth-century culture, was essentially a religious concept. In identifying the world with a stage (or a painting for
that matter), Vondel not only underlines the reach and importance of
theatre, but also indicates that the world is a stage in a very real, literal
sense: he discovers an existing, even causal relationship between them.
In Vondel’s theology, the (theatrical) metaphor is not only an aesthetic
form, but at the same time a revelation of God’s structuring Hand.
Vondel’s metaphors, in other words, not only transfer meaning from
one word or concept to another, but posit an ontological equivalence
between tenor and vehicle. As a result, they serve as evidence or relection of divine order. he politico-religious import of Vondel’s biblical
plays can only be grasped in the light of his conception of the nature of
metaphor. Unlike allegory, which entails replacement and transfer,
metaphor, in Vondel’s understanding, depends on a conception of the
21
Bakker, ‘Een goddelijk schilderij’; Van Otegem, ‘Vondels bespiegelingen over de
nieuwe ilosoie’.
22
Bespiegelingen, 1, 475. WB, 9, p. 424 n. Cf. also Bespiegelingen 3, 383.
religion and politics – lucifer
385
universe as consisting of ininite relections of divine order that vary
only in degree. It has oten been stated that Vondel distilled history into
several types,23 but it is perhaps more accurate to say that history, too,
is a hall of mirrors, and when Vondel stages history, he activates the
historical igure as well as its repetitions in time.24 We may trace an
echo here of Erich Auerbach’s famous description of igura, which he
considers to be distinct from allegory since ‘neither the preiguring nor
the preigured event lose literal and historical reality by igurative
meaning’.25 In biblical typology, the type and its preiguration are conlated: they exist as distinct historical moments, while at the same time
partaking of a timeless, eternal order of things. Whereas the allegorical
narrative needs to be translated or decoded, igura opens up multiple
parallel stories that are all versions of the same fundamental historical
pattern. It is Vondel’s use of iguration that enables him to be political
without reducing the sacred narrative to a code. Indeed, by alluding to
contemporary relections or repetitions of sacred history, he adds to its
truth.
Vondel’s use of the igura, and his religious ideas about earthly relections of divine truths, have important implications for our reading of
his plays. For Vondel, history is a two-way mirror, and therefore essentially atemporal, repetitious, and reversible. Sacred history points forwards just as secular history points backwards; the heavenly order is
directed downwards, while at the same time the natural and social
order point upwards. his is why Vondel’s plays frequently resist being
interpreted as narratives. When read or experienced as stories, as plots
developing in time, they lose much if not all of their interest. Almost
devoid of action and tension in the plot, and telling a story that is wellknown to begin with, they simply seem to conform to universal
Christian ethics. As halls of mirrors, emblems without emplotment,
however, the plays come alive and start to reach out into the world of
their contemporary audiences.26
Cf., for example, Brom, Vondels geloof, p. 377.
As Korsten argues, this also applies to Vondel’s use of theatrical space, which is
open-ended, and consists of a series of places and images, each of which are ‘meeting
points of histories’. See: Korsten, Vondel belicht, pp. 26–31; Sovereignty as Inviolability,
pp. 31–38.
25
Auerbach, ‘Figura’, p. 30. See also, Gellrich, ‘Figura, Allegory and the Question of
History’.
26
For the emblematic quality of Vondel’s plays, see: Smit ‘he Emblematic Aspect of
Vondel’s Tragedies as the Key to heir Interpretation’. Unlike our interpretation, Smit’s
23
24
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he audiences and readers of Vondel’s plays are oten explicitly
invited to ind relections of themselves and others in biblical history.
Usually, this invitation is supposed to lead them to a single, unambiguous Christian moral. In the ‘Dedication’ of Koning David in ballingschap (King David Exiled), for instance, Vondel points out the moral
mirror that biblical history provides: ‘Like a bright mirror, the Holy
Ghost shows us how the heedless growth of wantonness has centuries
of sorrow and war in tow’.27 Mirroring only becomes political when the
biblical history, with its familiar and authoritative moral meaning, also
begins to relect multiple other (contemporary) histories. In theory,
Vondel’s audience is free to see whoever or whatever they want to see
relected in his plays, but Vondel uses particular signs (keywords,
motives, or images) that point towards particular persons or events,
which in this way become connected both to each other and to the
sacred. To look for those relections is one of the great attractions of
Vondel’s plays.
Lucifer exempliies the way in which Vondel works with relections
in order to integrate the sacred and the secular. Appropriately, Lucifer’s
dedication to the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III opens with an
image of light and relection: ‘Just as the Divine Majesty is seated in an
unapproachable light, so too sits worldly power, which takes its light
from God and represents the Godhead, gloriied in its radiance’.28
Unambiguously embracing divine right theory, the very irst sentence
of the irst edition of Lucifer could not have expressed its dedicator’s
ideology any better. Vondel here explicitly states that he considers
earthly hierarchies to be not only analogous to the heavenly order, but,
like his art, relections of it, drawing their ‘light’, or power, directly from
reading of Lucifer in this article (pp. 560–62) focuses on the universal moral of the play.
Yet in an argument comparable with (but not identical to) ours, Smit wrote: ‘To the
emblematist all things and all situations are potential bearers of a useful meaning.
I think we may even go a step further and say that to him they are bearers of a hidden
meaning, put in them by God, available to everyone, but noticed only by those who are
willing to see and to learn’ (p. 554). Smit even descries a link between Vondel’s former
religion and his emblematic method: ‘As a Mennonite, Vondel was accustomed to read
his Bible, and especially the Old Testament, as a kind of Holy Emblem-book’ (p. 556).
Cf. also: Scholz-Heerspink, ‘Vondel’s Gijsbreght van Aemstel as Emblematic and Figural
Drama’.
27
‘[D]e heilige Geest toont ons, als in eenen klaeren Spiegel […] hoe het reuckeloos
verydelen der zinnen eeuwen van jammeren en oorlogen na zich sleept’. WB, 9, p. 26.
28
‘Gelyck de Goddelycke Majesteit in een ongenaeckbaer licht gezeten is, zoo zit
oock de weereltsche Mogentheit, die haer licht uit Godt schept, en de Godtheit abeelt,
in haren glans verheerlyckt’ (Lucifer, ‘[Dedication to] Den overwinnelycksten vorst en
Heere, Ferdinandus de Derde’, ll. 1–2).
religion and politics – lucifer
387
God. Rebelling against earthly powers is, in Vondel’s Pauline understanding, to rebel directly against God.
In the remainder of the Dedication, Vondel elaborates on the relationship between heavenly and earthly powers. ‘his calamitous example of Lucifer, the Archangel, has been followed, throughout almost
every age, by rebellious tyrants, to which histories both old and young
testify’.29 Vondel’s use of the word ‘voorbeelt’, meaning both ‘example’
and ‘pre-image’ or ‘pre-iguration’, is of special signiicance here. While
suggesting a moral reading of the play that is to follow, in which Lucifer
is an example to be shunned, a warning not to engage in rebellious
activity, Vondel also invites a prophetic reading, in which biblical history is endlessly repeated and preigures all of human history. Similarly,
the famous conclusion of Vondel’s ‘Berecht aen alle kunstgenooten’
(‘Notice to all fellow-artists’) is more than a statement of the play’s
moral tenor. When Vondel writes that he brought Lucifer to the stage
‘as a clear mirror of all those who, ungrateful and ambitious, dare to
rise up against sacred powers, majesties, and legitimate governments’,30
the mirror metaphor is an open invitation to the play’s readers to look
for contemporary examples of ambition in Vondel’s depiction of the
rebellious angel.
In the paratexts, then, Vondel intimates that Lucifer is structured
according to the mirroring principle he would later develop in his
Bespiegelingen in two ways. he dedication states that earthly hierarchy
is a relection of heavenly hierarchy, while both the dedication and the
‘Berecht’ suggest that the play illustrates the continuing re-enactment
of sacred story in human history. he question is whether Lucifer
indeed conforms to its author’s stated intentions.
Heavenly Hierarchy Relected on Earth
Although Lucifer’s universe is bound together by God’s eternal light,
heaven and earth are distinct worlds, with distinct hierarchies. In the
Heavenly, spiritual realm God is the only sovereign. Lucifer may be a
29
‘Op dit rampzalige voorbeelt van Lucifer, den Aertsengel, en eerst heerlycksten
boven alle engelen, volghden sedert, bykans alle eeuwen door, de wederspannige
geweldenaers, waer van oude en jonge historien getuigen’ (Lucifer, ‘[Dedication to]
Den overwinnelycksten vorst en Heere, Ferdinandus de Derde’, ll. 18–21).
30
‘[T]en klare spiegel van alle ondanckbare staetzuchtigen, die zich stoutelyck
tegens de geheilighde Maghten, en Majesteiten, en wettige Overheden durven verheffen’ (Lucifer, ‘Berecht’, ll. 216–18).
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jan frans van dijkhuizen and helmer helmers
called a ‘vorst’ (‘prince’), but this does not mean he has independent
powers.31 Lucifer’s stadtholderate in Heaven depends on his feudal relation to God; although he occupies a high oice, he remains a vassal,
‘bound to God’s commandments’.32 As Rafael points out to him, he can
claim no independent power because ‘[b]orrowed power can be taken
away, and is no inalienable inheritance’.33 Whatever authority Lucifer
has is borrowed and may be reclaimed by its owner at any time.
Lucifer’s condition in Heaven contrasts sharply with that of Adam
on earth. In that separate realm,34 Apollion reveals to Belzebub in the
irst scene of the play, Adam is a sovereign ruler:
he mountain lion wagged its tail
And smiled at the master. he tiger laid down its nature
At the King’s feet. he land-bull bowed its horn,
he elephant its trunk. he bear forgot its wrath.35
Adam is explicitly referred to as a king over all living creatures. When
Apollion later says that ‘he rules like a God’ (l. 118), Adam’s royal rule
is given divine status. hat Adam’s godlike authority is not merely a
delusion of the corruptible messenger Apollion becomes clear when
Gabriel later conirms Adam’s (i.e. man’s) sovereignty on earth.
Goodness, Gabriel states:
[…] built the wondrous and admirable universe
Of the world, for the beneit of God and man
So that he [Adam] would reign in this garden.36
31
he title ‘vorst’ was ambiguous in the seventeenth century, and could refer to a
wide range of political statuses and oices. According to the WNT, ‘vorst’ could mean
male sovereign or independent ruler, a monarch (‘Vorst I’, 1), but it was also used to
refer to a ruler who ranked immediately below the sovereign, such as a duke or a prince
(‘Vorst I’, 2). Indeed, especially in Bibles and religious poetry, the term oten designated
high court functionaries without the slightest claim to independent political power
(‘Vorst I’, 4). In Vondel’s plays and poetry, he exploits the whole range of connotations
of the word. When he applies it to Lucifer, however, the ambiguity is qualiied by
Lucifer’s rank as ‘stadtholder’, which renders him the highest representative of God’s
sovereign power rather than a sovereign himself.
32
‘[V]erknocht aan Gods geboden’ (l. 258).
33
‘Geleende heerschappy staet los, en is geen erf ’ (l. 1599).
34
he separateness of Adam’s rule on earth is underlined by references to angelic
ambassadors to earth (see e.g. ll. 278–79).
35
‘De berghleeuw quispelde hem aen met zynen staert, / En loegh den meester toe.
De tiger ley zijn’ aert / Voor ‘s Konings voeten af. De lantstier boogh zijn’ horen, / En
d’olifant zijn’ snuit. De beer vergat zijn’ toren’ (ll. 91–94).
36
‘[Dees Goetheit] boude ’t wonderlyck en zienelyck Heelal / Der weerelt, Gode en
oock den menschen te geval / Op dat hy in dit hof zou heerschen’ (ll. 211–13).
religion and politics – lucifer
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Rafael later explains to Lucifer that when God decided to share his
power with Adam, he invested it in him, as opposed to giving it on
loan, and destined him to wear ‘the irst crown’ (d’eerste kroon, ll.
1556–57). his phrase makes Adam the irst in a line of kings, and
aligns the play with a particular branch of patriarchal thought which
held that kingship originated in – and was justiied by – Adam’s fatherhood. In his Patriarchia (1680), Robert Filmer similarly argued that
Adam exerted ‘by Right of Father-hood, Royal Authority over [his]
children’, and saw Adam’s status as king as a legitimation of absolute
monarchy: ‘[he] lordship which Adam by command had over the
whole world, and by right descending from him the patriarchs did
enjoy, was as large and ample as the most absolute dominion of any
monarch which hath been since the Creation’.37 When the chorus of
angels sings at the end of the irst act ‘let us praise God in Adam’,38 then,
it is the honour due to a sovereign prince who is God’s image on earth.
Critics of Lucifer have tended to focus on the representation of the
rebellious angels Belzebub and Apollion in the irst act, and what it
might tell us about the state of Heaven before the Fall.39 From the perspective of the relationship between sacred and secular authority, however, the most important function of the opening scene of the play is to
provide an image of earth in its prelapsarian state, to foreground Adam’s
privileged position, and to show the fundamental diference between
angelic authority in heaven and human authority on earth. Earthly
hierarchy is not a part, but a relection of heavenly hierarchy: Adam
rules over the animals, and shall rule over his future ofspring, as God
rules over the angels. he parallel between these diferent hierarchies
forms the political premise of Lucifer; it is established before the revolt
in heaven is conceived. he relation between the heavenly sovereign
and his subjects is analogous to that between the earthly sovereign
Adam and his subjects. he question is how we should assess that
relation.
he Debate on Right and Lucifer’s God of Order
Although Vondel’s paratexts assert that Lucifer’s latent ambition, his
‘[political] ambition’ (staetzucht) or ‘desire for the crown’ (kroonzucht),
37
38
39
Filmer, Patriarcha: or the Natural Power of Kings, pp. 12–13.
‘[L]aet ons Godt in Adam eeren’ (l. 346).
Cf., for example, King, ‘Vondels Lucifer’.
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is the ultimate cause of the angelic war, in the play the rebellion in
heaven is occasioned by Gabriel’s announcement that God has decided
in time to elevate Adam to a higher state than the angels. his is unpalatable for Lucifer and his supporters, the ‘Luciferisten’. hey appeal to
their ‘holy right’ (l. 1050) as irst-born children of God to remain stationed above the ‘earthworm’ Adam.40 In the following example,
Apollion defends the former in a discussion with the Rey (Chorus) of
loyal angels:
Apollion
Rey
Apollion
Rey
Belial
Rey
What counsel? How to calm them? hey make an appeal to
Right.
What right? Whoever makes the law has the power to break
it.
How can Justice speak an unjust verdict?
Are you censuring God’s judgment, laying down the law for
him?
he father teaches the child to follow his trail.
To follow his trail is to share his wishes.41
Apollion’s argument here is that established practice turned law is
holier than God’s decreed will. To strip the angels of their right is to be
unjust. he loyal angels, by contrast, consider God’s sovereignty to be
above the law, and stress obedience: ‘whoever makes the law has the
power to break it’. Or as Michael later phrases it, ‘he who competes with
God is not just in the least’.42 Indeed, in a rhetorical question to the
Luciferists, the loyal angels claim only one right, which is to remain
unchanged: ‘We remain who we are: are we maltreated?’.43 Besides that
basic right, protecting them from change or deterioration, there is only
law. When during his irst appearance Gabriel announces that angels
and men eventually should together uphold the ‘opgeleide wet’ – or
‘law imposed’ – in Heaven (l. 210), the adjective is crucial: law is only
law when it is imposed by the sovereign.
40
he motive of right in Vondel’s Lucifer has been discussed by several critics. See
Osterkamp, Lucifer, pp. 87–130, and Korsten, Vondel belicht, pp. 195–99; Sovereignty as
Inviolability, pp. 172–78. Bax has analysed the argumentation of the rebelling angels in
Bax, ‘De engel van wanhoop’.
41
‘Apollion: Wat raet? Hoe paeit men hen? Zy steunen op hun Recht. / Rey: Wat
Recht? Die wetten geet vermagh de wet te breken. / Apollion: Hoe kan Rechtvaerdigheit
een onrecht oordeel spreken? / Rey: Bestraf Godts oordeel eens, en schryt hem wetten
voor. / Belial: De vader leer’ het kint hem volgen op zyn spoor. / Rey: Zyn spoor te
volgen is het zelve als hy te willen’ (ll. 921–26).
42
‘D’inspanner tegens Godt is allerminst rechtvaerdigh’ (l. 1130).
43
‘Wy blyven diewe zyn: geschiet ons ongelyck?’ (l. 961).
religion and politics – lucifer
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his debate on right occupies a central position in Lucifer, and is
repeated several times by diferent characters in the middle acts of the
play. Yet despite this prominence, the loyal angels fail to ofer a justiication for their representation of the state that has convinced the play’s
critics. he question that keeps puzzling scholars is whether the play
actually shows what is wrong with the rebel’s arguments. For Korsten
and Bax, for example, the principal loyal argument that angels and men
are unable to judge the wisdom of God’s decisions and should therefore
simply comply with his will reeks of tyranny and seems to justify the
revolt rather than anything else. But critics siding with the Luciferians
should concede that the rebelling angels do not confront the arguments
of their opponents either. In fact, there is no real debate in Lucifer.
Rather, the play repeatedly contrasts two opposite perspectives that do
not interact. Angelic logic and angelic arguments are unable to achieve
consensus. Lucifer foregrounds the failure of political debate.
he argument of the rebellious angels is further disarmed by the way
in which the central debate on right is framed. It is bracketed, and
therefore contained, by two acts that ultimately serve to make a similar
point. he irst act, as we have seen, establishes the divine order: it
shows that earthly hierarchy mirrors heavenly hierarchy. In the play’s
logic, the entire discussion about right is made redundant by the premise of Adam’s sovereignty. he last act shows the restoration of order in
Heaven. On a level of form, then, Lucifer suggests that debate is itself an
aspect of disorder. In Vondel’s theological views, as we have seen in the
Bespiegelingen, this alone renders it blasphemous. Like Vondel’s God in
the Bespiegelingen, Lucifer’s God is a God of order, as can be gleaned
from the following remark by the Chorus in the third act of Lucifer:
One power governs all, and can bring down even the highest.
Whatever the least of men receive is due to mercy only.
Here nothing is arbitrary, human understanding fails.
God’s glory lies in inequality.44
According to the Chorus, God’s ‘heerlyckheit’ (‘glory’, but also ‘lordship’) resides in the inequality hard-wired into the heavenly state. It is
this inequality, the Chorus explains, that ensures peace:
44
‘Een maght regeert het al, en keert het bovenste onder. / Wat d’allerminste
ontfangt, is loutere gena. / Hier gelt geen willekeur. hier komt vernut te spa. / In
d’ongelyckheit is Godts heerlyckheit gelegen’ (ll. 939–42). For an alternative translation, see Leonard Charles van Noppen, p. 343.
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In these inequalities
Of oices, light and circles and stations, ways and walks,
One inds neither discord, envy, nor conlict.45
he implication of this statement, which is echoed in the Bespiegelingen,
is that whoever challenges the inequality put in place by God creates
discord, envy, and war; this conforms to the position outlined in
Vondel’s paratexts. In this way, Lucifer demonstrates that there can be
no right without an ultimate authority from which it emanates. Take
that authority away, as the rebellious angels do, and right either ceases
to exist or ceases to be just, since an appeal to it results in conlict and
chaos. his was, of course, an orthodox argument. In his spiritual poem
Jezus en de Ziel (Christ and the Soul), for instance, Jan Luyken had
emphasised exactly the same point. ‘Why has God created angelic
princes, and not all [angels] in equality?’ Luyken asks, and the immediate answer is that ‘God is a God of order’.46
hat Lucifer should repeatedly equate the political debate on right
with ungodly disorder indicates an important, and paradoxical,
Hobbesian current in Vondel’s religious thought. When Lucifer states
that ‘[i]t is natural that everyone should protect their own rights’,47 the
appeal to nature and natural law here is almost a direct echo of homas
Hobbes’s political philosophy. In Leviathan (1651), Hobbes had argued
that in a natural state, where ‘every man has a right to every thing’, and
‘every one is governed by his own Reason’, man lives in ‘a condition of
Warre of every against every one’.48 To prevent this perpetual war, a
reasonable man gives up his natural right and transfers his powers to
one, single authority in order to protect himself. Lucifer conforms to
the Hobbesian philosophy of power by showing that the efect of an
appeal to ‘natural’ right in the absence of some sovereign authority
necessarily leads to conlict and (civil) war. Yet whereas Hobbes’s
philosophy was strictly materialistic and secular, Vondel’s similar conclusions are based on religious conviction. It is likely that Vondel
despised Hobbes for his materialism,49 and it is not inconceivable that
he intended to design an alternative to De cive, a work that was well
45
‘[…] in deze onefenheden / Van ampten, licht en kreits en stant, en trant en treden, /[Verneemtghe] geen tweedraght, nyt, noch stryt’ (ll. 978–980).
46
Jan Luyken, Jezus en de Ziel, p. 179.
47
‘Naturelyck is elck beschermer van zyn Recht’ (l. 942).
48
homas Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 42.
49
Brom, Vondels geloof, pp. 377–78.
religion and politics – lucifer
393
known in the Dutch Republic. Yet ironically, and perhaps in spite of
himself, he repeatedly echoes his ideological enemy. Setting out to provide a religious or theological justiication of divine right in the face of
increasingly radical opposition, Vondel inds himself drawing on the
essentially secular absolutism of Hobbes as additional support for his
position. In doing so, however, he contributes to the desacralisation of
monarchy that he seeks to combat: in the political context of the late
seventeenth century, a purely religious defence of monarchy seems no
longer suicient. Indeed, it may well be the Hobbesian echoes in Lucifer
that have undermined its religious sincerity in the eyes of many
readers.
Sacred and Human History
In Lucifer, Heaven and earth are represented as separate but mirroring
realms that both relect the unapproachable, eternal light of God. he
universe is structured according to repeating patterns which allow
angels and men to enjoy divine order. But the play also invites a reading
of postlapsarian history as an endless reenactment of the heavenly
drama that it presents. In the inal act, when Uriel inishes his report of
the battle in heaven, he has a prophetic vision of history:
I see a gallery of war tableaux,
Born from that battle, as far as the eye can see.50
he endless gallery of battle paintings Uriel envisages draws attention
to the momentous nature of God’s victory, but the more ironic implication of his comment is clear. Ater the Fall, human history will provide
the images of which the battle he has just described is the preiguration.
In consequence, Vondel’s classiication of the play as a tragedy, to which
Korsten rightly draws attention, not only seems to serve to turn Lucifer
into a tragic hero, but also refers to its prophetic character, to its status
as preiguration of the never-ending return of rebellion and civil war.
Importantly, Uriel’s vision implies that the Fall constitutes no fundamental breach between sacred and secular politics. Although man
shares in Lucifer’s guilt in the postlapsarian world, the battles he will
ight are repetitions of the battle fought in Heaven. Necessarily, within
50
‘Ick zie een galery, vol oorloghstafereelen, / Geboren uit dien slagh, zoo wyt men
af kan zien’ (ll. 1935–36).
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Vondel’s neo-platonic theology, earthly revolts must be preigured in
Heaven (or in the Bible). Had there been no evil in Heaven, he would
have been unable to explain evil on earth, and his (implicit) theodicy
would have failed.
Vondel recognised, as he had to, the eternal pattern outlined above
in his own contemporary history – most prominently, though not
exclusively,51 in recent Anglo-Dutch developments. By having his title
character fulil the political oice of stadtholder, Vondel deliberately
alludes to William II’s attack on Amsterdam (August 1650), which
would have been a major step towards Orange’s sovereignty over the
Dutch Republic had it been successful. Rafael’s claim that ‘borrowed
power […] is no inalienable inheritance’, therefore, applies also to the
Orangist claims that William III was entitled to the oices and powers
of his forefathers by birth.
Even more manifest than the allusions to the conlict between
Orangists and the States of Holland, are the references to Civil War and
regicide in England. In the light of Vondel’s own political poetry, in
which he had branded Oliver Cromwell a ‘disguised Lucifer’, even the
title of his play was suggestive.52 But echoes of civil war and regicide
occur throughout the play. he entire angelic debate on right, for example, resonates with the execution of Charles I. By having the law take
precedence over sovereignty, and arguing that God has to behave
according to the established laws, Apollion is efectively arguing that
the angels can put God on trial. During his trial, Charles I refused to
plead his case. His defence was limited to his refusal to recognise the
court that tried him. Dutch pamphlets describing his trial minutely
recorded his repeated protests, in which he argued ‘not only against the
unlawfulness of this pretended court, but simultaneously, that there is
no Power on Earth able to interrogate me (I who am your King) lawfully’. With an appeal to Ecclesiastes 8:4 (‘Where the word of a king is,
there is power’) Charles argued that the ‘authority of […] Kings [was]
clearly conirmed and sternly commanded both in the Old and the
New Testament’. Importantly, he justiied absolute royal authority not
only by appealing to divine authority, but also by arguing that it was
51
In the Holy Roman Empire, too, a debate was waged about the authority of the
emperor, which included jure divino arguments.
52
Cf. Smits-Veldt, Het Nederlandse Renaissancetoneel, pp. 115–16. Reading Lucifer,
Kritzinger observes: ‘’n Mens voel dat dit direk gemunt is op Cromwell en Willem II,
want naas gebeurtenisse uit die oudheid vorm die gebeurtenisse uit sy tyd “een der
rijkste bronnen van den Lucifer” ’ (Kritzinger, Die Opstandsmotief by Vondel, p. 90).
religion and politics – lucifer
395
necessary to safeguard ‘the freedoms of the people’. ‘What hope can
there be,’ he claimed, ‘when power governs without rule or right?’
Although it is easy to mistake the statement for a critique of absolutism, the point is exactly the opposite. In Charles’s argument, power
ceases to be just when it steps outside the hierarchical order established
in the ‘fundamental rights of the kingdom’. hese are necessarily superior to any law or individual rights, because there can be no right when
there is no ultimate, static authority to decide what is right. Charles,
then, sought to turn what was intended as an investigation of the
charges of tyranny and treason laid before him into a principled discussion of the authority of the law, and a deconstruction of the term ‘right’.
he court, however, refused to answer his principled critique. Like the
debate on right in Lucifer, all sessions of the trial ended in a repetition
of moves.
he powerful allusions to contemporary politics in the three middle
acts of Lucifer are essential to understanding the politico-religious
argument of the play. Rather than transforming it into unambiguous
political allegory, the topical relections extend sacred history, multiply
it. Although the play comes close to depicting speciic contemporary
political igures as rebellious devils, it simultaneously reveals that
earthly politics have been preigured in heaven, and that earthly hierarchy is consequently a relection of divine order, a continuation of an
order that has been untouched by the Fall. he topical echoes in Lucifer
have their roots in a religious conviction in which postlapsarian history
is essentially a repetition of sacred history. his is the implication of
Uriel’s prophetic vision.
Religion and Politics in Paradise Lost
In John Milton’s Paradise Lost the examination of the question of
authority, and of the relation between earthly and divine authority, is
woven into the narrative form of the poem.53 Stanley Fish has famously
53
he scholarly literature on the relations between politics and religion in Milton is
vast; for this short overview we have made grateful use of the following titles:
Loewenstein, Representing Revolution in Milton and his Contemporaries; Parry and
Raymond, Milton and the Terms of Liberty; Worden, Literature and Politics in
Cromwellian England; and King, Milton and Religious Controversy; Norbrook, Writing
the English Republic, esp. ch. 3 and 10; Smith, Literature and Revolution in England;
Knoppers, Historicizing Milton; Achinstein, Milton and the Revolutionary Reader;
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argued that ‘Milton’s method is to recreate in the mind of the reader the
drama of the Fall, to make him fall again as Adam did’.54 hroughout
the poem, the reader is tempted to empathise with Satan, to be swayed
by his rhetoric, and is subsequently made to realise that he succumbed
to this temptation, only to lapse unavoidably into the same mistake at a
later moment in the poem: the human fallibility that results from the
Fall is also the reader’s inescapable condition. One instance of this is
the reader’s postlapsarian perception of Eve in Book IV, whose prelapsarian innocence lies outside his fallen frame of reference. We cannot
help sharing Satan’s perspective and projecting our own, always already
tainted categories onto her, seeing her ‘unadorned golden tresses’ as
‘disheveld’ and reading ‘wanton[ness]’ into the ‘ringlets wav’d’ (4, 306)
of her hair.55 Similarly, in Book I, Milton seems to assume that the
reader will be manipulated into admiring the heroic deiance which
Satan displays immediately ater his fall, and corrects him in a narrative
interjection: ‘So spake th’Apostate Angel, though in pain, / Vaunting
aloud, but rackt with deep despare’ (1, 125–26).
In giving in to Satan’s rhetoric, the reader also comes to share his
conception of God’s status as king. In his irst speech to the fallen
angels, Satan deines God’s sovereignty in secular terms:
To bow and sue for grace
With suppliant knee, and deiie his power,
Who from the terrour of this Arm so late
Doubted his Empire, that were low indeed,
hat were an ignominy and shame beneath
his downfall[.] (1, 111–16)
Satan sees God’s rule as an essentially arbitrary, tyrannical form of
‘Empire’ and ‘power’. He construes the receiving of God’s grace as subjection, and denies the divinity of God’s dominion. His is a form of
Achinstein, Literature and Dissent in Milton’s England; Dzelzainis, ‘he Politics of
Paradise Lost’. For Milton and radical religion in the Civil War period, see for example:
Hill, he World Turned Upside Down; Smith, Perfection Proclaimed.
54
Fish, Surprised by Sin, p. 1. While a discussion of the subsequent critical debate
over Fish’s reading is beyond the scope of this article, it is worth noting that William
Poole takes Fish to task for the latter’s ‘construction of a robotically boring reader’
(Poole, Milton and the Idea of the Fall, p. 195) and for downplaying Milton’s radicalism.
Part of the argument of this article is that the idea of a fallen readerly experience is part
and parcel of Milton’s radical politics.
55
References to the works of John Milton are to the online editions published by
‘he John Milton Reading Room’, <http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/>, accessed
4 March 2009.
religion and politics – lucifer
397
merely earthly power, and only a plea for grace from the fallen angels
would ‘deiie’ it, that is to say, convert it from secular to divine. In other
words, Satan implies that it is in the angels’ power to withhold sacredness from God’s rule. It is ater this speech that Milton reminds the
reader of Satan’s inner despair, and the speech itself is also fraught with
contradiction, for example in its inal lourish, when Satan claims that
God ‘in th’excess of joy / Sole reigning holds the Tyranny of Heav’n’ (1,
123–24), our italics). he allegation that God’s joy is extravagant or
immoderate is unsubstantiated – rooted rather in Satan’s own ‘immortal hate’ (1, 107) – and catachrestic. In early modern English the word
‘joy’ could (and in these lines, of course, does) refer to ‘the perfect bliss
or beatitude of heaven; hence, the place of bliss, paradise, heaven’,56 a
state that excludes the very possibility of immoderation. ‘Immoderation’
is applicable only to earthly and postlapsarian joy.
Satan’s insurrection, then, consists not only in the act of disobedience itself, but also in his deluded insistence on seeing the hierarchical
relations in heaven in secular terms, demoting God to the status of a
human monarch, and deining God’s power over him as a form of
earthly tyranny. his is Satan’s fundamental category error – as well as
the category error which the reader is made to commit. Part of the
‘great argument’ (1, 24) of Paradise Lost, antithetically opposed to that
of Vondel’s Lucifer, is that earthly and divine power are radically diferent, and that the hierarchies in heaven and on earth are based on
incommensurate principles, and should be understood on their own
terms. Paradise Lost presents God in monarchic terms, the ‘mightie
Father hron’d / On high’ (6, 890–891), precisely in order to remind the
reader that, in David Loewenstein’s words, ‘the courtly rituals and
dynamics of Milton’s Heaven operate diferently from the rituals of
earthly kingship and temporal politics familiar from Stuart theory and
practice’.57 In an important sense, therefore, Satan’s contractual notions
of power are inappropriate when applied to God, but valid within an
earthly context.
he design of Book II, with its two sections, enacts this argument.
he irst section presents the Satanic Host in terms strongly suggestive
of the mid-century English politics in which Milton had also been
actively involved. Moloch argues for a military confrontation with the
‘Tyranny’ of God ‘who Reigns / By our delay’ (2, 59–60), just as Milton
56
57
OED, s.v. ‘joy’, 2.
Loewenstein, Representing Revolution, p. 229.
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himself had justiied the Civil War as a defence of freedom against tyranny, most famously in Eikonoklastes (1649) and in he Tenure of Kings
and Magistrates (1650), in which he argues that ‘that turning to Tyranny
they may bee as lawfully depos’d and punish’d, as they were at irst
elected’. Indeed, Satan’s suggestion, in Book I, that God is dependent
for his power on the consent of the angels over whom he rules echoes
Milton’s claim, in he Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, that
the power of Kings and Magistrates is nothing else, but what is only
derivative, transferr’d and committed to them in trust from the People, to
the Common good of them all, in whom the power yet remaines fundamentally, and cannot be tak’n from them, without a violation of thir natural birthright[.]
Having said this, the debate in hell also contains the kind of contradictions that undermine Satan’s irst speech in Book I. Belial, for example,
distorts the idea of freedom by associating it with unaccountability:
‘Live to our selves, though in this vast recess, / Free, and to none
accountable’ (2, 254–55). he phrase ‘to none accountable’ implies a
curious inversion of the attitude that Belial advocates: it does not so
much describe an escape from tyranny as its very essence: reluctance
on the part of rulers to be answerable to those over whom they rule.
Indeed, for Milton the refusal to be held accountable was precisely the
hallmark of tyrannical kingship. In he Tenure of Kings and Magistrates
he writes that ‘Monarchy unaccountable, is the worst sort of Tyranny;
and least of all to be endur’d by free born men’.
he intimation that the devils’ advocacy of a secular form of liberty
is deceptive is worked out in more detail in the second section of Book
II, which recounts Satan’s journey to earth. Here, Satan sheds his role of
near-human political leader and comes to embody an abstract evil that
exists on an entirely diferent plane from the secular political realities
of mid-seventeenth-century England.58 His encounter with Chaos, Sin
and Death (the ofspring of Satan’s sexual union with Sin) makes clear
that the nature of Satan’s actions cannot be grasped in secular, political
categories. As a result the reader, too, is made to adjust once again his
assessment of Satan.
his separation between real-world politics and the rebellion of
Satan is a crucial element within the political argument of Paradise
58
We are indebted for this point to Bradford, he Complete Critical Guide to John
Milton, pp. 98–101.
religion and politics – lucifer
399
Lost. In positing a gulf between heavenly and worldly politics, Milton
divests earthly monarchic power of the sacred character with which
Stuart absolutism had endowed it. In other words, it is precisely because
God’s kingship is so fundamentally unlike earthly sovereignty, and
because the evil represented by Satan is otherworldly, that kingly
authority can only be irreparably secular. In an important sense, for
Milton, absolutism, in confounding the worldly and the divine, commits the same category error as Satan. Moreover, if Shakespeare, in
Macbeth and King Lear, laments the separation between sacred and
profane as tragic, for Milton, it is in part the blending of the two that
sets the cosmic tragedy of the Fall in motion. In their dialogue in Book
IX, Satan succeeds in convincing Eve that God’s decrees can be regarded
in the same spirit as those of an earthly ruler. Eve initially sees her paradisal state as a form of liberty in which she and Adam ‘live / Law to our
selves’ (9, 653–54). Indeed, for Milton, the fact that God has issued one
sole command efectively underscores the far-reaching nature of the
prelapsarian ethical autonomy enjoyed by humans. In an important
sense, Paradise Lost presents the prelapsarian condition as pre-political
in the sense that it is innocent of any secular notions of politics.59 It is
Satan who introduces Eve to an idiom of hierarchy and subjection,
arguing that God has forbidden her to taste of the Tree of Knowledge
‘but to keep ye low and ignorant, His worshippers’ (9, 703–05). He even
sees Eve’s beauty in political terms, as a characteristic that legitimises
her elevation as ‘sovran of Creatures’:
in thy Beauties heav’nly Ray
United I beheld; no Fair to thine
Equivalent or second, which compel’d
Mee thus, though importune perhaps, to come
And gaze, and worship thee of right declar’d
Sovran of Creatures, universal Dame. (9, 607–12)
Satan, then, tempts Eve in part by importing a secular language of hierarchy and subjection into the prelapsarian world, and Milton presents
59
Cf. Milton’s remarks in he Tenure of Kings and Magistrates about the origins of
politics in the secular sense: ‘No man who knows ought, can be so stupid to deny that
all men naturally were borne free, being the image and resemblance of God himself,
and were by privilege above all the creatures, born to command and not to obey: and
that they liv’d so. Till from the root of Adams transgression, falling among themselves
to doe wrong and violence, and foreseeing that such courses must needs tend to the
destruction of them all, they agreed by common league to bind each other from mutual
injury, and joyntly to defend themselves against any that gave disturbance or opposition to such agreement.’
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the Fall partly as a perversion of the concept of sovereignty, and, even
more fundamentally, as a lapse into politics. It is ater the Fall that
human relations become tainted by inequality, and the existence of tyranny has its roots in original sin. his emergence of the political sphere
begins inside the human individual. he inner state of postlapsarian
man is characterised by a political form of turmoil. Ater the Fall, ‘sensual Appetite’ gains power over ‘Reason’,
but high Winds worse within
Began to rise, high Passions, Anger, Hate,
Mistrust, Suspicion, Discord, and shook sore
heir inward State of Mind, calm Region once
And full of Peace, now tost and turbulent:
For Understanding rul’d not, and the Will
Heard not her lore, both in subjection now
To sensual Appetite, who from beneathe
Usurping over sovran Reason claimd
Superior sway[.] (11, 1122–31)
his passage underlines once more that Satan’s rebellion and temptation of mankind do not bring liberty, cannot be seen as a legitimate
uprising, but result in a ‘usurpation’ of legitimate sovereignty that
afects even the inner life. Ater the fall, even man’s inner state is tainted
by politics.
In Book XII, Michael posits an explicit causal link between this inner
discord and the emergence of political tyranny in the public sphere:
Since thy original lapse, true Libertie
Is lost […].
Reason in man obscur’d, or not obeyd,
Immediately inordinate desires
And upstart Passions catch the Government
From Reason, and to servitude reduce
Man till then free. herefore since hee permits
Within himself unworthie Powers to reign
Over free Reason, God in Judgement just
Subjects him from without to violent Lords;
Who ot as undeservedly enthrall
His outward freedom: Tyrannie must be,
hough to the Tyrant thereby no excuse. (12, 83–96)
Since Michael argues that tyranny is part of God’s punishment for
man’s irst disobedience, it is tempting to read these lines as a legitimation of tyranny: ‘Tyrannie must be’. here is also a notable friction
between the emphasis on the ‘justness’ of God’s judgement and the idea
religion and politics – lucifer
401
that power derived from tyranny is ‘undeserved’. Yet this paradox captures the logic of Michael’s remarks: that tyranny is an unavoidable
efect of the Fall does not mean it is justiied, or to be accepted passively. Rather, it is precisely because it is one of the consequences of the
Fall that it is to be resisted: its postlapsarian inevitability ofers ‘no
excuse’ for the tyrant. he parallel between man’s inner discord and the
existence of tyranny helps to explain this, in that it is part of man’s ethical duty ater the Fall to try and regain control over ‘sensual Appetite’.
his is a deining characteristic of the ‘paradise within’ (12, 587)
described in Paradise Regained (1671), and alluded to in the inal books
of Paradise Lost. In the former poem, Christ responds to Satan’s temptations in the desert by describing self-control as a higher form of kingship, and his words assume a fundamental interaction between the
private and public spheres. Resisting the tyranny of the passions is a
political act:
Yet he who reigns within himself, and rules
Passions, Desires, and Fears, is more a King;
Which every wise and vertuous man attains:
And who attains not, ill aspires to rule
Cities of men, or head-strong Multitudes,
Subject himself to Anarchy within,
Or lawless passions in him, which he serves.
(Paradise Regained, 2, 466–72)60
One of the implications of the rit between the political and the sacred
posited in Paradise Lost is that absolutist monarchy efectively becomes
satanic in nature. Indeed, it is Satan himself who, in spite of his rhetoric
of liberty and rejection of tyranny in Book I, sounds at times suspiciously similar to earthly monarchs. he opening of Book II inds him
sitting ‘exalted’, ‘high on a throne of Royal State’, and appealing to the
‘ixt Laws of Heav’n’ (2, 5; 1, 18) to justify his monarchical status.
Moreover, once the seemingly open debate in Hell has been concluded,
Satan acts as an authoritarian king, pre-empting further discussion:
‘hus saying rose / he Monarch, and prevented all reply’ (2, 466–67).61
It is in part by means of such ironies that the reader is confronted
with his postlapsarian fallibility. Even though Milton presents Satan’s
rebellion as otherworldly in terms of its theological consequences, the
60
61
Lost’.
See also Loewenstein, Representing Revolution, pp. 257–58.
For this point, see also Loewenstein, ‘he Radical Religious Politics of Paradise
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political tyranny that results from the Fall is preigured in the role of
absolute monarch that Satan assumes once he has been cast into hell.
Milton’s severance between the sacred and the secular is at its clearest when notions of sovereignty are at stake. Where other realms of
human activity are concerned, Paradise Lost frequently imagines a
close analogy between the two. his appears, for example, from its
insistence that the ways of God to man can be justiied, and can therefore be grasped by human reason. he very act of writing a theodicy,
premised as it is on the scrutability of the divine, lies in the face of the
absolute division between divine and human reason that was central to
Calvinism. As Stephen M. Fallon notes, ‘in Milton’s epic the unbridgeable gap between divine and created reason characteristic of Calvinism
is a feature of hell’.62 Similarly, the accounts of postlapsarian history in
Book XI ofer a number of Old Testament models for Milton’s own
sense of his identity as a member of a persecuted religious minority, for
example in the slaying of Abel by Cain, and in the igure of Enoch,
derided by ‘old and young’ before he is ‘snatch’d’ by God, ‘Unseen amid
the throng’ (11, 668–671). In contrast to royal power, the experience of
the marginalised godly can legitimately be understood as a form of
sacred history.
Yet the plunge into history is in itself also an index of fallenness, and
the experience of persecution is one of its deining aspects, as Michael
explains to Adam in Book XII:
heavie persecution shall arise
On all who in the worship persevere
Of Spirit and Truth; the rest, farr greater part,
Well deem in outward Rites and specious formes
Religion satisi’d; Truth shall retire
Bestuck with slandrous darts, and works of Faith
Rarely be found: so shall the World goe on,
To good malignant, to bad men benigne,
Under her own waight groaning till the day
Appeer of respiration to the just[.] (12, 531–40)
Michael’s prophetic vision of a world caught in history – condemned to
‘goe on […] groaning’ until the Day of Judgment – contrasts sharply
with Milton’s emphasis on the timelessness of God, who ‘from his prospect high’ surveys ‘past, present, future’ (3, 77–78), whose decrees are
‘Unchangeable, Eternal’ (3, 127), and who, in Book III, speaks about
62
Fallon, ‘Paradise Lost in Intellectual History’, p. 333.
religion and politics – lucifer
403
the future creation of man and the Fall in the past tense, emphasising
the extent to which He exists outside temporal categories: ‘[Man] had
of mee / All he could have; I made him just and right’ (3, 97–98).63
Crucially, tyranny proceeds by confounding the sacred and the profane. It appropriates for itself the paraphernalia and semblance of spiritual authority, and this is a central part of the attack on royal authority
mounted in Paradise Lost:
[Tyrants] seek to avail themselves of names,
Places and titles, and with these to joine
Secular power, though feigning still to act
By spiritual, to themselves appropriating
he Spirit of God, promisd alike and giv’n
To all Beleevers; and from that pretense,
Spiritual Lawes by carnal power shall force
On every conscience[.] (12, 515–22)
It is also important to note that Michael’s vision ofers the reader no
perspective outside history, but describes what it is like to be immersed
in it – unlike Uriel’s vision, in Vondel’s Lucifer, of ‘a gallery of war tableaux, / Born from that battle, as far as the eye can see’ (ll. 1935–36).
Uriel surveys all of history in a single, frozen instant, while Michael
plunges the reader into history. his is enacted even on a level of form
and syntax: the constant enjambments in this passage force the reader
to read on, and the line endings ofer him no respite from the uninterrupted low of the poem. Finally, while Uriel conceives of postlapsarian
history as a series of tragic rebellions, Milton portrays it as characterised by tyranny: both approach the political signiicance of their material from opposite ends of the political spectrum.
In Paradise Lost the correspondences between biblical and contemporary history serve to underline the temporal, postlapsarian condition
of the human world, its unbridgeable distance from a ‘Heav’ n / Now
alienated’ (9, 8–9). Indeed, through its narrative strategies, the poem
links the reader’s experience of temporality and change to the shiting
rhetoric of Satan, and Satan’s description of Beelzebub at the beginning
of his irst speech efectively equates fallenness with change:
O how fall’n! how chang’d
From him, who in the happy Realms of Light
[…] didst out-shine
Myriads though bright (1, 84–87)
63
For this last point, see also John Milton, Paradise Lost, ed. Kastan, p. 83.
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Conclusion
Both Milton and Vondel employ the Lucifer myth to investigate the
nature of authority, and in this way to contribute to one of the crucial
politico-religious debates of the seventeenth century. Both ultimately
draw opposite conclusions from their material: Vondel sees in the
rebellion of Lucifer a lasting justiication of divine kingship. Moreover,
he posits an essential continuity and equivalence between the political
order in heaven on the one hand and earthly hierarchies on the other.
his also means that he is relatively untroubled by the Fall: from a
political point of view, the postlapsarian condition is not fundamentally diferent from that of the prelapsarian world. Indeed, far from
undermining the sacred nature of political authority, the Fall conirms
it. In line with his belief in an unchanging politico-religious order,
Vondel also imagines history as essentially cyclical – a self-repeating
chronicle of a rebellion foretold – and literature as a way of making this
visible.
Milton, by contrast, understands Satan’s rebellion as a misguided
attempt to bring politics into the realm of the divine, and consequently
sees divine kingship as a manifestation of the same category error. In
Paradise Lost, the Fall marks a fall into politics: it is only in Hell that
power and authority come to be corrupted into the inequality and tyranny that Milton associated with the Stuart monarchy. he Fall is
Satan’s successful attempt to export the politics of Hell to earth. In
other words, Milton inds in the Lucifer myth the raw material for his
radical Protestant republicanism: the Fall fundamentally altered the
nature of authority, and ater it, no human authority can claim to be
anything more than human. In line with this political vision, Milton
thought of postlapsarian history as a plunge into time, in which the
atemporal perspective of God forever eludes human beings.
he fundamental gap between the political argument of Lucifer and
Paradise Lost can be gleaned from the following remark by the Chorus
in the third act of Lucifer:
One power governs all, and can bring down even the highest.
Whatever the least of men receive is due to mercy only.
Here nothing is arbitrary, human understanding fails.
God’s glory lies in inequality.64
64
‘Een maght regeert het al, en keert het bovenste onder. / Wat d’allerminste
ontfangt, is loutere gena. / Hier gelt geen willekeur. hier komt vernut te spa. / In
d’ongelyckheit is Godts heerlyckheit gelegen’ (ll. 939–942).
religion and politics – lucifer
405
If Milton saw inequality as satanic, on a par with the tyranny brought
into the world by the Fall, Vondel presents Lucifer’s rebellion as a divine
justiication of inequality.
If Lucifer’s patriarchal, absolutist ideology is undermined at all, it is
by the play’s context. To insist on the sacrality of human government
ater years of European war and the recent regicide in England required
a stubborn denial of political reality, an unrelenting faith, or a combination of both. Seen in this context, the conventional, divinely ordered
universe evoked in the play seems out of touch with the realities of its
time. Hobbes seems better to have understood that under the circumstances, an alternative, secular rationalisation of absolute rule was
required. It may well have been the Hobbesian echo in Lucifer, then,
which has led many of its readers to view its religious tenets as a mere
cloak.
Pamphlets Cited
Kn. 6278. De Redenen By Sijne Maiesteyt van Groot Bretagnien, gepresenteert aen het
gepretendeerde Hof van Iustitie, op-gericht door eenige vande Litmaten des Parlaments
(Den Haag: Samuel Browne, 1649).
Kn. 6320–6324. Engelandts Memoriael, tot Eeuwighe ghedachtenis. Verhalende de
Proceduren, Declaratien, Beschuldigingen, defencien, Vonnissen, laetste woorden, en
executien, van De Vice-Roy van Yrlandt, onthalt den 22 Maey, 1641. De Bisschop van
Cantelbury, Onthalt den 10. Januarij, 1645. Den Koningh van Engelandt, Schotlandt
en Yrlandt, Karolus Stuart, d’eerste van die name, onthalt den 30 Januarij, Ouden
Stijl. Alle binnen Londen ge-executeert. (Amsterdam: Ioost Hartgers, 1649).
CHAPTER TWENTY
GENDER STUDIES – EMOTIONS IN JEPTHA (1659)
Kristine Steenbergh
Vondel’s play Jeptha of Oferbelote (Jephthah or Promise of Sacriice,
irst published in 1659) has invited critical attention to the issues of its
literary poetics as well as its representation of women. Vondel’s introduction to his biblical tragedy calls explicit attention to the role of emotions in the play’s Aristotelian poetics. Also, in adapting the story of the
general who unwittingly promises to sacriice his daughter, Vondel’s
play gives the anonymous biblical daughter the name Iis (‘strength’),
and adds a mother named Filopaie.1 A central question in recent criticism that takes these two issues in its stride is concerned with the role
of female emotions in Jeptha. Critics oten view daughter Iis as unemotional, whereas Filopaie’s display of emotions is seen as excessive or
even hysterical, and contrasted with Jeptha’s role as the focus of the
audience’s emotions.2 his chapter will analyse the representation of
the emotions in the context of the play’s poetics from a gender perspective. I will argue that the play as a whole does not disapprove of Iis’s or
Filopaie’s emotions. Rather, an analysis of the play’s gendered representation of the emotions shows how Jeptha’s management of his emotions
is explicitly contrasted with that of his daughter and wife to suggest
that the rehearsal of strong passions in a theatrical context has a therapeutic efect. Vondel intuits that Aristotelian poetics can be harnessed
as a means to achieve Catholic puriication and salvation.
1
John Christopherson of Cambridge University was the irst to introduce the igure
of the mother to his unpublished Greek play Iεφθαε. he humanist dramatist George
Buchanan wrote the neo-Latin Jephthes sive votum in 1544. He also included a mother,
named Storgê (parental love) and calls the daughter Iis. In the Netherlands, the irst
dramatisation of the biblical tale was by a Capuchin monk in Ghent, J. C. van Lummene
van Marke (1607). Abraham de Koning was the irst to write a tragedy on Jeptha in
Dutch: Jephthahs ende zijn Eenighe Dochters treur-spel (1615). Vondel was familiar with
his play, which does not contain a mother igure and names the daughter Mirja. For
a comparison of these plays, see Wijngaards’ introduction to his edition of Jeptha,
pp. 9–27.
2
English would be Jephthah, but I choose Jeptha, since this is how the character is
called in the play.
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Poetics and Gender
Whereas earlier Dutch playwrights were indebted to Seneca for their
perception of emotions as disruptions that need to be eradicated,
Vondel’s drama stands out because of his exceptionally close adherence
to Aristotelian poetics. In brief, this view of theatre aims to enable the
audience of a tragedy to moderate their emotions precisely by letting
them experience strong emotions in the theatre. In his analysis of the
operations of Aristotelian poetics in Vondel’s Jeptha, Jan Konst stresses
that the ‘coherent unity of the plot’ is of crucial importance in achieving this efect of catharsis on the audience. his unity, in his view, is
achieved by a focus on the character of Jeptha, who demonstrates the
didactic intent of the play. Jeptha’s intense doubts about his chosen
course of action in the central acts of the play invite the audience to
identify with him, so that their emotions ‘develop parallel to Jeptha’s
psychological development’ and climax at the beginning of the ith act,
when the protagonist realises that he was wrong to sacriice his daughter. Because the spectators, together with Jeptha, experience strong
feelings of pity and fear at that point, they achieve catharsis: they are
purged of their emotions.3
Although Vondel gave Jeptha’s daughter a name and introduced the
character of Filopaie, who is absent in the Bible, Konst does not think
the female characters fundamental to the tragedy’s poetics.4 Filopaie is
irrelevant to the emotional efect of the play; she is merely a ‘secondary
character.’5 Indeed, in his view the mother’s purpose in the play runs
counter to the Aristotelian poetics of the play as a whole. Konst writes
that Filopaie is portrayed more in accordance with Senecan-Scaligerean
poetics, as a warning against the dangers of excessive emotion.
herefore, he writes, it is only when we look at the central character of
Jeptha that we realise that Vondel’s didactic purpose points in a diferent direction, that of Aristotelian poetics.6
From a feminist perspective, Agnes Sneller has commented on this
exclusive focus on the character of Jeptha in the play’s critical reception. She points out that when critics argue that the audience is able to
identify with Jeptha and to share in his emotional development, the
3
4
5
6
Konst, Woedende wraakghierigheidt, pp. 193, 51, 199 respectively.
Konst, Fortuna, Fatum en Providentia Dei, p. 280.
Ibid., p. 50.
Konst, Woedende wraakghierigheidt, p. 51.
gender studies – jeptha
409
catharsis they experience is dependent on the sex of the individual
audience member. If Jeptha is represented as a Renaissance man, the
ideal woman in the play ‘is a creature who does not develop at all and
who acts in obedience, preferably without any resistance, like Iis, or
perhaps ater extreme emotions, like Filopaie’. he latter is portrayed in
the initial scenes of the play as a woman who cannot control her emotions, Sneller argues, and even if she later proves to have been misled by
her husband, the image that the audience retains of her is that of a
vulnerable, emotional woman. Indeed, critics have accordingly seen
her as a woman who cannot govern herself.7 Riet Schenkeveld, too, has
argued that Vondel’s plays do not accord female characters much
agency. She writes that in the rare cases in which women are portrayed
positively, this oten occurs in a context of atonement: ‘he virgin martyrs bring the sacriice of their sexuality in the most humiliating circumstances one can imagine, subjected to their male attackers with no
will of their own.’8 Both Sneller and Schenkeveld read Vondel against
the grain, and argue that the emotional purgation of the audience is
only achieved at the cost of female characters, who are not allowed
such development in their own right.
In his recent analysis of the tragedy in Vondel belicht (translated as
Sovereignty as Inviolability: Vondel’s heatrical Explorations in the
Dutch Republic), Frans-Willem Korsten counters the traditional
emphasis on the character of Jeptha, and argues for the importance of
Iis and Filopaie to the plot. Korsten moves away from a strict focus on
Aristotelian poetics to trace a gendered pattern of masculine sword
and feminine distaf in the play. He concludes that Iis’s sacriice establishes the sovereignty of the nation of Israel.9
In what follows, I will similarly analyse the play from a gender perspective rather than from the perspective of feminist criticism.
Following Joan Scott, I am interested in the ways gender representations shape relations of power. In her seminal article ‘Gender: A Useful
Category of Historical Analysis’, Scott deines gender not only as ‘a constitutive element of social relationships based on perceived diferences
between the sexes’, but also as a primary means by which power is
articulated. It can be used this way to shape relations between the sexes,
but, as Scott writes, ‘concepts of power, though they may build on
7
8
9
Sneller, ‘De marges centraal’, p. 11 and passim.
Schenkeveld-van der Dussen, Vondel en ’t vrouwelijke dier, p. 23.
Korsten, Vondel belicht, pp. 71–88; Sovereignty as Inviolability, pp. 69–89.
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gender, are not always literally about gender itself ’.10 he binary opposition of gender is oten used to enforce other oppositions in relations of
power. Literary historians can therefore use gendered oppositions as an
entrance into the power structures that take shape in a text. Scott
writes: ‘we must constantly ask not only what is at stake in proclamations or debates that invoke gender to explain or justify their positions,
but also how implicit understandings of gender are being invoked and
reinscribed.’11 It is the task of the historian, she argues, to disrupt the
seeming objectivity of gender structures, and to examine the nature of
the debate that led to the appearance of a gendered concept. he relations of power to which Scott refers are oten political, but her model
can also be applied to other levels of power, such as early modern theatre’s power to condition afective experience. Stage performances
shaped the ways in which audience members came to name and interpret their emotions, as well as how they understood them as ‘social and
political currency’.12 In this chapter, I will look at the gendered representation of emotions in the context of the play’s religious subject matter as well as conlicting early modern views on the operations of
emotions. If we do not accept the early modern stereotype of the woman’s inability to control her emotions at face value, but read the gendered representation of emotions in Vondel’s Jeptha as signifying
relations of power, we see how Vondel’s play uses gendered images to
advocate the purging of the emotions through their expression in an
isolated theatrical environment, and associates this process of purgation with the Catholic notions of puriication and salvation.
Moving Stones: Iis and the Purgation of Grief
Iis is oten described as an unimportant character. Konst, for example,
remarks that her acceptance of a speedy death functions mainly to enable the portrayal of her father’s inner turmoil, and that ‘Iis, because of
her constant acquiescence, remains a lat character’.13 Similarly, Sneller
comments: ‘And Iis? She hardly participates. […] Her obedience to her
father is there in the beginning, and will last to the end.’14 Piet Gerbrandy
10
11
12
13
14
Scott, ‘Gender’, p. 1069.
Ibid., 1074.
Rowe, ‘Humoral Knowledge,’ p. 176.
Konst, Woedende wraakghierigheidt, pp. 147–48.
Sneller, ‘De marges centraal’, p. 8.
gender studies – jeptha
411
dismisses her as a ‘sanctimonious bore’.15 I will argue here that if we
read the play not for the plot but for its representation of emotions, it
becomes clear that Iis does not sufer from a lack of feeling or inner
turmoil.
Indeed, Iis is introduced as a woman with strong emotions. We are
told that when Filopaie fainted at Jeptha’s return from the battle against
the Ammonites (thus missing the encounter between Iis and her
father), Iis feared for her mother’s life. She was in tears at her bedside,
moaning, crying and sighing in distress.16 Moreover, the play repeatedly draws attention to Iis’s two months of intense grief in the mountains of Galaäd, where she went ater learning of her father’s vow. Iis’s
stay in the mountains is not part of the action of the play – Vondel
states that in order to it the drama into Aristotle’s unity of time, the
play begins when Jeptha returns victorious from his battle against the
Ephraimites, two months ater his defeat of the Ammonites and his
rash vow to God. Nevertheless, Iis’s period of mourning in the mountains is referred to time and again, as if to remind the audience of what
happened there.17 Indeed, in his address to friends of the theatre
(‘Berecht’), Vondel chides George Buchanan for leaving Iis’s stay in the
mountains out of his play to adhere to the Aristotelian unity of time.
Why is this stay in the mountains so crucial to Vondel’s play? he
expression of emotion that occurs in the isolated environment of the
mountains is central to the play’s representation of the operations of
afect. When she returns to the palace, Iis tells the Steward
(‘Hofmeester’) that she bewailed her fate together with the virgins who
accompanied her. She describes how they noisily tore of their garments, let down their hair, groaned, sighed and moaned. Echoes
repeated their sound, which they in turn imitated,18 so that cries
15
‘[…] vervelende kwezel’, Gerbrandy, ‘Tussen Seneca en Aristoteles,’ p. 26. Dietz
has characterized Iis as a Stoic in ‘Een mens gelijk,’ pp. 36–37.
16
‘[…] en steende, en kermde, en zuchte in zulck een noot’ (l. 35).
17
See the dedicatory poem ll. 26–29; ‘Berecht’ ll. 4–6, 17; ‘Inhoudt’ ll. 13–15; in the
play ll. 11–12, 93–98, 295, 419–30, 582–85, 828–31, 1597, 1930. It is strange, in this
context, that Korsten states: ‘How Iphis has talked in her period of absence is not
known, but it certainly will not have been mere merry acceptance’ (Korsten, Vondel
belicht, p. 84; Sovereignty as Inviolability, p. 86). In a recent article, Van Gemert does
acknowledge that Iis mourned in the mountains: ‘there has been ample lamentation
(e.g. in vss. 419–38, 468–73 and 1595)’. She argues that, in his representation of Iis as a
powerful character, Vondel was inspired by De Koning’s Jepthah (Van Gemert, ‘Schuld
en boete,’ p. 134).
18
‘Den galm geweckt, die lust schept na te baeuwen’ (l. 471).
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resounded from rock to rock (ll. 468–82). In this description the virgins’ retreat to the mountains is characterized as a time of strong emotions. he echoing rocks play an important role as the audience of the
virgins’ performance of grief. his is also evident from an earlier passage in which the efect of the echo igures prominently:
With my attendants I so long did go
And wander in these mountains to and fro,
And long enough for maidenhood have cried
And to our mourning echoing hills replied.
Both sun and moon in turns across the sky
Witness to how our all-pervading cry
Has moved the very rocks lying here and there.19
Here, the isolated mountainous environment is represented in terms
reminiscent of a theatre, where the rocks take on the role of audience.
he passage stresses the interaction between the women and the rocks
by means of a pun: the word ‘nagesteent’ (to echo lamentingly) itself
echoes the mountains, since ‘steen’ means stone. he women and their
petriied audience enforce each other’s emotions. he rocks are not
mere sounding boards, as the inal line of the passage stresses: they are
moved by what they hear. his parallel between the interaction of Iis
and the rocks on the one hand, and that of actors and an audience is
strengthened by Vondel’s use of a similar image of impassioned rocks
in his prefatory sonnet to Abraham de Koning’s earlier dramatic version of the biblical tale. In that poem, Vondel stresses how the theatre
has the power to make the audience experience events as if they truly
happened. he poem states that when the maiden blood of Jeptha’s
daughter loods the stage ‘everyone dies with her, and the stones wellnigh burst’.20 In Vondel’s Jeptha, the emotional interaction between Iis
and her audience of mountains purges her grief and enables her to
master her emotions. She states that ‘now there is nothing that will
make me afraid’ and ‘I am ready now. he time for grief is past’.21
19
‘Ick heb dus lang de heuvels op en neder / Met dezen rey bewandelt heene en
weder, / Mijn’ maeghdestaet, en jeught genoegh beweent. / De berghgalm heet ons
lijckklaght nagesteent. / De zon en maen, by beurte op haeren wagen, / Getuigen hoe
ons al te druckigh klaegen / De rotsen zelf beweeghde, west en oost’ (ll. 419–25). All
translated quotations from Jeptha are taken from Peter King’s translation, unless otherwise indicated.
20
‘Dan stervet al met haer, dan bersten schier de steenen’, De Koning, Jephthahs
ende zijn eenighe dochters treurspel, Sig *3r.
21
‘[N]u is’ er niets dat my vervaeren kan’ (l. 585) and ‘Ick sta bereit. de tijt is uit van
treuren’ (l. 704).
gender studies – jeptha
413
his ability to purge one’s passions in order to achieve mastery over
them is described in gendered terms in the play. he chorus of virgins
who accompanied Iis to the mountains later sings the praise of her
equanimity (‘gelaetenheit’, l. 1639) and describes it as a stronger power
than that which defeats armies, giants or lions.22 Iis’s patience is thus
implicitly contrasted with the military heroism of Jeptha, which he
secured with his rash vow to sacriice her. In the same chorus, the virgins approve of those who are able to defeat their own will and desires,
and value them higher than those famous for their use of reason or
wisdom (ll. 1652–54). In these comparisons, the control of emotions is
compared to traditional masculine virtues. his gender aspect is made
explicit in the virgins’ comment that Iis’s fearlessness defeats the heart
of a man.23 he comparison echoes and contradicts the Steward’s earlier comparison of a man’s poised heart to the agitated state of a woman’s emotions: ‘A fragile woman will too quickly lean / To thrill or grief:
a man’s heart holds the mean / Twixt both, and knows his destiny can
waver’.24
Iis’s patience and fortitude can perhaps be said to be unwomanly,
but it could also be argued that the play shows that the Steward’s voice
of reason is not always right. Vondel’s prefatory poem, for example,
also prefers feminine patience to a male example. It presents Iis, rather
than Jeptha, as the heroine of the play, compares her with Isaac and
states that ‘this virgin exceeds all men […] the strongest gives in to the
weakest sex’.25 Indeed, the poem views her as a forerunner of Christ in
her willingness to be sacriiced (l. 32). his valuation of feminine
patience and fortitude over traditional idealizations of masculine violent conquest is described as a historical phenomenon of the late seventeenth century by Mary Beth Rose, who argues that in that period in
England ‘the heroics of endurance, gendered normatively as female,
had achieved suicient prestige to become the primary model of literary heroism.’26 Viewed from this English context, then, it could perhaps
be argued that Vondel’s contemporaries may not have agreed with the
way modern Dutch critics portray Iis. Rather than emotionless or a
22
‘Heet een stercker maght / Onder zich gebragt / Dan die heiren overwint’
(ll. 1643–45).
23
‘Die het mannenhart / In het knielen tart, / Met ongezwicht gelaet.’ (ll. 1686–88).
24
‘Een teêre vrou spat uit, al t’ongelaetigh, / In weelde en druck: een manshart
draeght zich maetigh / In beide, en kent het weifelende lot’ (ll. 85–87).
25
‘[M]enighmael tooneelen zaeght in traenen’ l. 35; and ‘deze maegth gaet al de
mans te boven […] De sterckste zwicht voor d’allerzwackste kunne’, ll. 15 and 17.
26
Rose, Gender and Heroism, p. 86.
414
kristine steenbergh
bore, she may have been seen as a truly heroic character. It is crucial to
my argument that the play repeatedly stresses that Iis achieved her
patient acceptance of her fate through the expression and purgation of
her violent emotions in an isolated environment reminiscent of a
theatre.
Rocks and Waves: Poetics and the Gender of Emotions
he motherly love of Iis’s mother Filopaie – to which her name also
refers – is contrasted to Jeptha’s strict adherence to his vow throughout
the play. In Vondel’s description of the operations of catharsis in his
prologue to the play, the emotional trajectory of Jeptha’s wife Filopaie
from happiness to sadness and vengefulness is paralleled to that of
Jeptha’s path from manly behaviour in the war to recklessness and
stubbornness, melancholic shock and inally remorse, because both
these trajectories in Vondel’s view contribute to the efect of catharsis:
they ‘deliver their force with a powerful emotional efect’.27 Nevertheless,
critics have not considered Filopaie important to the poetics of the
play. Instead, they seem to have followed the Steward in his opinion of
her excessive emotions. He compares her love for her daughter to that
of a tigress or a lioness, who will take bloody revenge when she inds
her nest robbed of her young: she will thrust her nails into the attacker’s
eyes (ll. 1303–16). Sneller writes that Filopaie’s natural urge to love her
daughter is overpowering, and suggests a lack of reason, a characteristic shared by the mother animal and the human mother. She remarks
that the Steward’s representation of Filopaie as hysterical stays with the
audience throughout the play, and has led critics to read her as such.28
I will argue that the Steward’s view of Filopaie should not be read as
representative of the tragedy as a whole. One of the reasons for this is
that other characters use the image of parent animals in a much more
positive light. Korsten has remarked that Jeptha, ater his realization
that it was wrong to execute his vow, also compares himself to a wild
27
‘[…] om hunne kracht met een machtige beweeghenisse te baeren’ (‘Berecht’, ll.
66–67).
28
Sneller, ‘De marges centraal’, pp. 7 and 9. A notable exception is Frans-Willem
Korsten, who explicitly comments on Konst’s interpretation of Filopaie as a hysterical
woman, and suggests an alternative, gendered reading of the play (Korsten, Vondel
belicht, p. 74; Sovereignty as Inviolability, p. 73).
gender studies – jeptha
415
animal when he cries out that even a wolf does not kill its own young.29
What is more, the Judge explicitly associates the image of the tiger who
protects her young with maternal love and the sacriice of Christ. He
argues that the love between parents and children is a law of nature,
shared by humans and animals. He not only refers to the natural behaviour of female lions, bears and tigers, but also to the Pelican, a
Renaissance symbol for the self-sacriicing Christ, also used as such on
the title page of Vondel’s Altaergeheimenissen (Secrets of the Altar,
1645).
he pelican, when droughts are at their worst,
Does not allow its young to sufer thirst,
But pecks herself the arteries in her breast,
And draws her own heart’s blood, so that the nest
May drink, her life-blood for their food outpouring.
You hear the lion, and bear, and tiger roaring
And raging if the hunters threat their lair.30
he Steward’s view of Filopaie, then, need not be representative of the
play as a whole. He represents the voice of reason (l. 434), and consequently – as the Berecht also stresses (ll. 104–06) – does not operate
from the heart, but from the head: ‘So grave a matter needs much serious thought’.31 His reasoned opinions, however, are always contrasted
with more emotional alternatives in the play. Iis calls him a deceiver
who tries to separate him from her mother: ‘We know your dissimulation, / Sending my mother at this time from this place’.32 She too views
Filopaie as a loving mother, and stresses that ilial love is so strong as to
materialize even ater death: her corpse would utter her last word if her
mother kneeled beside it. he Chorus that follows immediately upon
the Steward’s call for ‘serious thought’ similarly refers to family bonds
when it asks whether the grey hair of Iis’s grandfather, patriarch Joseph,
29
Korsten, Vondel belicht, p. 75; Sovereignty as Inviolability, p. 74. Interestingly, the
tiger in that quotation is still seen as the Steward would also regard it – as a ravenous
predator that Jeptha managed to subdue, as he did giants and heathens.
30
‘De pellikaen, by mangel van den regen, / En water, laet de jongen niet verlegen, /
Maer opent zelf alle aders in zijn borst, / En tapt het bloet van ’t hart, om hunnen
dorst / Te lesschen, hen te spijzen met zijn spieren. / Gy hoort den leeu, en beer, en
tyger tieren, / En brullen, zoo de jager ’t nest beroot’ (ll. 1027–33). Note that Peter
King applies a shit in the sex of the Pelican: it is a male bird in Vondel’s original. he
Pelican was used as an image of Christ in the early modern period.
31
‘Zoo groot een zaak eischt rijp beraet, en zinnen’ (l. 720).
32
‘[M]en kent uw loze streecken, / Die moeder, voor mijne aenkomst, stiert van
kant’ (ll. 488–89).
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kristine steenbergh
would not stand on end if he heard of her fate. he Chorus suggests
that her grandfather would have protected her from the sword, because
he would not have been able to see his grandchild harmed (ll. 721–36).
he Steward’s adherence to reason, then, is contrasted in the play with
other images that positively portray the emotions of motherly love and
family bonds.
Another image used by the Steward to portray women as excessively
emotional is also challenged by the play. he Steward uses the image of
tides and waves hitting the shore when he contrasts a man’s heart to
that of a woman’s in the opening scene of the play. Whereas a woman’s
heart is swayed by fortune and misfortune alike, a man’s heart knows
how to hold the mean: ‘For good and evil know / Allotted times and
turns, like ebb and low’.33 A man, then, is not carried with the waves of
the tide, but resists that movement and holds the mean, in the Steward’s
view. He distrusts the tidal movement of the sea, and uses images of
ships that sink when the breakers dash against the coast (l. 1301). At
other moments, however, the image of tides and waves is used with a
diferent import. When Jeptha ignores the Priest’s advice to give free
rein to his emotions and remains true to his bond, the priest compares
him to a rock in the sea that does not heed the sound of the waves
breaking on the shore.34 he Steward’s image of the man’s heart
unswayed by the tide is echoed here, but in a much more negative
sense: Jeptha’s reason, according to the Priest, is clouded, and the rock
here designates cold-heartedness rather than steadfastness.
Since both the Steward’s image of the tigress as well as that of a rock
standing irm despite the pull of the tide are contrasted with other
interpretations of those images in the course of the play, I think neither
the Steward’s opinion of Filopaie nor his opinion of gender and emotions should be taken as representative of the play as a whole. Indeed,
I would suggest that with the igure of the Steward, the play introduces
a remnant from earlier Senecan drama as a contrast to a radically different model of dealing with emotions. Gender contrasts are used to set
of the diferences between these two views. he igure of the Steward
resembles that of the nurses in Seneca’s tragedies, who try to reason
with furious heroines such as Medea or Clytemnestra in stichomythic
33
‘[Q]uaet en goet / Elck heet zijn tijt, en beurte, als eb, en vloet’ (ll. 91–92).
‘Kon een gety oit stercker gaen, / Wanneer de zee op strant en steenrots barrent, /
Ter helle daelt, en oprijst aan ’t gestarrent!’ (ll. 618–20); and ‘Ja, gelijck een rots in zee /
Naer ’t barnen en gebruisch der baren luistert’ (ll. 1185–86).
34
gender studies – jeptha
417
exchanges such as those of Jeptha with the Steward in ll. 915–25.
he Steward’s inluential image of Filopaie as a vindictive tigress similarly inds its roots in Seneca, where it is oten used to portray the
uncontrollable nature of feminine vindictive fury (see, for example,
Seneca’s Medea, ll. 862–65, where, ironically in the context of the subject of Vondel’s tragedy, it is used to portray Medea’s infanticidal
vindictiveness).
Vondel’s Jeptha contains more Senecan elements. It resembles the
tragedy Hercules furens, in which a hero who has just returned from
battle also kills his ofspring. here, the goddess Juno takes revenge on
the mythical hero Hercules. She lets the Furies possess him and drive
him to madness. Believing that he sees his archenemy, the tyrant Lycus,
Hercules mistakenly slays his wife and son. Only when he recovers
from his fury does he realize what he has done. Vondel’s Jeptha echoes
this play in many ways. Like Hercules, Jeptha returns victorious from
the wars, and like him, he slays what is dearest to him at the altar. He
too cynically compares his heroic feats on the battleield to the shedding of the blood of his own kin (l. 844, or ll. 651–53). Also like
Hercules, Jeptha speaks of his hand that used to ight battles, but that
now kills his child (ll. 1714–15), and shows remorse only ater the deed
is done. Similarly, in her vindictiveness, at the altar Filopaie mistakenly
thinks she sees her husband before her, as Hercules saw Lycus, and
wants to kill her own partner in her fury.
Vondel’s Jeptha, however, does not simply imitate Seneca’s tragedy.
In accordance with Stoic philosophy, Hercules furens stresses the dangers of the passions, and uses feminine fury as an example of the efects
of uncontrolled emotion. Vondel’s play, however, reverses this view of
the passions. It is not Jeptha’s passionate fury that drives him to the
murder of his daughter – instead, the play emphasizes how he swallows
his feelings to carry out his vow. If Stoic philosophy fears the efects of
passion, Vondel’s Jeptha shows that the expression of anger and grief in
an isolated, theatrical environment can moderate those passions. his
contrast also appears in gendered terms: Seneca prefers masculine reason over feminine passion, but in Vondel’s play it is the ideal of masculine repression of emotions recommended by the steward that is
represented negatively, the female characters’ expression of emotion is
shown to lead to temperance.
Indeed, the play as a whole represents masculine repression of emotions in a negative light. Although Jeptha tears his clothes in grief and
shock when Iis is the irst creature to appear out of his house upon his
418
kristine steenbergh
return from battle (ll. 819–23, see also the title page of De Koning’s
tragedy – igure 1), he has since adhered to the Steward’s advice of
moderation. He has ‘painfully suppressed the grief ’ and feels as if his
heart is caught in a vice.35 he Steward approves of this strategy, for
when Jeptha longs to express his feelings – a process he genders feminine by comparing it to the painful pangs of giving birth – the Steward
reminds him of his manly duty to remain rational: ‘You used to bear
yourself more manfully / On parting’.36
Whereas Iis used her two months of withdrawal to purge her emotions, Jeptha went away to battle to repress his grief. He complains that
he could not express his sorrows openly: ‘Others show their grief and
vent their feelings, / But I suppressed my sighs in all my dealings, / And
night and day my sorrow put behind’.37 Peter King here translates the
Dutch ‘inkroppen’ with ‘put behind’, but the term is more literally
translated as ‘swallowed’, or ‘compressed inside’. It is very much a physical term: rather than purging his grief, he has contained it inside his
body. Because Iis has used the two months of withdrawal to come to
terms with her emotions, she is able to face her fate with patience.
Jeptha, however, has swallowed his emotions during these two months,
and is still in the same emotional state as the moment he saw Iis come
out of his house on his return from battle. Consequently, he once more
starts to tear his clothes at the altar, for Iis entreats him: ‘Ah father, do
not rend your garments so’.38 he Court Priest suggests that the two of
them withdraw a little, possibly so that Jeptha can purge his emotions
in a controlled environment. Moreover, he is worried that Jeptha ‘will
alarm [Iis’s] heart with all this grieving’.39 Similarly, Filopaie suggests
that the violence of her emotions at the death of her daughter might
have been tempered if she had been ofered an opportunity to come to
terms with the impending sacriice.40 Using the same word ‘inkroppen’,
she complains that her heart will have to swallow her woe forever since
35
‘[…] mijn hartewee met knaegen / In ’t hart gesmoort’ (ll. 856–57); and ‘Hoe
wordt mijn hart beklemt, gelijck met schroeven!’ (l. 840).
36
‘Gy hebt voorheene u moediger gedraegen / In ’t scheiden’ (ll. 855–56).
37
‘Een ander melt zijn’ rouw, magh zich verluchten, / Maer ick ontzagh en vreesde
een’ zucht te zuchten, / En kropte mijn verdriet in nacht en dagh’ (ll. 803–05).
38
‘Ay vader, scheur uw kleeders niet aen larden’ (l. 1184).
39
‘De lantvooght ga met my wat aen een zijde’ (l. 1527); and ‘Gy zult haer hart door
dit gekerm vertsaegen’ (l. 1543).
40
‘Och, liet men my ten minste haer eens spreecken, / Voor ’t allerjongst: zoo hadde
ick noch mijn hart / Eens uitgeklaeght: nu kropt het deze smert, / Dit wee, en zal ’t
inkroppen al zijn dagen’ (ll. 1876–79).
gender studies – jeptha
419
she was not allowed to prepare for her daughter’s death by grieving
together with her. A closer examination of the emotions of the female
characters, then, reveals that they are not so much secondary to the
actions of Jeptha, but ofer alternatives to his management of emotions.
Whereas Jeptha is advised to repress his excessive grief to come to
rational decisions, the female characters are shown to express their violent passions in a secure environment and are aterwards more able to
cope with tragedy.
Breaking Waves: Catharsis and Galenic Medicine
he view of the emotions as presented by the play is expressed most
clearly by the Court Priest, who conlates Aristotelian poetics with
Galenic medicine in his interpretation of the operations of the passions. Galenic medicine associates the emotions with the four humours
(blood, phlegm, black and yellow bile). hrough ingestion and purging, the individual is able to achieve a healthy balance in the humours.
he Court Priest similarly takes a physical approach to the emotions,
and stresses the importance of purging.41 he idea of catharsis is primarily a medical metaphor. Katherine Craik writes that, given Aristotle’s
knowledge of the purging of peccant matter by the application of drugs
in medical discourse, ‘Aristotelian katharsis can be seen as the precursor of the early modern development of humoral theory’.42 he scene in
which the Court Priest presents his ideas on the operations of the emotions focuses on Filopaie’s grief and anger ater the sacriice of her
daughter. he Court Priest stands by Filopaie’s side when her vindictiveness towards her husband does indeed materialize in the way the
Steward had predicted. Unlike Hercules or Jeptha, however, Filopaie
does not murder a family member. Instead, her performance of fury
eventually contributes to the moderation of her emotions. he Court
Priest leads her through a process of purgation during which he makes
sure that she can hurt neither others nor herself (ll. 1779–87). He comments that reason cannot stop the low of grief: it needs to run its
course (ll. 1779–80). herefore he lets Filopaie play out the murder of
her husband on the altar scene, a space that earlier in the play is compared with a theatre. She imagines that she sees Jeptha before her and
41
42
See also Konst, Woedende wraakghierigheidt, p. 28.
Craik, Reading Sensations, p. 46.
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kristine steenbergh
describes how she attacks him, like a tigress beret of her young. She
even imagines that she changes into a werewolf, the creature on the
boundary between human and animal, and digs her claws into her husband’s body.43 his performance of grief and anger, stage-managed by
the Court Priest, leads to catharsis. As in Iis’s case, Filopaie’s expression of grief is echoed by mountains, vaults and caves (ll. 1814–16), and
she is supported by the virgins. In both Iis’s and Filopaie’s case, the
feminine expression of emotions in a sheltered environment that is
compared to a theatre is shown to be more efective than Jeptha’s
attempts to suppress his feelings, and is shown eventually to lead to a
balanced state of mind.44 Even the Steward, who initially asks ‘what
means we have to rock the grief to sleep?’, later agrees with the Court
Priest that ‘a breaking heart in mourning gains relief ’.45 In the inal act
of the play, both Jeptha and the Steward seem to realize that the expression of emotions is a natural process that enables rather than prevents
rational decisions.
he fact that the play as a whole adheres to this Aristotelian-cumGalenic view of the passions is also evident from Vondel’s use of the
image of breaking waves in his ‘Berecht.’ here, the image is not used in
the Steward’s sense of rocks standing irm in a tide of passion. Rather,
it describes the low of passions in the play: ‘hus the various passions
toss, tumble and break like waves on the shore, by constant changes
from beginning to end’.46 An audience riding the waves of staged passion will learn how to moderate their emotions (ll. 141–43). he efect
of words on the body plays a crucial role in this process. Vondel claims
that his use of iambic pentameters is especially suited to his purpose,
since they are more sinewy and muscled than Alexandrines (ll. 146–
59).47 Tanya Pollard writes that: ‘[l]iterary language, especially when
43
‘Daer ruck ick hem zijne oogen uit het hoot, / Dat valsche hart ten boezem uit, de
darmen / Ten buick uit. ziet hem spartlen: hoort hem kermen.’ (ll. 1854–56)
44
Interestingly, women were considered by Galenic medicine to have an advantage
over men. Michael Schoenfeldt writes that this was because ‘their monthly menstrual
low functioned as a purge, accomplishing naturally what men would have to achieve
through blood-letting’. (Schoenfeldt, Bodies and Selves, p. 37).
45
‘Wat middel om den rouw in slaap te wiegen?’ and ‘Een treurigh hart is met
geklagh behulpen’ (ll. 1888 and 1928).
46
‘Aldus woelen, tuimelen, en barnen hier verscheide hartstoghten, door geduurige
veranderingen van den beginne tot het ende’ (ll. 123–25; my translation, KS).
47
For a wonderful exploration of early modern ideas about the efect of literary
language on the body, see Craik, Reading Sensations. On the relation between emotions
and the stylistic form of language in Jeptha, see Van Leuvensteijn en Wattel, ‘Een statistische methode’.
gender studies – jeptha
421
spoken aloud, was understood to be directly linked with the imagination and to have special rhetorical properties, taking on a synaesthetic
power to transform the body at a physiological level.’48 Moreover, the
published text of Jeptha suggests that a visit to the theatre is an ideal
place to vent one’s passions in a controlled environment and once more
associates this idea with a woman – just as Iis and Filopaie vented
theirs in isolation, so the dedicatee of the play, Anna van Hooren, is
known for shedding tears in the theatre (Dedicatory poem, l. 35).
Words Made Flesh: Vondel’s Poetics and Catholic Purgation
Vondel’s use of Aristotelian poetics is exceptional in a Dutch context, as
well as in a broader perspective. Konst writes that ‘nowhere in the
Europe of the 1660s does one ind plays that breathe the spirit of
Aristotle, that execute his ideas to such an extent as Vondel’s tragedies’.49 How can this phenomenon be contextualized? With respect to
this issue, Korsten remarks that poetics do not exist in a vacuum. A
play’s poetics is not merely a (diachronic) reaction to earlier poetics,
but functions synchronically in a particular social, religious, or political context.50 Jeptha’s gendered representation of the emotions is
strongly related to the biblical subject matter of the play as well as to
religious conlicts in the Netherlands of the seventeenth century.51
Jeptha’s strict adherence to his vow is represented as Calvinist, whereas
his later realization of the importance of his emotions is associated
with Catholic images in the play.
Jeptha’s central theme has been deined as ‘the relation between God
and Man’, and Korsten has situated the play in the context of the debate
on predestination that raged in post-Reformation Europe.52 In criticism of the irst half of the twentieth century, this context was more
regularly integrated into analyses of the play. here, Jeptha was
48
Pollard, Drugs and heater, p. 16.
Konst, Woedende wraakghierigheidt, p. 289.
50
Korsten, Vondel belicht, p. 76; Sovereignty as Inviolability, p. 74.
51
In a diferent context, Parente also describes Vondel’s Jeptha as ‘Christianized
poetics’ and writes that the programmatic neo-classical intention of Vondel’s tragedy is
‘to induce his Christian audience to lament their fallen state, recognize the paradoxical
relationship between faith and reason and to evince their belief through their unreserved submission to God’s will’ (Religious Drama and the Humanist Tradition, p. 147).
52
Konst, ‘De motivatie van het ofer’, p. 156 and Korsten, Vondel belicht, p. 72;
Sovereignty as Inviolability, pp. 77–79.
49
422
kristine steenbergh
compared to a Calvinist who does not listen to the priest who ofers
him a possibility of absolution, but listens only to his own conscience,
and adheres to his own strict interpretation of his vow.53 In contrast to
Buchanan’s Jephthes (1554), Vondel’s play explicitly condemns this attitude: Jeptha realizes he was wrong to murder his daughter and turns to
the church to beg for the forgiveness of God. Jeptha’s development
from a man who lets his adherence to his vow prevail over his emotions
to an Aristotelian protagonist who purges his body of excessive emotion seems to run parallel to his development from a Calvinist believer
in his personal relation to God to a Catholic who has faith in the intermediary role of the church as well as in a process of spiritual purgation
that leads to forgiveness.54 here are several reasons why I would characterize this process of spiritual purgation as Catholic. Firstly, it is of a
strongly physical nature: the experience of pain is central to Jeptha’s
remorse. Of course, the idea that the experience of physical pain could
lead to salvation is embedded in the Catholic faith.55 To be forgiven,
Jeptha would be prepared to climb steep rocks and would cross thorncovered valleys barefoot – no pain would be too severe. In an even
more explicitly Catholic vein, Jeptha also suggests wearing a hair shirt,
recalling the customs of monastic penance:
If some way I could ind
To expiate my sin, there is no pain
I would not undergo; […]
No glen would seem too drear or deep, no crest
Too steep to clamber up and down them yet
hrough thorns and brambles, barefoot, bathed in sweat
And gasping for my breath. Sackcloth I’d wear
And ashes to express my heart’s despair
53
In the 1930s, interpretations of Vondel more frequently stressed the relation of his
work to religious conlicts, and emphasized the role it played in shaping paradigms in
the debate. Gerard Brom in Vondels geloof, for example, writes that Vondel’s plays are
heavily related to the religious conlicts of his time. ‘A generation that grew up in the
turbulent days of the Bestand learns to debate religion systematically and can only be
fascinated by a play when it is full of exchanges of ideas that really touch the hearts of
audience as well as players’ (p. 286; translation my own). Verwey wrote that ‘[w]e
understand Jeptha entirely if we are aware of a conlict between human feeling on the
one hand and religious feeling on the other’ (Verwey, ‘Vondels Jeptha’). Simons has
analyzed the play in the context of religious controversy (Simons, Studies en Lezingen).
54
Interestingly, Samuel Coster in his Iphigenia (written in 1617, irst performed in
1621) also used a story of the sacriice of a child to criticize Counter-Remonstrant
preachers.
55
On the impact of the Reformation on cultural assumptions about pain, see Van
Dijkhuizen, ‘In hy Passions Slain’ and ‘Partakers of Pain’.
gender studies – jeptha
423
In solitude, in forest or wild plains.
Consider well, assemble all the pains.
All miseries and torments, all the grief:
If only God will grant me some relief
I will not turn away from rigours stern.56
he proposed process of purgation would take place in a remote area
characterized by steep rocks and valleys, an isolated environment reminiscent of Iis’s refuge in the mountains of Galaäd. When Jeptha experiences remorse in the inal act of the play, then, he expresses his
pent-up emotions and intends to retire to an isolated area, as his daughter also reports she did in the beginning of the play. he word ‘grief ’ in
the quotation translates the Dutch ‘geklagh’, which refers expressly to
the utterance of grief. hus the tragedy has come full circle with Jeptha’s
realization that it is necessary to express one’s emotions in an isolated
environment in order to come to terms with them.
It is not only Jeptha’s painful process of purgation that is intensely
Catholic. Indeed, Vondel’s adherence to Aristotelian poetics in a landscape of Senecan drama can be related to a Catholic view of the relation
between word and lesh. hat the use of visual representations was
associated with Catholicism by iconoclast Puritans and Calvinists is of
course well known (and the efect Vondel accords to Vos’s visual pantomime ater Act Four is interesting in this context; ‘Berecht’, ll. 131–44).
However, in an English context at least, strict Protestants also objected
to the idea that words could bring about an alteration in a listener’s
body. In her Drugs and heatre, Tanya Pollard provides a sharp analysis
of English debates about the physical efects of theatre. She writes that
such quasi-magical powers of language were heavily contested, especially in discourses of science and Protestantism. William Perkins, for
example, objected that ‘that which is onely a bare sound, in all reason
can have no vertue in it to cause a reall worke’. In his view, words cannot have ‘the power of touching a substance’. In these debates, the idea
that words could have a physical efect was associated with Catholicism.57
56
‘Verstont ick langs wat wegh / Dit lasterstuck te zoenen stont, geen lijden / Viel my
te zwaer.[…] / Geen steile rots viel my te steil, geen dal / Te droef, te diep, in op en neêr
te stijgen, / Door doornehaegh, baervoets, bezweet, te hijgen / Naer mijnen aêm. Ik
trock een hairenkleet / Aen ’t lijf, en vaste in asch en harteleedt, / In eenzaemheit, en
wouden, en woestijnen. / Bedenck vry, hael te zamen alle pijnen / Weedommen, en
verdrieten, en geklagh: / Indien ick Godt alleen vermurwen magh, / Geen strengheit
zal my hinderen, noch keeren’ (ll. 1738–51).
57
Pollard, Durgs and heater, p. 135.
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kristine steenbergh
Puritan treatises that attacked the theatre did acknowledge the power
of the speech act in the theatre, but were highly suspicious of its efects
on the audience: they saw it as a danger rather than a positive efect of
theatre.
hat the gendered representation of emotions in Jeptha is closely
intertwined with the poetics of the play as well as with its religious
context, is also supported by Vondel’s work in a diferent genre. In
Vondel’s poetic contribution to the debate about predestination, the
contrast between reason and a strict adherence to Protestant doctrine
on the one hand, and ‘natural’ feminine emotions on the other, also
igures prominently. In 1631, Vondel published a poem entitled
Decretum horribile (he Horrifying Judgement), a sharp attack on
Calvin.58 he poem uses the forceful image of a mother who has lost
her child to bring home the cruelty of the Counter-Remonstrant doctrine of double predestination, according to which the mother could
have done nothing to prevent her baby from going to Hell. It asks
whether God demands the cruel sacriice of children:
Is God the crocodile that eats the new-born child
For dainties, on the banks of river Nile?
Where Moses in his chest was scarcely held
Floating amongst the women’s cries of murder
hrough bodies without count?59
his image also features in Jeptha, at a meta-dramatic moment where
the chorus of virgins has just intervened in the action of the play to
request that Iis’s mother be present at her sacriice. he Steward has
refused this request because he fears Filopaie will behave like a tigress
beret of her child. In the chorus that follows, the virgins compare Iis
to Moses, and Filopaie to Jochebed, his mother. hey sing of the mother’s fears and grief as she hands her child over to the waters of the Nile.
Even though the crocodile is not compared to God in the play as it is in
the poem, the ravenous animal does spare the child. By recycling the
images as well as the theme of the 1631 poem, the chorus seems to
comment on Jeptha and the Steward’s lack of compassion, and compares them to Calvinists. he poem Decretum horribile ends with words
See also Konst, Fortuna, Fatum en Providentia Dei, pp. 69–71.
‘Is God de krokodil, die ’t versch geboren kind, / Aen d’oevers van den Nijl, voor
leckerny verslind? / Daer Moses nauwelicks in ’t kistje, word behouwen, / En drijt,
door ’t moordgeschrey der Isralijtse vrouwen / Door lijcken zonder tal?’ (ll. 69–73).
I thank Helmer Helmers for helping me with this translation.
58
59
gender studies – jeptha
425
Title page of the 1615 edition of De Koning’s Jephthah. To the let stand
Iis and her virgin chorus, while the army to the right supports Jeptha,
who has dropped his sword and tears his coat in an emotional reaction
to his daughter’s appearance. With the courtesy of the University
Library Amsterdam.
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kristine steenbergh
of comfort to the mother – even if the infanticides (‘kindervlegels’) of
the Calvinist faith proclaim such cruelty, Christ has shed his blood for
her child: ‘He gathers them in lap of new Jerusalem / More loving than
a mother hen in the ields / hat with her wings the naked chick protects and shields’.60 Here too, then, maternal love and the extreme emotions that are associated with it are contrasted to the strict adherence to
Protestant dogma, which is represented as unfeeling.
Conclusion
I have argued that Vondel’s Jeptha contrasts masculine repression with
the feminine expression of passion, and shows the latter to be a more
‘natural’ and even more ethical approach to life. Previous interpretations of the play in terms of character and plot have viewed its female
characters as sanctimonious or hysterical, but they are in fact central to
the play’s representation of the workings of emotion. he play uses a
gendered representation of the emotions to counter a prevailing
Senecan poetics in the Low Countries, which it associates with a strict
Protestant outlook on the relation between human beings and God. In
its stead, it employs female characters to propose a mix of Catholic,
Aristotelian and Galenic paradigms – a framework that allows for a
process of physical and spiritual purgation in a safe environment. his
process of purgation leads to equanimity and, eventually, absolution.
Vondel’s tragedy in its gendered representation of the purgative efects
of the performance of emotions is a spirited neo-Aristotelian defence
of the afective operations of the early modern stage.
60
‘Hij saemeltse, in den schoot van ’t nieu Ierusalem, / Veel lielicker als een klockhen, met haer’ wiecken / Beschaduwt en beschermt het ongepluymde kieken’ (ll. 130–
32; my translation, KS).
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
CLOSE READING AND THEORY – THE DAVID PLAYS
Frans-Willem Korsten
Close Reading: Sensing the Text
It would not be far-fetched to state that theory is the answer to what
some have called the ‘crisis in representation’, which is caused, or rather
explored, by philosophical postmodernism. Friedrich Nietzsche would
then act as its pivotal igure. Still, instead of considering the latter as the
igure that marks a fundamental divide, his work can also be seen as a
powerful voice in an ongoing discussion within the Western tradition.
Both classical writings and many sorts of religious texts (including the
Tanakh and the Bible) testify to a mistrust of language or, more fundamentally, to the inability to know what language, ultimately or inally,
represents. One need only consider the vehement discussions in the
Middle Ages between nominalists and realists.1 To put this diferently,
it would be rather chronocentric to call the crisis of representation typically or solely postmodernist. he humanists in the Renaissance, for
instance, experienced a diferent but partly similar crisis in representation. hey too decided to start to close read, in relation to what was
then a new kind of theory, and one that was diferent to what is nowadays called theory. In both cases, and despite historical diferences, the
desire that fuels close reading is to postpone the process of meaningmaking. he impulse of both is to stay with the text, on the literal level,
as long as possible.2
To be sure, the seemingly simple notion of ‘text’ and the diference
between literal and igural remain extremely complicated issues. his,
1
Since Carre published his study in 1946 on the issue of realism and nominalism,
relatively few speciic studies have been published on the medieval discussion recently,
which may be surprising, considering the vehement debate in the last decades on the
role and status of language.
2
One of the best studies on literature and theory is Jonathan Culler’s he Literary in
heory. he phrase ‘making meaning’ refers to Mieke Bal’s study in semiotics, On
Meaning-Making, see note 11.
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frans-willem korsten
too, is not new. On the one hand, Plato’s attacks on the sophists and
their instrumental use of language in Gorgias and his attacks on theatre
in the Republic were based on the desire for an unequivocally clear,
epistemologically decisive and ontologically ideal form of representation. Yet on the other hand, his texts on the matter testify to a fundamental problem. Plato can only attack a speciic use of language by
making use of language in the very same way, not because he is a lawed
philosopher, but because he cannot escape language’s rhetorical nature.
Likewise, he can only attack theatre by making use of his persona
Socrates. Had he taken himself as protagonist he would have appeared
not as the individual Plato, but in and through language as the artiicial
persona Plato.3 So, generally speaking, the crisis is one in which language principally cannot rid itself of its own manipulation. here is no
way of speaking, thinking or acting without some kind of persona or
mask. To put this diferently, one cannot say that the meaning and
operation of language or subjectivity in the end goes back on some
pristine and untouched X. If that would be possible, language would be
truly representational. It would present x as the valid and meaningful
replacement for, or a temporary instance of, what is supposed to be the
real presence X.
One could say, consequently, that there is only a crisis for those who
think that there is or should be an untouched, extra-lingual, deinable,
expressible truth. With respect to this issue, close reading can be called
a pivotal, but also ambiguous instrument in the history of Western
humanism. his history was characterized by George Steiner in his
Real Presences as one in which a religiously inspired or philosophically
underpinned trust in language is possible, and is key to the organization of truth, faith or knowledge. In Steiner’s view, in classical humanism the house of representation stands because it remains possible to
know what language is about. his knowledge of the about-ness of language allows one to stick to the notion, however imaginary, of inality
in meaning or of some kind of truth (Idea, Geist). Within this context,
close reading served to value the text for its intricacies in order to trace
the arrows pointing to the text’s true, original, proper or ultimate
meaning. Epistemologically speaking, language, if studied closely
3
On the way in which Plato is being read in relation to his manipulation of language
and masks, see Zuckert, Postmodern Platos, in which she considers the way in which
Nietzsche, Strauss, Heidegger, Gadamer and Derrida have read Plato.
close reading and theory – the david plays
429
enough, would lead to the right answer. Ontologically speaking, language could then be the embodiment of truth. It may be clear that close
reading consequently was not, and cannot be, just a matter of technique. Close reading is not like the ability to ride a bike, drive a car or
ly a plane. Close reading concerns a scholarly, political or aesthetical
choice to approach the object in a certain way. For the humanists it was
important to counteract the obsessively allegorical ways of reading in
the Middle Ages. heir desire for a more literal meaning necessitated
close reading, as performed for instance by Spinoza in his Tractatus
heologico-Politicus (Politico-heological Treatise). In this study he
decided to read the Bible as a historically determined text in order to
get to its proper meaning. I will call this humanist endeavour the hermeneutics of close reading.
Still, with regard to this hermeneutics, even Spinoza would have had
to admit that there is no such thing as ‘the’ literal meaning. Language
is, in a sense, allegorical per se. Saying ‘tree’, I mean something other
than the word, and the tree is not made present as tree. Besides, the
question is why we chose to call the object-tree a tree in the irst place.
here is a fundamental arbitrariness in language, as was analyzed succinctly by Ferdinand de Saussure.4 he vast implications of this arbitrariness would play a major role in the course of the twentieth century,
and a paradigmatic discussion on the issue took place between Jacques
Derrida and Hans-Georg Gadamer.5 Gadamer, in his Truth and Method,
contended that interpretation, understood hermeneutically, is aimed at
general consensus. Derrida argued that interpretation can and will lead
to radically diferent meanings.6 His case may be exemplary for the way
in which close reading would be hooked on to completely diferent
ways of thinking about or dealing with art, which – taken together –
were to be called theory. Scholars adhering to ‘theory’ would accept the
impossibility of an ultimate kind of truth. Consequently, for them a
One of the best studies to date on structuralism with its roots in De Saussure is
Jonathan Culler, Structuralist Poetics.
5
he discussion was dealt with in a separate volume, edited by Michelfelder and
Palmer, Dialogue and Deconstruction: he Derrida-Gadamer Encounter. he vast
implications of the arbitrariness of language led to strong opposition from let to right.
On this see Eagleton, Illusions of Postmodernism; Steiner, Real Presences; or Posner,
Law and Literature.
6
Gadamer, Truth and Method, ‘Text and Interpretation’ and ‘Reply to Jacques
Derrida’; Derrida, ‘hree Questions to Hans-Georg Gadamer’.
4
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‘crisis of representation’ did not exist as such. It could positively, and
preferably, be deined as the rhetoricity or theatricality of representation. It implied, in the end, a luid or ‘lat’ conceptualization of language
and representation instead of a hierarchical and ‘deep’ conceptualization. his was not just a matter of epistemology or ontology, or politics.
As the texture of language was considered diferently and the text itself
was sensed diferently, this approach to language was also a matter of
aesthetics.
he very term close reading came to prominence through the work
of the so-called New Critics. As was already hinted at, this did not
mean they invented something new. heir work, in the 1930s, ‘40s and
‘50s, was a response to what were the dominant ways of dealing with
literature and art at the time. One igurehead of the New Critics was
I.A. Richards, the author of important studies such as Practical Criticism
and Principles of Literary Criticism, and also, tellingly, of Science and
Poetry. An important goal of the New Critics was to consider the work
of art as an autonomous object and not as a derivative of extratextual
circumstances. In a sense their main question was epistemological:
what kind of thing is this object? his was primarily a reaction to the
tendency to reduce the work of art to the author’s life and thoughts,
something W.K. Wimsatt called the intentional fallacy. he New Critics
protested against this tendency to explain art without having understood or having paid real attention to what the work itself was. Like the
humanists before them, the New Critics in a sense wanted to take the
text literally. heir desire was to have a better understanding of, or to
acquire knowledge about, the object of art through the object itself.
However, in the process they ignored the interpreting subject. As for
this subject, Wimsatt dubbed the undesirable efect of this elusive igure the afective fallacy. Trying to avoid both fallacies, the New Critics
strived to achieve some kind of objective knowledge that could be
found through close reading.7
he New Critics did not reign supreme. Simultaneously, especially in
Europe but also in the States and elsewhere, diferent forms of critique
of ideology were being developed, which in one way or another were
connected to Marxism or which had existed since the thirties in the
form of what later became known as the Frankfurt School (accompanied in the ities and sixties by several Latin-American, African and
7
On this, see Littau, heories of Reading, p. 97.
close reading and theory – the david plays
431
Asian postcolonial scholars). By and large they would criticize the type
of close reading proposed by the New Critics. Scholars interested in
ideology could not accept the autonomous status of the work of art as
such, or consider it solely in terms of knowledge. According to them,
texts were embedded in sociocultural circumstances. Diferent contexts were always determining the work of art, or were presented
through it. In that sense art was principally sociopolitically charged
and active. he type of close reading advocated by the New Critics was
seen as the correlate of a decision to consider the work of art as nonpolitical. his option was rejected or viliied by those of the critical
schools, who were only able to think of the autonomy of art in a negative sense. Adorno, for instance, saw such a form of autonomy as an
adequate response to the forces that beset and alienate modern human
beings.8
In this context, for a while, close reading served as a watershed. To
some it was ‘in’, whereas for others it was ‘out’ – out of the question.
Still, important scholars within the critical schools of the sixties and
seventies not only cherished close reading but found it politically
important. Consequently, from the 1960s onwards close reading came
to be considered in a radically diferent setting. he irst conscious
relection on this shit may be Paul de Man’s Blindness and Insight. De
Man once recalled how the favourite course he took as a student was
one in which students would do nothing but read a single text. For
people such as De Man, close reading was ‘as old as the hills’.9 hey
intended to use it, however, within the parameters of a radically diferent kind of humanism, oten called post-humanism. In that context
approaches such as deconstruction and feminism, which in turn were
both heavily interested in psychoanalysis, would reconceptualize close
reading as well.
In psychoanalysis, one is required to pay attention to the texture and
the details of the object in order to open up the potential of meaning in
many diferent directions; these will prove to be traces in both the individual and the collective cultural body. For feminism, a whole range of
questions on the status of texts in a predominantly patriarchal society,
with the blotting out of female texts and female voices in those texts,
required close reading. Only by close reading could speciic forms of
the distribution of the sensible, as Rancière would call it, be traced. In
8
9
On the negatively deined autonomy of art, see Adorno, Äesthetische heorie.
Phillips, http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/elljwp/deMan.htm.
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this way, voices that had been smothered or covered up could be sensed
again and brought to light. As for deconstruction, the principal point
was that saying something must mean un-saying something, or not
saying it. Here, close reading was required to sense and trace the
dynamic of what is being said through the not-said. In both cases, a
politics of close reading was accepted in macro and micro-political
terms. he way in which a text was doing politics, on a macro or microlevel, became a major point of interest and in order to trace how this
was done, one had to close read. For this type of close reading, the term
semiotics of close reading can be used, as has been suggested by Jonathan
Culler and Mieke Bal.10 One could even call it an aesthetics of close reading, if one takes aesthetics in the postmodernist sense. Instead of rejecting the afective fallacy, the interpreter will then have to deal with the
inevitability of afective relations between object and subject, which is,
indeed, a matter of aesthetics.
One of the major contemporary philosophers on the topic of aesthetics, Jean Mary Schaefer, deined the hermeneutical approach as
itting within the frame of a speculative approach to art, which inds its
ground in philosophy and theology and is in the end predominantly
cognitive in nature. One studies the work in detail in order to know
more about it and to ind its deeper, ultimate, or true meaning. Its
meaning is ‘elsewhere’, so to speak. In contrast, the semiotics or aesthetics of close reading its in with what may be called an afective
approach to art. his approach is in the end predominantly concerned
with the ways in which art strikes, inluences, shapes, binds, and
touches us – also politically – in the here and now. In this case, one
studies the work in detail in terms of sensation, i.e. in order to sense as
fully as possible what it is doing, both in the private and the public
domain, individually and collectively, and in terms of both thought and
emotion.11
Whereas the hierarchical conceptualization of language and representation (in terms of deeper meaning, for instance) can be hooked on
to a method and theory that is equally hierarchical and ‘deep’, the luid
and lat conceptualization cannot. To illustrate this point, one need
only look to a shit in the theory of psychoanalysis that has taken place
See Culler, On Deconstruction, or Bal, On Meaning-Making.
On the dominance of the speculative approach, see Schaefer, Art of the Modern
Age; on the political-aesthetic alternative, see Schaefer, Les célibataires de l’art, Deleuze,
he Logic of Sense, or Rancière, he Politics of Aesthetics.
10
11
close reading and theory – the david plays
433
in the twentieth century. In the Freudian way of doing psychoanalysis,
the idea is that one can come close to a conclusion. Obviously, the highway to the unconscious hits a wall somewhere, as a result of which we
can never know ourselves fully. We can, however, get pretty close,
because psychoanalysis ofers the tools and techniques to decipher the
encoded messages we receive in the form of dreams, slips of the tongue,
erratic or perverse behaviour, and so forth. Here, psychoanalysis still
its in a hermeneutical, perhaps even scientiic model. With Lacan and
others later in the century, however, psychoanalysis shits to the luid
mode, and the constant light of solutions and conclusions. Winnicot’s
idea of the ‘good enough’ its in this picture. here is no key that will
solve all issues in the end, which is why Lacan could state or advise you
to ‘enjoy your symptom’.12
Once we have accepted the fundamental rhetoricity of language or
the theatricality of representation, there cannot be one method that its
all texts. What happens depends on the individual text, on the moment,
on the actors involved, on the interests involved, and the particular
kind of agency that the object or the scholar wants to address. Another
way of saying this is that one can never decide beforehand which
method or set of questions is required to approach a work of art. If that
were the case, all that results ater having chosen a distinct approach is
a matter of illustration. For those scholars who indeed want to illustrate
their point with a work of art this is, of course, not a problem. It is a
problem, however, if we consider the work of art as a singular ‘thing’
that should not be appropriated or instrumentalized. To counter this,
we can use theory.
he very term ‘theory’ might suggest that it is one coherent, consistently developed theory. his is assuredly not the case. heory, here,
indicates the willingness of the scholar to wager herself: instead of simply applying a theory, she aims to be guided by a theoretical approach.
If there is some kind of coherence in ‘theory’, it might be that the
acceptance of the rhetoricity or the theatricality of representation needs
to be underpinned by a philosophy that has worked through both its
religiously inspired desire for truth and its scientiically enforced quest
for true meaning. With rhetoricity and theatricality, artiiciality is
implied, as is masking, staging, and acting (in the double sense of that
word, as play-acting and doing). he major question in this context
12
I am punning here on one of the most insightful and intelligent studies on Lacan
and how his work can be used in order to read art: Žižek, Enjoy your Symptom!.
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frans-willem korsten
becomes not so much what representation points to, but how it afects
and shapes the ones involved with, or caught in representation in a
particular here-and-now. With regard to that, theory is a catchphrase
for all kinds of politically informed and theoretically explored
approaches that vary from queer theory to ecocriticism, and from gender studies to cultural analysis.
What can this kind of theory bring us when we close read the David
plays? We cannot decide beforehand. he plays will have to provoke the
relevant questions as much as we pose them ourselves. Turning to
Vondel’s David plays, then, I wish to emphasize the fact that my initial
reading was accompanied by a lack of knowledge as to what they would
invite me to do. In a fascinating way (as I started to notice), the diference between the two ways of doing close reading as described above
was embodied in both plays. As a consequence, the plays allow me to
say more on the combination of close reading and theory – this perhaps
to some elusive and yet so utterly transparent approach to the literary
work or art.
heatricality and Mise en Scène
Vondel’s Koning David in ballingschap (King David Exiled) forms the
prequel to Koning David herstelt (King David Restored). Both plays date
from 1660. Both relate to history in a double sense. here is irst of all
the collection of histories on which the plays are based, which are taken
from Samuel 12, 13 and 14. For the audience of Vondel’s times, these
histories would have been well-known.13 herefore they need not be
presented by the play, although some of them are presented explicitly
in a summary that precedes the printed version of the play. Subsequently,
there is the history in the play itself. In Koning David in ballingschap, its
history is developed within the limited amount of time prescribed by
classical poetics, i.e. in less than twenty-four hours. In this case it concerns the actions and events from the moment David’s son Absalom
asks his father permission to go to Hebron (where he will start his
revolt) up until the moment David has to lee eastward, away from
13
Vondel was also an avid reader of Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities, and whilst there
are oten telling diferences between Josephus and the Bible, in this case the two are by
and large the same. In this case, the text of the Bible, or of the Tanakh, contains more
details than Josephus’s text, whereas most of the time this is the other way around.
close reading and theory – the david plays
435
Jerusalem. As a result not all elements from the entire biblical history
of Absalom and David can be dealt with in the play, although many of
them will pop up in a veiled or masked way, or in the form of references
and condensed narratives.14
he history of Absalom and David is a complex one and cannot be
grasped entirely by the summary. Its complexity is mostly due to the
fact that David had many wives with whom he begot several sons. he
eldest son of David is Amnon, by his wife Ahinoam of Jezreel. Absalom
is the third son, by the daughter of King Talmai, Haggith, who is also
mother to Tamar. Now the eldest son, Amnon, happens to be madly in
love with Tamar and feigns illness in order to be able to ask David to
assign her to him as a comforting nurse. When Tamar is with Amnon,
he asks her to make pancakes, and this is what she does in his room,
kneading the dough and shaping the cakes in the form of hearts. hen
Amnon sends away his servants, and asks her to bring him the cakes
herself. Having her near him, Amnon grabs her and rapes her.
Immediately ater the act he is suddenly illed with rage and hatred and
sends her away. Tamar decides not to sneak away but to turn her exit
into a public performance. With torn clothes and ashes thrown over
her head and body, she walks through town, where she is seen by everyone – and met by her brother Absalom, who of course asks what has
happened. Ater he has been told, he is the one who takes her with him
to his place, in hiding, in an attempt to cover up the entire matter. From
now on she will be cut of from the world (as the text has it). As one can
imagine, Absalom is illed with contempt for his rival brother, although
he decides to wait for some years. hen he goes to David in order to
invite him and his sons to a feast in honour of the shearing of sheep.
When David refuses, Absalom asks whether his beloved brother
Amnon will not be allowed to come. David grants his permission. At
the feast, when the wine has gone to Amnon’s head, Amnon is killed.
When reading the plays, I could not fail to notice that their preliminary history is determined by both rhetorical and theatrical strategies
of faking and masking, by skilfully presenting or arranging things, by
publicly telling and showing, or veiling and hiding what should not be
shown. In fact, three characteristics of rhetoricity and theatricality
14
he term ‘condensed narrative’ is developed in Korsten, he Wisdom Brokers, in
order to indicate how one word, metaphor or reference can embody an entire narrative
that is used in or projected into some line of argumentation in order to either serve the
running argument or contradict and complicate it.
436
frans-willem korsten
come into play: (1) characters do not present themselves as what they
are, but are intentionally manipulating language and masking their
actions; (2) characters present themselves publicly as what they are
(rape victims, for instance), but in doing so they turn a space into a
stage, thus installing the reign of theatrical representation and turning
onlookers into a participating audience; (3) subjectivity is shaped by
diferent forms of manipulation and mise en scène, i.e. things happen
in such a way that subjects ind themselves through the mise en scène,
or their subjectivity is deined within and through the context of the
mise en scène.
As for the irst characteristic, Amnon fakes that he is ill; Absalom
fakes that he loves his brother Amnon and invites him to a feast (in
order to kill him). Both are theatrical actors in this way. As for the second characteristic, Tamar decides to show herself as what she is: a
raped woman. However, she cannot remain to be seen as such if one
wants to keep up appearances. his is why Absalom immediately has to
hide her, and will have to keep her hidden. Tamar’s appearance on the
street will have to become an event, the veracity of which people will
have to doubt. here is no way in which they will be able to test its realness. By removing Tamar from the world, something is lited out of the
realm of reality and installed in the regime of un-reality, which charges
the event more strongly. his is also where the third characteristic
comes in, that of mise en scène, which does not simply concern the
spatial arrangement of props and actors, but also the arrangement of
these in relation to actors and audience. It concerns the production of
subjectivity. In each of these histories, independent actors are suddenly
thrown into the position and status of an audience. hey ind themselves in a situation that is not entirely of their making, and can never
entirely be of their making. Any audience is, in a complex way, intrinsically part of the mise en scène. It inds itself somewhere. Consequently,
the status of all subjects involved becomes unclear. Insecurity is established as to the question of how to read that which happens: from what
position, in relation to what, and being what? Maaike Bleeker (2008)
has deined this set of questions as a deining marker of theatricality.
Because of all this, and because of the fact that the preliminary history is indexically taken up in the history of the play itself, the issue
turns to one of how we are supposed to see and read. How are we to
decide what makes sense and what does not; how are we to consider
what we can and cannot know; how are we to establish by what and by
whom we are afectively touched; how are we to decide who is what in
close reading and theory – the david plays
437
doing what? he plays provoke, or almost demand, close reading, and
they ask us to relect on the way in which we, as a participating audience, are being framed in terms of theatricality.
he dynamic of theatricality is made explicit at the beginning of
Koning David in ballingschap. he play starts in the middle of the night,
with Absalom and Tamar. he reason for the nocturnal scene appears
to be that Absalom is in a sudden hurry to get away from court and has
to ask David permission, who is on his way to say his prayers with the
Levites. Another signiicance of the nocturnal scene, however, is connected to Tamar being cut of from the world. She can only appear
during the night, for with daylight others will be able to see her. his, in
its turn, is an index for the theme of theatricality on two other levels,
namely within the play and in the historical context of the play. As for
the latter, the orthodox ministers in Vondel’s times had great concerns
about the newly built theatre in Amsterdam, which they deined as a
space of darkness, in which things were played out that could not bear
the light of day. And indeed, something is happening in the play that
cannot bear the light of day, for Absalom is not on his way to do penance, but to assemble his men with whom he will rise against David.
he theatrical play on dark and light leads to several forms of irony
and insecurity. One ironic twist is that Absalom needs the dark because
he is too nervous to play his act well. Hence it is rather ironic that David
compares Absalom to the sun at a certain moment, and then goes on to
state that the sun’s face is less dear to him than Absalom’s (l. 48). In the
dark, however, Absalom’s face is far from radiant. hen, when Absalom
anxiously asks his sister Tamar whether he can really go to David, she
reassures him: ‘Feel as free as if it were day’ (l. 57). But if it had been
day, he would not have felt free at all. he confusion becomes most
charged when David becomes irritated because Absalom has recalled
recent histories, especially the one of Amnon and Tamar. ‘Be silent
about that’, David orders (l. 115). hat history has to be kept in the
dark, as the metaphor in the following line suggests, since David’s
mercy covers up Absalom’s guilt for his brother’s death ‘as the tombstone does its grave’ (l. 116). Finally David confesses: ‘his piety and
this message this night I had / not expected from my Absalom, that
beautiful one. May he enlighten others, whilst keeping his word in
God’ (ll. 119–21).
he irst act, in which the night is a dominant element of the mise en
scène whilst in the text light plays a dominant role, installs what Bleeker
described as the key characteristic of theatricality: the heightened
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awareness that is the result of an as yet indecisive morphing of subjects
in relation to what is apparently being staged, being played out, being
acted out, and being experienced and read. None of the positions is
certain. Even for those who would argue that David, at least, is the one
stable subject, it is of importance to note that several times in the play
the prophecy of Nathan is recalled. When David had fallen in love with
Bathsheba, who happened to be the wife of one of his supreme commanders, Uriah, David had ordered the latter to be killed, though in a
veiled way. Uriah’s death had to look like an accident on the battleield.
his did not please God, as the text of the Bible states. he prophet
Nathan is chosen as mouthpiece for God’s displeasure and he prophesies that because of this vile act David’s house will become a place of
familial murder.
hat is obviously what this play is concerned with. In this sense one
can see Absalom as the instrument of the prophecy – and of God. hat
latter element may be the most confusing one. Indeed, how are we to
read what is happening? Is Absalom God’s instrument or not? It is
extremely unclear who is in charge of the mise en scène, or who is acting in the name of what. Consequently, the mise en scène is a determining factor in the production of subjectivity, both for the actors
involved and the audience, which is not simply the actual audience as a
group of onlookers but the status of an audience as a role.15 Such theatricality is reairmed once more in the last act of the play. his act starts
with clarity, or so it would seem. We see Absalom and his major advisor, Achitofel:
Absalom: his is how Jerusalem was won without battle!
Achitofel: And not by deceit, but in beautiful daylight.
Absalom: he court’s evening sun is setting rapidly in the east.
Achitofel: Against her nature, yes: who has ever seen such miracle?16
At irst, both men boast that there was no need to act in disguise, since
they could operate in the crystal-clear light of day. he source of that
light is deined precisely the other way around, however, in the following two lines. here David is compared to the sun, which is not setting
in the west but in the east – which is the direction that David has
On this conceptualization of mise en scène, see Bal, Travelling Concepts.
Vondel, Koning David in ballingschap, ll. 1441–44: ‘Absolon: Zoo wort Jerusalem
gewonnen zonder slagh: / Achitofel: En niet door laegen, maer by schoonen lichten
dagh. Absolon: Deze avontzon van ’t hof gaet snel in ’t oosten onder / Achitofel: En
tegens haer natuur. wie zagh oit grooter wonder!’
15
16
close reading and theory – the david plays
439
led, across the river Jordan. he metaphor indicates there is something unnatural here, something that will backire on the speakers.
Accordingly, at the end of the play, Achitofel will lose his mind, and
then regret that he has provoked the son to rise against his father by
means of ‘fruitless ruses’ (l. 1861). He will be on his way to committing
suicide.
As for Absalom, the most marked way in which the inal act works
with theatricality mirrors the opening act, and does so painfully.
Achitofel has advised Absalom that the best way to get the people irrevocably behind him, is to sleep publicly with David’s ten wives, who
David had let behind to take care of the castle. Here it is very clear who
is in charge of the mise en scène. he space and all its props are
described explicitly: ten beds, food, candles, all put on display on top of
the palace. he theatrical nature of the event is made explicit by David’s
wives themselves, using the word ‘toneel’ (play, performance, stage)
when they ask Absalom: ‘[…] Let this despicable performance / not be
shown in the face of the entire community’ (ll. 1698–99). he confusion as to how this community can read the spectacle in which it is
simultaneously involved is produced by the fact that Absalom’s ‘performance’ intends to mark a diference between divine law and political
law. His sleeping with David’s wives, as is indicated three times, is normal according to Asian custom (l. 1516), or the way of the Easterners
(l. 1776), or according to the laws of Brahman (l. 1783). When Tamar
protests against this appeal to the law of inidels, Absalom asks whether
he may give her an ‘enlightening’ example: David’s murdering Uriah
and marrying Bathsheba. With that same Tamar we are being redirected to the irst act, and from there to her being raped by Amnon.
he result of that act was that she could never again enter the world.
he same will happen with David’s wives, who, ater Absalom has used
them and ater David has defeated Absalom, will be locked up in a
house, never to be seen again.
Sincerity and Embodied-ness
Considering what Absalom has done to David, it may come as a surprise that in the sequel, King David herstelt, David is obsessed by one
thing only: not the threat of his own defeat, but the preservation of the
life of his son Absalom. With a small band of soldiers, but in the company of his major commanders, David has led across the river Jordan
and Absalom is approaching with a much larger army. Although David
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is clearly threatened, he refuses to ight, in order not to risk Absalom’s
life. Two characters are David’s major counterparts in the ensuing
argument: Joab, David’s most important military leader, and Bathsheba,
the ex-wife of Uriah, and now mother to David’s son Solomon, who
will later be appointed as David’s heir. Both argue that David should
ight Absalom.
Whereas Bathsheba only uses arguments, Joab is a trained political
player who cheats and will use lies to inluence David, or who bluntly
sees to it that any possibility of a truce or reconciliation between father
and son is made impossible. When Absalom sends an envoy with a
peace ofer, Joab cunningly takes him aside, makes sure that David will
not see him, and sends him back again. When David discusses military
strategies with his commanders, he again appears to be beside himself.
He decides to stay in the castle of his host and not ight along with his
army. he only reason he would want to ight is that he would like to
save Absalom’s life. Ater he has made the decision to stay behind, however, he emphasizes time and again that nobody may touch Absalom.
How can we understand this puzzling element in the play? he
standard explanation has been that David feels too much parental love
for his son.17 Such an explanation is in accordance with what Vondel
explicitly describes in the preface to the play (or in accordance with
what the chorus already put forward ater the irst act in Koning David
in ballingschap). In terms of psychology such an explanation may have
its merits, but it ignores the fact that God, via his mouthpiece Nathan,
has prophesied that David’s house will become the stage of internal
bloodshed. David’s attempts at saving Absalom appear to counter this
prophecy, hence God’s will.
As I have argued elsewhere, this is not the only play by Vondel that
presents us with a sovereign who attempts to forestall the prescribed
development of history.18 To my analysis, this position is distinctively
comparable to the igure of the katèchon, as described in Paul’s Second
Letter to the hessalonians, written in the irst century ater Christ.19
he letter is written in a time of crisis and despair. Considering the
future, Paul describes how, before what ultimately needs to happen
according to the divine plan, irst something else will have to take place:
17
18
19
On parental love, see Konst, Fortuna, Fatum en Providentia Dei.
Korsten, ‘he Irreconcilability of Hypocrisy and Sincerity’.
hough there is some discussion as to whether Paul is its true author.
close reading and theory – the david plays
441
Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come, unless the
rebellion comes irst, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of
perdition, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or
object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. Do you not remember that when I was still
with you I told you this? And you know what is restraining him now so
that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is
already at work; only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of
the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, and the Lord Jesus will
slay him with the breath of his mouth and destroy him by his appearing
and his coming. (II hessalonians 2, 3–9)
So the one who has to come irst is a rebel, an unlawful usurper, who
has to position himself as if he were God. Yet, although the usurper’s
mysterious powers can already be felt, he is being restrained. here is a
force operative that does not allow this rebel to come. he igure behind
that restraining force will have to be removed irst, before the rebel can
acquire its full powers. Where the text says ‘he who now restrains it’, the
original has katèchon – a Greek term meaning ‘resister’.20
Due to the prophecy of Nathan, David’s house has to fall apart
through bloodshed. his may also explain why David so emphatically
asks all his men not to kill his son, and why he does not want to kill him
himself. He resists the fulillment of the prophecy. his, of course,
brings him into dangerous waters, resisting God’s will and God’s intervention in history. Worse still, he comes to be the positive or negative
mirror-image of God. Within the Christian conceptualization, God is
the one who is willing to sacriice his own son, whereas David is not.
Viewed through this resemblance, Absalom comes to resemble Jesus.
But that, surely, cannot be the case for someone who has risen against
his own father and has usurped power? Still, there are some strong
hints in the text that point in this direction.
he play closely follows the story in the Tanakh and the Bible and in
Josephus’s account, according to which David’s small army defeats
Absalom’s big one. Acknowledging his defeat, Absalom lees the scene
on a hinny. At this point, it becomes relevant why earlier we were told
that Absalom had such thick hair that it had to be cut each eighth day.
20
he igure of the katèchon has been studied extensively with regard to sovereignty.
On this, see Hoogers, De verbeelding van het soevereine. In dealing with this conceptual
igure, Schmitt, Politische heologie was a response to a text by Heidegger, ‘Einleitung
in die Phänomenologie der Religion’.
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hrown up in the air by his galloping hinny, his hair gets caught in a
thorny bush, and there he remains hanging. Is it relevant to note that
Vondel explicitly states in Koning David in ballingschap that Absalom
has blond hair? Perhaps it is an insigniicant detail, but it would seem
to justify a closer look at that passage in the fourth act. A messenger
describes what he has seen at the encampment of Absalom. Absalom is
being crowned king by a descendant of Aaron:
he blond hair he crowned with vibrating beams
of gold and diamonds. here you could have seen him shining
like a morning sun, with such a grace and lair
that everybody would doubt whether nature, here, or art
spanned the crown in this one man, from top to toe
perfectly shaped, without so much as a speck on one of his limbs.
‘Live long, live long, oh Prince, oh king Absalom!
Live long, most honorable heir. May your name blunt the sun’s
glory and brilliance!’ hat was what was being shouted without end,
the hosanna of thousands, consisting of twelve groups.21
Of course, for those who need to frame Absalom beforehand because
they know his history, this passage cannot be taken seriously. For them
its true meaning is located elsewhere. But if we close read what the text
presents in the here-and-now, we are afected. It is as if we meet a new
Prince of Light, who is more brilliant than the sun, who will be at the
beginning of a new era, and who is without law. His extra-ordinary
status is deined by the fact that it is not sure whether he is natural or
artiicial. he blond hair is relevant here, because it may now be a crown
itself, radiant and glorious, much like the hair, in the Western tradition,
of that other extra-ordinary igure: Christ.
he allusion to Christ becomes relevant once more, when we learn
how Absalom is killed. he soldiers who ind him irst respect David’s
plea not to kill Absalom. But Joab is less inclined to follow David’s
orders. According to Josephus (VII, 10, 241) he shoots Absalom
through the heart. According to the Bible Joab takes three sticks and
rams them into Absalom’s breast, ater which he presumably falls down
21
Vondel, Koning David in ballingschap, ll. 1033–45: ‘Hy kroonde ’t blonde haer met
levendige straelen / gout en diamant. daer had gy hem zien praelen, / Gelijck een
morgenzon, met eenen zwier van gunst, / Dat elck in twijfel trock of hier natuur, of
kunst / De kroon spande in een’ man, van boven tot beneden / Volschapen, zonder
smet doorgaens aen al zijn leden. / Leef lang, leef lang, ô Prins, ô koning Absolon. /
Leef lang, doorluchtste telgh. uw naem verdoof de zon / In glans en heerlijckheit. dat
was ’t geduurigh roepen, / ’t Gejuich van duizenden, gedeelt in twalef troepen.’
close reading and theory – the david plays
443
and his men beat him to death. In Vondel’s text the three sticks become
spears. Hanging in the air, Absalom is pierced with spears. his in itself
is not enough to compare him to Jesus. However, a close reading of the
structural positions of characters on the axes of father/son and murderer/victim, in relation to God’s plans with human history, and in
relation to the preservation of law and order, will prove to be telling.
his becomes even more evident when we include a passage from the
preface to Koning David herstelt, in which the orator explicitly deals
with that other father who did not want to kill his son, although he felt
obliged to, and who was then saved by the bell: Abraham.
In the preface, three fathers, three sons, and three diferent forms of
sacriice are being compared. David’s refusal to sacriice Absalom is
compared in a complex way to Abraham’s ability to conquer his natural, paternal inclination because he loved God so much:
But the love of the patriarch Abraham, long overlooked as it had been, is
proven by the fact that he, by sacriicing his own son, who was obedient
to the death, conquered his self and nature, for the love of God, which is
why the hero’s faith and perseverance are crowned with such a glorious
promise, and he represented God the father, of whom God the son himself declared: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.22
David, as the text of the play has it, will not be able to follow Abraham’s
example. He is not able to resist his natural inclination, as Bathsheba
indicates: ‘he patriarch Abraham did overcome his nature indeed’.
David will retort: ‘How many fathers are there who could follow in his
lead?’ (ll. 1714–15). his may be aimed at Abraham, but is also aimed,
obviously, at God. Moreover, the other side is that Abraham, in his willingness to be counter-natural, is not able to resist his love for God. Or
that within the Christian frame, God is not able to resist his love for
mankind, for whom he is willing to ofer up his own child.
It is important to understand that other plays, such as Gebroeders,
present David as an average patriarchal igure and ordinary practitioner of Realpolitik. In Koning David herstelt, however, his resistance
to the pre-ordained (prophesied) development of history is not driven
22
Vondel, Koning David herstelt, ‘Dedication’ – ‘To the dear and strict Mr. Cornelis
van Vlooswyck […]’, ll. 42–48: ‘Maer de liefde van den aertsvader Abraham, dus lang
overgeslagen, wort hier door betuight, dat hy, in het opoferen van zijnen eenigen en
ter doot gehoorzaemen zoone, zich zelven en natuur, uit liefde tot Godt, overwon,
waerom ’s helts geloof en stantvastigheit met zulck eene heerelijcke belote gekroont
wert, en hy Godt den vader abeelde, van wien Godt de zoon zelf uitroept: Zo lief had
Godt de weerelt, dat hy zijnen eenigen geboren zoon gaf.’
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by a strategy. Likewise, the katèchon does not have a strategy: he is
resisting the strange, mysterious forces that beset him because he clings
to what he holds dear. Whereas David’s general Joab is an average hypocrite and Bathsheba is concerned solely with the future of her son
Solomon, David acts in response and in a here-and-now. He gives in
and will keep on giving in, even when this will become unacceptable,
as when he is not able to rejoice in the inal victory of his army. He has
to be forced by Joab to show his joy. At that moment he will lose his
sincerity, but not to the extent that he will conclude that things have
had a happy ending ater all. Being sincere, David can only acknowledge himself to be subject to a pre-ordained plot. Consequently, there
is almost no play by Vondel that ends in such a bitter way as this one.
In the light of all this it becomes of interest to see how the to-and-fro
between naturalness and artiiciality appears to apply less to David. His
inability to kill his son is a form of sincerity comparable to that of
Badeloch in Gysbreght van Aemstel. In my study of that character I considered the notion of sincerity as one that is predominantly non-strategic and that can come to life in response to the acts of others, not
passively but in a conscious act to defend what one inds valuable.23 As
the comparison suggests, David can be seen more as a mother in his
refusal to kill his own son. Again, as the word refusal also suggests, this
is not passivity, something that would it in well with a powerful cliché
concerning the roles of women in the European tradition. Instead, it is
an active form of resistance.
By analogy, reading is not a passive act. In the play, before rushing on
to action in the standard way, David busies himself with reading what
is happening to his son and to him. If I consider this in the light of
Karin Littau’s heories of Reading, I would like to share her contention
that close reading cannot be anything other than a materialist kind of
reading, that is to say a form of reading in which the mater indicates a
principally gendered body that does not so much disseminate but
brings forth.24 As for close reading, there is no possibility of escaping
material concreteness and by implication, sociocultural diferences or
gendered ones. Close reading can never be, in whatever way, objective
or universal. As the word ‘close’ suggests, such a kind of reading is spatially particular, intrinsically sensitive, sensible, and principally
embodied.
23
24
Korsten, Sovereignty as Inviolability, pp. 180–86.
Littau, heories of Reading, pp. 154–57.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
PSYCHOANALYSIS – LAW, THEATRE AND VIOLENCE IN
SAMSON (1660)
Yasco Horsman
hus it is necessary, at any cost, for man to live at the moment when
he truly dies, or it is necessary for him to live with the impression of
truly dying. his diiculty foreshadows the necessity of spectacle, or
generally of representation, without the repetition of which we could
remain foreign and ignorant of death, as animals apparently remain.
George Bataille
But death is precisely what cannot be internalized, and maybe this is
what deines the tragic […]. he ‘consciousness’ or even […] the
admission that there is nothing to do with death but to dramatize it.
Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe
Samson as a Disconcerting Tragedy
Samson of Heilige Wraeck (Samson or Holy Vengeance, 1660) is usually not ranked among Vondel’s masterpieces. Performed only three
times during the playwright’s lifetime, and rarely since, the critical literature on the play is scant, and if the play is mentioned at all in recent
literature, it is oten with reference to the play’s dramaturgical shortcomings.1 Based on the well-known story of the Jewish hero in the
Book of Judges 13–16, Vondel’s play dramatizes the last episode of
Samson’s life when, ater being captured by the Philistines, he performs
one inal glorious deed, an act of ‘holy revenge’, in which he ultimately
dies. A quick glance at Vondel’s text reveals the reasons for its present
unpopularity: the short play sufers from a lack of action and dramatic
conlict, and more crucially, its central character hardly shows any
signs of a psychological development. he play may be considered as
one that revolves around a ‘staetsverandering’ (‘a mental or emotional
1
Weevers, for example, suggests in ‘Vondel’s Inluence on German Literature’ that
the play has lost its popularity because of the lack of action on stage.
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yasco horsman
change’), as W.A.P. Smit suggests, since its protagonist does indeed
transform from a subdued prisoner into a raging igure of revenge, but
the psychological process that led to this transformation is barely represented in the play.2 he play does not allow us to witness Samson’s
doubts, hesitations, and resolutions. Instead, Samson confronts its
audience with the enigma of a heroic decision, taken in solitude – and
ofstage.
Yet what the play lacks in dramatic conlict, it makes up for in
imagery, in particular in the concluding act of the play. Agreeing to
play along with a humiliating ritual in a Philistine temple, Samson
decides to sacriice himself in what strikes a contemporary reader as a
religiously inspired suicide attack, when he tears down the pillars that
uphold the pagan temple, killing himself and a large number of
Philistine people. hese events are reported in the play by a messenger,
who uses powerful and rich language to evoke the scene of this disaster
in all its gory detail. A pile of debris is described in which dead and
half-living victims, together with torn-of limbs, are bathing in puddles
of blood. he speech of the messenger, and its explicit and violent
nature, stands out in the play, and has a such a shocking impact that it
almost seems to detach itself from the narrative of which it is supposed
to be the resolution, leaving Vondel’s reader with a visual imprint of a
scene of pure violence.
Perhaps even more disconcerting than the gory imagery itself is the
manner in which Vondel’s preface seeks to relate this eruption of unbridled violence to the question of justice. In its dedication to Cornelis
van Outshoren, who as mayor of Amsterdam was entrusted with the
task of maintaining law and order, Vondel states that we should understand Samson’s divine act of revenge as a foreshadowing of a new epoch
of justice, which was to come with the arrival of Christ, humanity’s true
lawgiver. Christ, Vondel holds, will introduce a new and truly just principle of legality, which will eclipse all previously existing laws.3 Even
though neither the play, nor the preface suggest that the blind, raging
destructiveness of Samson’s act should be understood as an example of
justice in itself – indeed the principle of revenge itself is explicitly called
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah.
‘In de doot van Samson blijckt zijne wraeckzucht, zich wreeckende, door eene
heilige aendrit van Godts geest […]. Hy overwint de vyanden door zijn doot, tot een
voorbeeld van den beloofden verlosser, en wetgever der menschen, die […] alle voorgaende wetgevers en wijsheit der wijzen overtret […]. En deze nieuwe en volkomen
wet plant.’ (4)
2
3
psychoanalysis – samson
447
pagan and unchristian –, his divinely inspired annihilation of the pagan
law should be seen as announcing a new era of justice. Vondel’s preface
and dedication, then, invite us to understand his play as a relection on
the relation between a religiously inspired act of destruction, and the
establishing of a new (Christian) legal order.
Force and Violence in Samson
In his exploration of the relations between violence and the law, Vondel
seems to anticipate a distinction Walter Benjamin draws in an essay
published in 1921, between ‘divine’ and ‘mythical’ violence.4 In this
essay Benjamin suggests that all law enforcement and lawmaking are
inherently violent, since they rely on a use of force (the German Gewalt
means both force and violence), but he argues that these two forms of
legal violence, which he calls ‘mythical’, should be opposed to a third
type of violence, which he labels ‘divine violence’. Unlike both mythical
forms of violence, divine violence maintains or imposes nothing. It is a
purely negative, law-destroying force, which nevertheless in its very
negativity serves to usher in a new historical age, with a new legal paradigm, and therefore it can be understood to be the mystical foundation
underlying all positively existing laws.
In its preoccupation with both divine violence, and the establishing
of a new principle of legality, Vondel’s preface seems to situate his work
clearly within the corpus of works in which the playwright is mainly
concerned with the question of the origin of the law, or rather, with
sovereignty. As Frans-Willem Korsten has convincingly demonstrated,
questions of law and sovereignty are very much at the heart of Vondel’s
theatrical oeuvre.5 Vondel shares these concerns with legal philosophers of his time, such as Grotius. Furthermore, the issue of sovereignty
itself was raised by the particular legal and political situation in which
the Dutch Republic found itself in Vondel’s time. Having just separated
from Spain, the question of the source, and hence of the legitimacy of
the law was a question of philosophical, legal as well as political urgency.
Vondel’s plays, Korsten claims, should be seen as contributing to
debates about the law, through the means of theatre.
Yet the precise nature of Samson’s contribution to these debates is
not easy to assess. he preface may testify to the fact that Vondel had
4
5
Benjamin, ‘Critique of Violence’.
Korsten, Vondel Belicht, and Sovereignty as Inviolability.
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yasco horsman
questions of sovereignty on his mind, yet it is unclear what the example
of Samson is supposed to dramatize. he typological reading, proposed
in the preface, in which Samson’s sacriice is linked to that of Christ, is
undermined by the play’s emphasis on the violent nature of Samson’s
act, which is clearly not very Christ-like.6 Furthermore, the fact that
Samson’s sacriice is an act of revenge seems to be at odds with the
Christian preaching of love and forgiveness, praised in Vondel’s preface.7 If a typological reading itself is not very promising towards an
understanding of what precisely Samson’s act of violence is supposed to
exemplify, it is even more unclear how his example can ofer inspiration to a politician such as Outshoren. Indeed, what reading strategy is
Vondel’s reader supposed to employ to derive lessons of practical wisdom from this play?
Samson, then, poses a riddle to its readers. In this contribution I will
not so much try to solve this riddle, but probe the way the play’s dramatic and theatrical structure broach the question of the relation of law
and violence as precisely a question of reading. Rather than presenting,
I propose, positive images of sovereignty – examples, that can help one
think through practical and legal-philosophical matters – Samson
points to something unreadable at the heart of the law itself. It exposes
what I propose to call the dark and violent underside of the law. he
medium of theatre allows Vondel to expose this legal violence in its
very negativity, without translating it into positive images.
In order to highlight this dimension of Vondel’s play, I will use psychoanalytic theory, and in particular Freud’s writings on the theatre.
Psychoanalysis, I claim, is not only a hermeneutics attentive to the
repressed underside of cultural phenomena, but it also ofers a profound relection on the theatre as a means of staging a retrieval of what
6
he obvious diferences between Samson and Christ are oten neglected by Vondel
scholars who tend to take the correctness of the typological reading for granted. Peter
King, for example, writes ‘Samson, like so many of the later plays, can be interpreted at
two allegorical levels: the typological – Samson foreshadowing the Messiah triumphing over his adversaries, and the anagogic which symbolizes the workings of grace.
Samson […] repents and requites his sin, whereby God’s grace returns to him, the
symbol of which is Samson’s long hair, the token of strength’. ‘he Sacramental hought
in Vondel’s Drama’, p. 208.
7
Vondel speaks of Christ as the ‘wetgever der menschen, die door het voorschrit
van de wet der liefde, in het eenige woort Bemin begrepen […] de wraekgierigheit met
wortel met al uit de harten zijner leerlingen ruckende’ (‘lawgiver of mankind, who,
through the prescription of the law of devotion, summed up in the single word Love
[…] utterly wrenching vindictiveness from the hearts of his disciples’, 4).
psychoanalysis – samson
449
is repressed. herefore it can help us to articulate what is at stake in
Vondel’s enigmatic play.
In what follows I will irst discuss the psychoanalytic approach to the
theatre, in order to subsequently spell out what I think takes place in
Vondel’s play, to conclude with some more general relections on the
relations between law, theatre and violence.
Psychoanalysis and heatre
As many critics have pointed out, the theatre plays a key role in Freud’s
work. heatre is not only the type of artwork he refers to most frequently in his writings, but it also provided him with some of his most
important concepts, such as, for example, the Oedipus complex. As
Ernest Jones and Jean Starobinski have observed, crucial psychoanalytic insights were irst articulated in relation to Greek and Elizabethan
plays.8 Yet the inluence of theatre on psychoanalysis reaches even further, as Jean-Francois Lyotard has argued. Lyotard claims that Freud’s
understanding of the ‘psychoanalytic scene’ – the drama that takes
place in the room of the analyst – is deeply inluenced by his understanding of the theatre. Lyotard writes: ‘We must go a step further and
grasp the fact that Freud’s belief in or efective acceptance of the
Sophoclean and Shakespearian scenarios is irst of all a belief in the
theatrical space where these scenarios are acted out, the space of theatrical representation, and in the scenography that constitutes and
deines this space.’9
In order to make his point, Lyotard turns to a minor, ot-neglected
essay that Freud wrote in 1906, and which was irst published (in
English translation) as ‘Psychopathic Characters on Stage’.10 In the essay
Freud attempts to analyze the particular type of enjoyment that watching a theatrical performance can bring. Ater citing the Aristotelian
conception of tragedy as a ritual that serves the purposes of ‘getting rid
of one’s emotions by blowing of steam’ (88), Freud points to the
8
Starobinski, ‘Hamlet et Freud’, preface to the French translation of E. Jones, Hamlet
et Oedipe. See also André Green, he Tragic Efect: the Oedipus Complex in Tragedy.
9
Lyotard, ‘Beyond Representation’, p. 156.
10
Sigmund Freud, ‘Psychopathic Characters on Stage’. References to this text will
henceforth appear in parentheses.
450
yasco horsman
remarkable fact that theatre spectators derive pleasure from identifying
with characters who go through all sorts of ordeals, something which
we would ind highly unsettling to observe outside the theatre. We seem
to go to the theatre, Freud muses, to watch scenes of pain, sufering,
and most crucially of death. ‘Sufering of every kind is thus the subject
matter of drama’, he concludes, ‘and from this sufering it promises to
give the audience pleasure’. (89) Watching such scenes of sufering is
pleasurable, Freud suggests, not just because it gives us a ‘masochistic
satisfaction’, but also, more speciically, because in traditional drama
the sufering itself is the consequence of some heroic act of rebellion.11
We therefore experience the narcissistic pleasure of identifying with a
great man, in whose grandiose death we share. We go to the theatre,
Freud proposes, to experience such deaths. As he writes elsewhere, in
the theatre ‘we still ind people who know how to die […]. We die with
the hero with whom we have identiied ourselves; yet we survive him,
and are ready to die again just as safely with another hero’.12
Ater having suggested that there is a profound relationship between
death, violence and the theatre, Freud’s essay proceeds to outline a brief
history of the theatre in which the heroic revolt of the protagonist
changes from a revolt against the gods (in Greek tragedy), to human
authorities (in social tragedy), against individual men (in tragedies of
character) and inally, in modern psychological drama, when a character struggles against himself. He ends his short essay with a description
of the type of theatre that fascinates him most, and which he labels
dramas about ‘psychopathic characters’. he sufering in such dramas is
caused by an internal conlict between two impulses in one character,
one of which is unconscious. Taking Shakespeare’s Hamlet as his paradigmatic case, Freud suggests that this type of drama captures an audience that is, like the psychopathic hero, in the grip of similar unconscious
conlicts. Freud adds that this last type of drama difers from the aforementioned ones, in that the audience should recognize the conlict
at the heart of the psychopathic tragedy, but the nature of it cannot
be named explicitly on stage, since this will evoke resistance in the
11
‘Heroes are irst and foremost rebels against God or against something divine; and
pleasure is derived, as it seems, from the aliction of a weaker being in the face of
divine might – a pleasure due to masochistic satisfaction as well as to direct enjoyment
of a character whose greatness is insisted upon in spite of everything.’ ‘Psychopathic
Characters’, p. 89.
12
Sigmund Freud, ‘houghts for the Times on War and Death’, p. 291.
psychoanalysis – samson
451
audience.13 he psychopathic drama, then, relies on a complex mise en
scène in which its central dramatic conlict is both made recognizable
and remains hidden at the same time. In other words, it revolves around
a gap in its textual structure, which leaves the impression that the main
dramatic conlicts are played out in a ‘diferent scene’, which is not fully
present on stage.
Lyotard draws attention to this essay for several reasons. Firstly he
points out that Freud’s speculation on the efects of theatre – particularly in its psychopathic form – resemble Freud’s description of what
takes place during a psychoanalytic session. According to Freud, the
theatre allows us to ‘blow of steam’, and experience all sorts of fears,
desires and impulses that are otherwise repressed, because we know
that by entering the auditorium we agree to participate in a Spiel –
which in Freud’s German can refer to both game and theatrical play (as
in Schauspiel). he ostensible artiicial situation of the theatre, separated as it is from our ‘real lives’, allows for a certain relaxation of the
repressive censorship of the Ego.14 As Freud explains in his technical
papers, psychoanalytic therapy relies on a comparable relaxation of the
Ego, since the room of the analyst is also experienced as something that
is diferent from our ‘real lives’.15 Psychoanalysis, like the theatre, takes
place in what Lyotard calls ‘disreal spaces’, ‘autonomous spaces no
longer subject to the laws of so-called reality […] where what is
repressed can be staged, exempted from the censorship imposed by the
reality principle’.16 For this reason, during therapy the analysand can
act out – and thereby expose – repressed unconscious impulses in front
of the gaze of the analyst in a quasi-theatrical setting.
Secondly, Lyotard highlights a casual remark in ‘Psychopathic
Characters’, in which Freud suggests that drama inds its origin in
13
‘It appears as a necessary precondition of this form of art that the impulse that is
struggling into consciousness, however clearly it is recognizable, is never given a deinite name.’ (92)
14
‘Accordingly, his enjoyment is based on an illusion; that is to say, his sufering is
mitigated by the certainty that, irstly, it is someone other than himself who is acting
and sufering on stage, and, secondly, that ater all it is only a game, which can threaten
no damage to his personal security. In these circumstances he can allow himself to
enjoy being a “great man”, to give way without a qualm to such suppressed impulses as
a craving for freedom in religious, political, social and sexual matters, and to “blow of
steam” in every direction in the various grand scenes that form part of the life represented on stage.’ (88)
15
See Sigmund Freud, ‘Remembering, Repeating and Working hrough (Further
Recommendations on the Teaching of Psycho-Analysis)’.
16
‘Beyond Representation’, p. 157.
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yasco horsman
religious sacriicial rites. Such rites, as Freud would later write in Totem
and Taboo (1913), should be understood as re-enactments of a violent
event that took place in the past – the killing (and eating) of the leader
of the so-called ‘primal horde’. he memory of this event has collectively been repressed, but according to Freud religious rites and theatrical topoi unconsciously testify to its former existence. he ritual
sacriice – and by extension the theatre – serve to stage what Freud calls
the ‘primal scene’ of a culture, an unknown event that determines the
particular shape a culture takes. his implies that the theatre does for
the collective what psychoanalytic therapy does for the individual:
it allows for the ‘performance’ of an insight that cannot be articulated
in the irst person, as ‘knowledge’. Lyotard therefore concludes that
psychoanalysis, in turn, should be considered as a form of theatre: it is
a practice in which we can witness the mise en scène of the
unconscious.17
According to Lyotard, the structural resemblances between psychoanalysis and the theatre complicate attempts to ‘apply’ psychoanalytic
insights to the theatre. Psychoanalysis and the theatre do not relate to
each other as a body of (psychoanalytic) theory, and a set of (theatrical)
data, but should be understood as comparable theatrical practices.
‘heatricality’, writes Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, agreeing with Lyotard,
‘functions as a model or even matrix in the constitution of psychoanalysis’.18 he task of a psychoanalytically informed criticism of the
theatre is to spell out how both practices rely on a complex mise en
scène, in which a repressed truth is exposed, staged and negated at the
same time.
Samson and Psychoanalysis
I would argue that Vondel’s Samson is a remarkably good starting point
for an attempt to link the theatre ‘with’ psychoanalysis. Vondel’s play
not only revolves around a story about the sufering and heroic death
of a great man who sacriices himself for the greater good, thereby conirming Freud’s intuition that we visit the theatre to experience glorious
deaths, but it is also a highly self-conscious investigation of the various
‘disreal’ spaces in which these scenes of sufering and self-sacriice can
be staged. As I will point out, the play consists of a comparison of three
17
18
Lyotard elaborates this point in ‘he Unconscious as Mise-en-Scène’.
Lacoue-Labarthe, ‘heatrum Analyticum’, p. 175.
psychoanalysis – samson
453
diferent theatrical spaces in which a sacriice takes place: a temple, a
theatre and the scene of Samson’s death. Samson difers, however, from
the Freudian paradigm, by virtue of the fact that its protagonist’s sufering and death are related to a speciic theme, that of the origin of the
law. Samson examines, in various scenes, the interrelatedness of violence, theatricality and the law.
he intricate links between sacriicial violence, theatre and the law
are explored in the opening scene of the play, in which Dagon, God of
the Philistines, whom Vondel represents as a satanic creature, delivers
a monologue in which he explains that he has come to Gaza to attend a
religious ceremony, organized in his honour, which celebrates the capture of Samson. his ceremony will include a parading of the chained,
blind and wounded Samson, who will be exposed to the mockery of the
crowd. Dagon states that, as a pagan God, he desires such spectacles,
since he feeds of the glory they bring him.19 But, as he muses, staging
the spectacle of Samson’s humiliation also brings political beneits.
Publicly displaying Samson, a hero to the Jews, as a blinded, exhausted,
sufering body, would deliver a inal blow to the resistance of Jews, persuading them to adopt the pagan religion. hrough the medium of
theatre, then, and by forcing Samson to play a role, Dagon hopes to
enforce a religious and political order upon the region of Gaza, and to
impose a new principle of legality to the Jewish people. he fact that
this ceremony involves the humiliation of Samson, whose sufering
Dagon evokes in lowery lines of poetry, exposes the violence that is
inherent in such law-positing rituals.
he importance of theatricalized scenes of violence for the sustaining of a legal-religious order is further highlighted in the second act of
the play, in a dialogue between the King of Gaza and the chorus of
Jewish women who have come to his court to plead for mercy on behalf
of Samson. he King, who presents himself as a representative of the
law, strongly resists the women’s entreaties to show leniency to Samson.
he law of the land dictates, the King reminds the women, that Samson’s
act of violence against the Philistines be met with equally strong retribution. Furthermore, the King adds, the cruelty of Samson’s treatment
also has a practical function, as it should deter future rebels from
repeating his example.20 His punishment, therefore, should be staged
19
Dagon speaks of ‘gezangen en oferspelen gezangen en oferspelen, daer wy
spoocken near verlangen’ (ll. 17–18).
20
See l. 516.
454
yasco horsman
publicly, for all to see. By making a spectacle out of Samson’s ordeal, the
King’s words seem to imply, punishment becomes an instrument of
maintaining the law.
However, as the following acts make plain, the reliance of the
Philistine law on a mise en scène for its force also implies a potential
weakness. his becomes clear when the Queen persuades the reluctant
King to transform the upcoming ceremony in honour of Dagon into a
full-blown theatrical spectacle, during which Samson will be forced to
demonstrate his skills in fencing, wrestling and dancing in front of the
Philistine audience, and inally will be bribed into re-enacting his
downfall in a short play. his should all be done to the delight of the
Philistine audience, and to enhance the glory of the royal family and
their God. Turning the religious ceremony into a theatrical event (in
the strict sense of the term), that will be enacted on a newly erected
stage at the centre of the temple, however, has its problems as well. he
political, legal and religious success of the ceremony no longer relies on
a simple display of Samson’s passive, subdued body, but on his active
participation. Asking Samson to become an actor – a hypocrite – blurs
the distinction between his ‘real’ submission, and his outward feigning
of such a submission. It is precisely this blurring that Samson will use
to his own advantage. he ostensible theatrical nature of the situation
he inds himself in – he is dressed up for the occasion in a theatrical
costume – allows him to maintain an inner distance from the role he is
playing, and to plot his revenge.
As the chorus implicitly suggests in two diferent songs (‘reyen’),
Samson is capable of such hypocrisy, precisely by virtue of a crucial difference between the Jewish and Pagan religion. Whereas the Pagan
belief depends on rituals and sacriices – i.e. the externalization and
theatricalization of faith – the Jewish religion is depicted as relying on
an internal belief. Samson is guided, the reyen tell us, by the ‘inner
light’ (215–34) and ‘inner vision’ (991–1014) of his faith, which bind
him to his God without the need for outward rituals.
In its irst four acts, then, the play sets up an opposition between on
the one hand the pagan religion and the legal-political order it hopes to
impose, which is sustained by theatricalized scenes of violence, and on
the other hand the Jewish religion that is capable of resisting the pagan
force, precisely because its faith does not rely on theatrical rituals. h is
opposition between a theatrical and a non-theatrical belief, however, is
complicated in the play’s concluding act, when Samson inally turns
into the igure of the ‘holy revenge’ that gives the play its subtitle.
psychoanalysis – samson
455
Samson’s awe-inspiring act of violence is not enacted on stage, but is
narrated by a messenger, who confusingly compares it to a theatrical
spectacle or, to be more precise, as an act that transforms the very
nature of the play that the Queen had hoped to stage in the temple.
When Samson, ater patiently having repeated the story of his own
downfall, explodes into a rage and tears down the pillars of the temple,
the comedy of the scene of his humiliation turns into the tragedy of his
death, as the messenger reports. (1573) Yet Samson’s tragic death does
not signify his downfall but his triumph, as it enables him, at the
moment of his death, to reassume his position as a Judge (‘Richter’),
lawgiver of the Jewish People, announcing, as Vondel’s preface states, a
new era of justice.
Samson, then, concludes by opposing two ‘spectacles’: the mocking
comedy organized by the Philistines, and the sublime scene of Samson’s
tragic death. Both scenes can be read as exempliications of two diferent modes in which the law is related to theatre and to violence. he
spectacle of Samson’s humiliation is an instance of what Benjamin calls
‘law-preserving violence’, whereas Samson’s brutal act of destruction
evokes the law-annihilating force of the Benjaminian religious violence. But whereas the humiliation of Samson takes place on the traditional theatrical stage that is erected in the temple, the scene of his
revenge consists precisely in the destruction of this artiice. By tearing
down the pillars of the temple and causing its collapse, Samson destroys
not just a physical building, he also erases the symbolic markers that
separate the temple from the sphere of everyday life, thereby destroying the very semiotic and institutional framework that makes theatre
possible. As a consequence, the play does not so much oppose two
types of theatre – the ‘bad’ pagan versus the ‘good’ Jewish theatre – but
it dramatizes a conlict between theatricalized violence and a violence
that negates theatricality. Hence as a play about ‘holy revenge’ it
attempts to dramatize something that cannot be properly staged, whose
very nature implies the annihilation of the principle of staging.
he diference between the nature of Samson’s act of violence, and
that of the Philistines is further redoubled by a structural peculiarity of
Vondel’s play. he rituals in honour of Dagon are not only depicted as
spectacles that can be performed on stage, they are enacted in Vondel’s
play, most notably in the conclusion to Act IV, when a chorale sings in
praise of Dagon. Samson’s holy revenge, on the other hand, is present
in Vondel’s play in absentia, through the words of the messenger, and
in the testimony of the chorus of Jewish women who, standing outside
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yasco horsman
the temple, witness the efects of Samson’s acts in the form of a blinding
cloud of dust, and a deafening set of screams – efects, in short, that bar
them from witnessing the scene directly.21 Hence the irst four acts of
Samson raise the question of the interrelatedness of law, theatre and
violence, whereas Act V evokes a scene that remains structurally, thematically and psychologically ofstage, leaving the audience in the
embarrassing situation that paganism is represented on stage whilst the
act of holy revenge that the play’s title promised to depict remains
beyond their grasp.
It is, perhaps, in this structural peculiarity that Vondel’s play shows
the strongest resonances with Freud’s musings on the paradoxical
pleasures of the theatre. As mentioned above, according to Freud we go
to the theatre to experience a heroic death, to ‘die with the hero with
whom we have identiied ourselves’, as he puts it. However, as he writes
in ‘houghts for the Times on War and Death’, death itself cannot be
experienced directly; death remains for us fundamentally unimaginable. ‘It is indeed impossible to imagine our own death’, Freud writes,
‘and whenever we attempt to do so we can perceive that we are in fact
still present as spectators’.22 In a gloss on this remark, philosopher
Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe suggests that for Freud, the representation
of the experience of death itself – which draws us to the theatre – lies
beyond the means of the theatre itself. Death itself can never be made
present on the stage, since it always takes place on yet another, ‘diferent stage’, that lies beyond the actual space of the theatre. Death itself is
always endlessly deferred and displaced. ‘Death’, Lacoue-Labarthe
writes, ‘cannot present itself as such, Death is submitted to the ineluctable necessity of re-presentation […]’.
If it is permissible to play on a ‘popular’ etymology, we might say that
death is ob-scene. At the very least, Freud is convinced that death ‘cannot
be looked in the face’ […]. Death never appears as such, it is in the strict
sense unrepresentable, or the unrepresentable itself.23
Death is only represented on stage, Lacoue-Labarthe suggests, referring to an ancient ritual used to ward of evil deities, in an apotropaic
way, in a gesture that similarly exposes death, and turns away from it.24
21
‘Dit afgrijsselijck geschal verdoot onze ooren. Al dit stof verblint onze oogen.’
(‘his frightful din deafens our ears. All this dust blinds our eyes’, ll. 1483–84).
22
‘houghts for the Times’, p. 289.
23
‘heatrum Analyticum’, pp. 187–88.
24
For a clarifying exposition of this igure see Rappaport, ‘Staging: Mont Blanc’:
Between the Sign and the Gaze, pp. 97–98.
psychoanalysis – samson
457
he redoubling of the stage in Samson, the split between what is enacted
on the ‘proper’ stage of the play, and the events that take place in the
temple, leave the impression that the ‘real’ events of Samson take place
elsewhere, not in a ‘proper’ theatrical scene, but in a scene ‘beyond all
scenes’, which stages the impossibility of its own staging.25
What is unique about Samson is not so much the very explicitness of
the way in which death is made present through its very absence – this
could be explained away as Vondel’s bowing to the conventional theatrical laws of propriety of his time – but the way in which its concluding scene of violence is related to the law. By dedicating his play to
Outshoren, Vondel ofers it as an image to be contemplated by a politician whose very function it is to formulate and codify new laws and to
see to the maintenance of existing laws, someone, in short, for whom
the law is not an abstraction but a positively existing body of rules.
Whereas Samson presents the source of the law as violent, destructive,
‘obscene’ and fundamentally unrepresentable, his dedication suggests
that his play can be of use to someone for whom the law is something
highly present indeed.
I would argue, however, that this tension between preface and play is
not just a misunderstanding by the playwright of his own work, but
that it points to a structural tension between Benjamin’s distinction
between divine (law-destroying) and mythical (law-positing) violence.
As Jacques Derrida has pointed out in an essay on Benjamin, despite
Benjamin’s insistence that divine violence lies at the origin of law, this
origin becomes only readable as an origin retroactively, ater a new
legal order has been established.26 Revolutionary violence, Derrida
writes, whether of a secular or religious nature, justiies itself by borrowing from a future it has not yet ushered in. Derrida writes that such
revolutionary moments are terrifying, not only because of the sufering
they cause,
but just as much because they are in themselves, and in their very violence uninterpretable or undecipherable. his is what I am calling the
‘mystical’ [foundation of law] […] It is in law, what suspends law. It interrupts the established law to found another […] it never takes place in a
presence. A successful revolution, the successful foundation of a state
25
I borrow the phrase ‘a scene beyond all scenes’ from Mikkel Borch-Jacobson, who
uses it to describe the scene in which, according to Lacan, jouissance appears. See his
Lacan: he Absolute Master, p. 96.
26
Derrida, ‘Force of Law’.
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[…] will produce ater the fact what it was destined in advance to produce, namely proper interpretative models to read in return, to give
sense, necessity and above all legitimacy to violence that has produced,
among others, the interpretative model in question.27
Divine violence, then, cannot be represented directly; not only because
its violent nature has a blinding and deafening impact on those who
witness it, but also because it only becomes readable as divine violence
ater the fact, in a second scene, when it is framed, interpreted, and
understood as divine violence. his means that a depiction of divine
violence relies on an interpretative framework, in Vondel’s case a preface that serves as a reading guide.
As do many of his other plays, Vondel’s Samson thus testiies to the
fact that the early Dutch 17th century went through a period in which
the law was in crisis. As Korsten has shown, his plays should be understood as an examination of the implications of this crisis. Samson does
not ofer solutions, however, and neither does it ofer concrete suggestions. Instead it exposes the underlying violence of the law itself, and
the way in which the establishing of a new legal order – just as it may
be – relies on a moment of violent annihilation. his violence, whose
history the law has to repress in order to continue to function smoothly,
cannot be represented directly. It can, however, be evoked in its very
unrepresentability, in a particular type of theatre, namely that of
Vondel.
27
‘Force of Law’, pp. 269–70.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
LAW AND LITERATURE – BATAVISCHE GEBROEDERS (1663)
Jeanne Gaakeer
‘In an age of disbelief it is for the poet to supply the satisfactions of
belief ’1
Introduction: Why Law, Literature and Vondel?
In the 1970s a humanist renaissance took place in law and legal studies
when the question as to what lawyers could learn from literature
became the starting point for what is now called Law and Literature.
In the course of the twentieth century, especially ater the horrors of
Nazi law unfolded, the positivist, rule-bound model of law typical of
analytical jurisprudence came under attack. he same happened with
the law’s premises of objectivity and neutrality in the positivist legal
tradition which championed the autonomy of law as a discipline. he
underlying belief in the possibility of objective knowledge and valuefree choices was severely questioned by developments in both society
and science. he realisation that the formation of law and society is a
reciprocal process made layers turn, or rather return, to the humanities. he acknowledgement that law is man-made inspired lawyers to
explore the literary imagination, with interdisciplinary legal scholarship as a result.
Law and Literature traditionally has three axes. Firstly, there is ‘Law
as Literature’, which claims that lawyers necessarily have to develop a
feeling for language and literary style since language is their only tool.
With language usage as a form of human behaviour, the central task of
both law and literature is seen as a coming to terms with an author or
speaker’s claims of meaning. Put diferently, legal as well as literary
interpretation demands our active participation. Secondly, there is
‘Law in Literature’, which is primarily devoted to analyses of literary
works with a law-related topic in a broad sense, ranging from questions
1
Stevens, ‘Two or hree Ideas’, p. 259.
460
jeanne gaakeer
of justice to the portrayal of a lawyer-protagonist. It starts from the
premise that our cultural heritage in the form of literary works holds
up a mirror to lawyers as far as socio-legal and political developments
and values are concerned, and shows the way in which others look
upon law and the legal profession in action. hirdly, there is the strand
that addresses the subject of the regulation of literature by law, with
topics such as parody, defamation, obscenity, copyright and the question, both legal and philosophical, of authorship.2 By now fully institutionalised, with specialised courses in law schools, scholarly journals,
and a proliferation of the topics of literary jurisprudence, Law and
Literature belongs to the mainstream of contemporary legal theory.3
For purposes of contemporary interdisciplinary scholarship, the
irony that should at once be noted is that the very process of the formation of autonomous disciplines did not come to a head until the late
nineteenth century and was followed (at least for law) almost immediately by the demand for auxiliary disciplines such as statistics, economics and sociology by the legal realist movement of the early twentieth
century, and, in the wake of these multidisciplinary ventures, by interdisciplinary ields as diverse as Law and Economics and Law and
Literature. In short, interdisciplinary scholarship brings together two
or more autonomous disciplines. his might seem paradoxical when
we realise retrospectively that this development began almost immediately ater the process of Ausdiferenzierung (diferentiation) occasioned the rise of monodisciplinarity and the increased independence
of national literatures from their respective literary histories – not to
mention the coincidence with the rise of the nation-state and national
legal systems.4
Elsewhere I have argued that it is high time to return to our European
humanistic roots for the very reason that European scholars have hitherto largely concerned themselves with the academic work done in the
US and the UK, whence the Law and Literature movement originates.5
Within the framework of this Vondel project, this reconsideration is
2
‘Law as literature’ is traced back to Cardozo, ‘Law and Literature’. ‘Law in literature’
inds its origin in Wigmore, ‘A List of Legal Novels’ and ‘A List of One Hundred Legal
Novels’. For a full overview, see Gaakeer, Hope Springs Eternal.
3
For an overview of courses, see Gemmette, ‘Law and Literature’, and ‘Law and
Literature: Joining the Class Action’. US-based journals are Law and Literature, Yale
Journal of Law and the Humanities and Legal Studies Forum; UK-based is Law and
Humanities.
4
he term is coined by Luhmann, Ausdiferenzierung des Rechts (‘Diferentiation of
the Law’).
5
Gaakeer, ‘(Con)temporary Law’.
law and literature – batavische gebroeders
461
relevant because the separation of ields of knowledge into disciplines
had not yet developed into monodisciplinarity in the early modern
period; law was seen as part and parcel of the humanities, and literary
works operated as sources for law.
My claim, then, would be that it is high time we should return to the
literatures of the early modern period. In the present essay, I will focus
on the work of two canonical Dutch authors: the humanist and lawyer
Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) and the poet and playwright Joost van den
Vondel (1587–1679). On the view that humanist jurisprudence in the
Dutch Republic of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries deserves
more than just the attention of legal historians and that, conversely,
literature deserves more than just the attention of literary theorists,
I propose to investigate the reception of Vondel’s play Batavische
gebroeders of Onderdruckte Vryheit (Batavian Brothers, or Liberty
Oppressed) informed by the Law and Literature movement to which
I claim adherence.
Not only did Vondel experience the force of the law when it tried to
subject and regulate his literary output, he also proved undisputedly
polemical as far as his social engagement and literary consciousness
were concerned when it came to the religious intolerance, self-interest
or corruption of political leaders. Vondel’s engagement, for instance, is
exempliied in the fate of his 1625 tragedy Palamedes, an allegory
intended to condemn the legal murder by biased judges of the Grand
Pensionary Johan van Oldenbarnevelt. Oldenbarnevelt was decapitated ater a spectacular trial in 1619 in he Hague, on the pretext that
he had been bribed by the then arch enemy Spain. For Palamedes the
Court of Holland charged Vondel with the abuse of poetic licence,
resulting in a prohibition of the play and the payment of a threehundred-guilder ine. he law took hold of Vondel once more with his
1646 play Maria Stuart, which dramatised the historical events in
England in the year 1587. Although the play had been published anonymously, Vondel’s publisher Abraham de Wees was ordered to pay a
one-hundred-and-eighty-guilder ine. Finally, a more obvious political
statement was the open condemnation of the verdict of the judges in
the Oldenbarnevelt case in Geuze-vesper of Zieken-troost voor de vier-entwintig (1631).6
6
My view is informed here by Witsen Geysbeek, ‘Vondel’, pp. 58 and 77; Calis,
Vondel, p. 12, and Porteman and Smits-Veldt, Een nieuw vaderland voor de muzen,
pp. 357 and 386.
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jeanne gaakeer
In short, Vondel’s life and works are of interest to two of the aforementioned strands of Law and Literature: ‘the regulation of literature
by law’ and, given its double ‘mirror of society’ perspective, ‘law in literature’. his interest should be all the more acute since both in literary
and cultural studies generally, and Law and Literature speciically, the
debate on the canon is in full swing. Within this debate, seventeenthcentury (Dutch) literature deserves our attention if only for the reason
that there are parallels to be discerned in the formation of the identity
of Europe, then and now, with the integration of immigrants like
Vondel as a case in point. Furthermore, the topic of foundational narratives is one already initiated in Law and Literature for the formative
period of the US, so it would make sense to do the same for European
countries. For the purpose of this chapter, my focus is on the wide
range of interpretations of Batavische gebroeders of Onderdruckte
Vryheit that concern themselves with the historical background of the
concept of sovereignty and the rule of law that Vondel supposedly
intended to draw the audience’s attention to.
Batavische gebroeders: General Background
Vondel’s biographer Piet Calis contends that Vondel was immersed in
the ideological struggle of his days: both his plays and his (satirical)
poetry show a deliberate socio-political engagement with the public
cause. Especially ater the Palamedes trial literally brought home to him
what it meant to be prosecuted, not just for what one believes but also
for what one writes, Vondel found inspiration in the turbulent events
that mattered in the lives of his contemporaries. In taking up urgent
seventeenth-century issues, Vondel became prototypical of a new type
of authorship.7 His literary works helped form public opinion. hey
were all the more able to do so, I would say, because Vondel was at the
same time clearly inluenced by a tradition of societal critique that was
illustrative of the period of the Eighty Years War between the Low
Countries and Spain. In this period the ideological imagery in literature shited from predominantly biblical metaphors, with both William
7
Calis, Vondel, pp. 147 and 372–75. See also Sellin, ‘Michel le Blon and England,
1632–1649’, for an example of Vondel’s political engagement shown in his dedication of
Leeuwendalers (1648) to Michel le Blon, one of the architects of the 1648 Peace of
Westphalia.
law and literature – batavische gebroeders
463
of Orange and his son Maurits depicted as David struggling against
Saul or Goliath, to the deliberate creation of what has come to be
known as the Batavian Myth, the foundational narrative for the republican form of government the Provinces wanted established as a bulwark against any princely usurpation.8 Vondel its the bill with his irst
play, Het Pascha (Passover, 1612). When the play was published in
book form, Vondel added a verse entitled ‘Vergelijkinge van de verlossinge der kinderen Israëls met de vrijwordinge der Verenigde
Nederlandse Provinciën’ (‘Comparison of the Delivery of the Children
of Israel With the Liberation of the United Provinces of the
Netherlands’), with the Egyptian pharaoh as Philip II and William of
Orange as Moses.9 Vondel again conforms to a literary trend with
Batavische gebroeders, a contribution to the Batavian Myth that underlines his subsequent development.
Initially, Vondel had high hopes for the role of the princes of Orange,
although he denounced Maurits’s role in the Oldenbarnevelt case. Ater
Maurits’s death, it was generally expected that the stadtholder – the
title for the lieutenant-governor of the Dutch republic – Frederick
Henry, William of Orange’s youngest son, would end the war with
Spain. Between 1626 and 1632, Vondel contributed a series of songs in
praise of Frederick Henry. When the stadtholder recaptured the city of
Den Bosch in 1629, Vondel, in a poem entitled Zegezang (Paean, 1629),
admonished him to be a true defender of the freedom of conscience
because that was the only way in which to be a true apostle of liberty.10
When Frederick Henry died on 14 March 1647, his son William II succeeded him. Soon a conlict arose when the province of Holland tried
to curb the military power of the stadtholder-captain-general with its
plea for a strong reduction in military expenses. In 1650, however, ater
the complete failure of an expedition to Brazil, the six other provinces
resolved to give William II full authority to do whatever was deemed
necessary to maintain law and order. A deputation of the States-General
and the prince sent to all the larger cities in the Republic was refused by
Amsterdam. William II gave the Frisian stadtholder Willem Frederik
orders to march on Amsterdam. he assault failed, but the damage to
the prince’s reputation was done. When William II died shortly ater,
8
See Spies, ‘Verbeeldingen van vrijheid’, pp.141–58, for the initial projection of the
Low Countries’ woes on Old Testament heroes.
9
Calis, Vondel, p. 77, endnotes omitted.
10
Porteman and Smits-Veldt, Een nieuw vaderland voor de muzen, pp. 359–61.
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Vondel wrote an acerbic poem, Vertroosting voor de onnozele en bedroefde Ingezetenen van Hollandt, over de doodt van zyne Hoogheit Prins
Willem II, Stadhouder en Kapitein der Vereenigde Nederlanden
(Consolation for the Innocent and Saddened Inhabitants of Holland, on
the Death of His Highness Prince William II, Stadtholder and Captain of
the United Netherlands), in which he cynically remarked that William
II had released the people of the Spanish yoke in life, risking death in
the name of liberty – ‘this is dying for liberty’ – whereas by dying he
now released the people from the yoke he himself had become to them
(‘You who in life liberated us from Spanish violence / And in death rid
us of your own’). Vondel included an admonition to the people:
‘Safeguard the freedom of the nation / And adhere to the nature of the
laws.’11 No longer would Vondel support the cause of any stadtholder,
or anyone from the House of Orange for that matter. From now on, he
put his trust in the Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt. In 1652, Vondel
reaped the fruit of true liberty. His attack on prince Maurits’s role in the
trial and death of Oldenbarnevelt, Palamedes, was inally released for
publication, even though it was not staged until 1663 or 1664, during
the irst stadtholderless era (1650–1672) when the House of Orange
had lost its original prominence – even though the 1654 Act of
Seclusion, in which Holland had declared that no descendant of
William II would occupy any position held by his ancestors, had by
then, in 1660, been retracted. In the very same period, so interpretation
has it, Vondel repeated his stand against the House of Orange, which by
now was allied to the English House of Stuart, fearing that the son of
William II would try to grab full military and political power. It was in
these circumstances that 1663 saw the publication of Batavische
gebroeders of Onderdruckte Vryheit.
Vondel himself claimed that the play was inspired by, and a reaction to, a series of etchings by the Florentine artist Antonio Tempesta
(d. 1630) entitled Batavorum cum Romanis bellum (1612), which
depicted (the causes of) the revolt of the Batavians led by Claudius
Civilis against the Romans (69 CE), and another series of paintings
11
he poem is presented in Witsen Geysbeek, ‘Vondel’, pp. 80–82. he quotes are:
‘[D]it is voor de vrijheit sterven. […] Die levend’ ons van ’t Spaensch gewelt / En stervende van’t uw’ bevrijdde. […] Bewaer de vrijheit van het lant, / En houdt de wetten in
haer wezen.’
law and literature – batavische gebroeders
465
inspired by Tempesta12 that had been commissioned for the newly
opened Amsterdam town hall (with Rembrandt’s famous portrayal of a
one-eyed Claudius Civilis presiding over the conspiracy in the forest
quickly removed in 1662 by the authorities when they understood its
subversive intention).13 his can be deduced from his introductory
remarks to the play in the dedication to Simon van Hooren, where
he says:
‘When I relected on the revolt against the Romans, and the glorious
deeds of the Batavians depicted in the etchings of Tempesta, and saw
among the pictures one of the Roman stadtholders in his chair, with
Julius Paulus drenched in blood and Nikolaes Burgerhart in chains to be
deported to Rome, I resolutely desired that these histories, which had
been rendered perfectly on the order of the Burgomasters, should adorn
the gallery of our City Hall in a row; and an eagerness kindled in me to
revive in a lively fashion the tragedy of these Brethren […]’.14
Earlier on, in Inwydinge van ’t stadhuis t’Amsterdam (Inauguration of
the Amsterdam Town Hall, 1655), Vondel had already mentioned the
Batavian revolt as a itting subject for the gallery.15 In 1660, the aforementioned Simon van Hooren was Amsterdam burgomaster; he was
also a deputy, a member of the executive of the province of Holland
and Westvrieslant. To him, ‘the safeguarding of freedom was entrusted’,16
or so Vondel claims when ofering him a play based on Tacitus’s
12
See Schöfer, ‘he Batavian Myth during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’,
esp. p. 95, for Tempesta’s etchings inspiring both the pageant held in Amsterdam to
celebrate the 1648 Peace of Westphalia with 6 tableaux vivants about the Batavian
revolt, and the four paintings for the new town hall. See Porteman and Smits-Veldt,
Een nieuw vaderland voor de muzen, p. 586, for the idea that Vondel saw the etchings
in the home of Cornelis de Graef, the moving force behind the paintings on the
Batavian revolt for the new town hall, who kept a copy of the Otto Vaenius adaptation
of Tempesta’s etchings in his library.
13
For a detailed discussion of the Rembrandt painting, he Oath of Claudius Civilis,
see Alpers, ‘Rembrandt’s Claudius Civilis’. Korsten also highlights the relevance of the
Rembrandt painting, Vondel belicht, p. 226; Sovereignty as Inviolability, p. 203.
14
‘Toen ick den opstant tegens de Romainen, en de doorluchtige daeden der
Batavieren in de kunstige prenten van Tempeest bespiegelde, en, onder andere abeeldingen, den Romainschen stadthouder op den stoel zag zitten, daer Julius Paulus in zijn
bloet gevert lagh, en Nikolaes Burgerhart [i.e. Vondel’s Dutch rendering of the name
Claudius Civilis] geketent near Rome gevoert wiert; en mijn lust vast verlangde dat die
historien, door last der Burgemeesteren trelijck geschildert, de galery van ons Kapitool,
op eene ry, moghten bekleeden; ontvonckte my een yver om levendigh te ververschen
den treurhandel der Gebroederen […].’
15
See also Duits, ‘Tussen Bato en Burgerhart’, pp. 204 and 209.
16
‘[D]e wacht der vryheit bevolen wert.’
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description of the Batavians in the Book IV of his Historiae.17
Signiicantly, Vondel already sets the scene in the dedication when he
speaks of the Batavians as a free people who have entered into an alliance with the Romans, one which the latter brutally violated.
Batavische gebroeders: Synopsis
Batavische gebroeders is a classical play, in the sense that it consists of
ive acts and honours the concept of the unity of time, place and action.
he tragedy comprises a single day, starting at sunrise and ending at
sunset; the scene is set in Outleger, a Roman army camp; and the subject is the harsh treatment of the Batavian people by the Romans. he
irst act opens with a discussion between the Batavian brothers Julius
Paulus and Nikolaes Burgerhart, of royal descent, about the trials and
tribulations the people have to sufer from the stadtholder Fonteius
Kapito who, contrary to the oath of allegiance between the Romans
and the Batavians, forces the Batavian men to enlist in the Roman
army. Burgerhart (l. 76) rhetorically asks, ‘Who dares to resist this, or
reason against it?’18 and elaborates on the position he takes, i.e. to
remain silent and have the Krijghsraet (Council of War) deal with the
complaint about this situation. At this point, their sister Heldewijn asks
them for help in order to save her son Vechter from being taken away
by the Romans. Concerned that the lament of Heldewijn and the other
women about the Roman raid will make things worse, Burgerhart and
Julius take refuge inside the house. When the Krijghsraet welcomes
Fonteius back from a successful campaign in the second act, Fronto,
the Roman oicial who is to accompany the captured Batavians, sows
the seed of suspicion by claiming that the Batavian brothers are planning a revolt. Initially, Fonteius and the Krijghsraet are reluctant to
believe Fronto’s accusations. heir change of heart occurs, however,
when in the third act, ater an ongoing debate on the matter, Julius and
Burgerhart are summoned to appear before Fonteius, and Fonto plays
his trump card. When the Batavian brothers insist that they have not
Tacitus, he Histories, 4, 12 (tr. Moore): ‘Julius Paulus and Julius Civilis were by far
the most distinguished among the Batavians, being both of royal stock. On a false
charge of revolt, Paulus was executed by Fonteius Capito; Civilis was put in chains and
sent to Nero, and although acquitted by Galba, he was again exposed to danger under
Vitellius owing to the clamour of the army for his punishment: these were the causes of
his anger, his hopes sprang from our misfortunes.’
18
‘Wie durt dit stuiten, of met reden tegenstaen?’ (WB 9, p. 905).
17
law and literature – batavische gebroeders
467
incited any revolt, Fonto brings up Vechter, who was discovered concealing himself in the woods, dressed like a milkmaid. Surely this is
proof of the brothers’ insincerity? Fonteius is now convinced and gives
the brothers a choice: one of them is to die, the other to be sent to
Rome. Walburgh, the brothers’ mother, desperately tries to make
Fonteius change his mind, but to no avail. he fourth act ends with the
brothers drawing lots because they are unable to decide rationally who
is to die; they both claim this ‘honour’. Julius is destined to die and
Burgerhart swears not to cut his hair until he has taken revenge for this
outrageous Roman act. he ith act opens with a full description by
Fronto of Julius’s decapitation, ater which he suggests that Burgerhart
should speedily be dispatched to Rome with Vechter as his shield
bearer, to prevent the Batavians from organising a rebellion to liberate
Burgerhart. he play ends with Fonteius provoking Burgerhart to the
limit with seemingly friendly words: as a government oicial, he,
Fonteius, is just doing his duty. In a inal outcry, Burgerhart denounces
the tyrant Fonteius and challenges him to a ight. his results in his
being carried away in irons, or, as Burgerhart himself says, like a lion in
a cage.
he Growth of the Batavian Myth
he idea and ideal of freedom discerned and constructed in the history
of the Batavian tribe ofered an incentive to trace back the seventeenthcentury Dutch Republic’s ancestry to these Batavi. his development
was facilitated by the humanist rediscovery of classical texts on the subject, such as Tacitus’s Germania and Historiae. In the early sixteenth
century, Cornelius Aurelius’ Divisiekroniek (1517) – a history of the
provinces of Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht in the Dutch language that
became authoritative for at least the next hundred years – further
helped the Batavian cause. Also important was the fact that the Batavian
theme was picked up by the Chambers of Rhetoric.19 When the uprising against Philip II started in the course of the sixteenth century, the
need for a foundational narrative that legitimised picking up the sword
against the king to whom allegiance was due, became acute. he exemplary performance of Claudius Civilis helped form the political and
19
See Schöfer, ‘he Batavian Myth during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’,
and Spies, ‘Verbeeldingen van vrijheid’.
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patriotic story that in the irst stage contributed the arguments for the
just war against Spain. he historical narrative provided an emblem of
heroism for William of Orange, and later on ofered food for thought
on the subject of the polity of the state and the form of sovereignty
best suited to the Dutch situation. In short, the story of the Batavians
generally, and that of Julius Paulus and Julius also known as Claudius
Civilis in particular, gained political signiicance through the way in
which it was adopted and, most importantly, adapted by Dutch writers
until it became a locus amoenus in seventeenth-century literature with
P.C. Hoot’s Baeto (1617) and Vondel’s Batavische gebroeders as cases
in point.
Highly inluential in the process was Hugo Grotius’s 1610 contribution, Liber de antiquitate reipublicae Batavicae (Book on the Antiquity of
the Batavian [= Dutch] Republic), which was translated into Dutch as
Tractaet van de Oudtheyt vande Batavische nu Hollandsche Republique.20
He provided the necessary ammunition for the argument that the government in the Dutch republic was preigured in the Batavian past.
Arguing that, ‘[…] the form of government which we have now, has
not recently begun with us, but that the one which previously existed
has become more visible’, he claims that ‘as long as there is no evidence
to the contrary’,21 it suices to establish the similarity between the situation then and now. If ‘then’ is the situation among the Germans, with
two estates of men, the princes and the people, and the government in
the form of a council of the best men among them that ‘possessed
supreme power’,22 the seventeenth-century present is, and should be,
the same. Focusing on the form of alliance between the Batavians and
the Romans, Grotius says: ‘It is well known that there are two types of
alliances: equal and unequal. An unequal alliance is one in which one
people submits itself to another. An equal alliance is one in which both
people retain their independence […]’.23 It should come as no surprise,
then, that the loyal people of the Low Countries, ‘[f]ollowing the example of their ancestors, who took up arms against the Romans who tried
to secure dominion, […] declared war on Alva […]’.24 And, ‘[f]rom this
20
For the purpose of this chapter, I have used the Dutch edition, De Groot, De
Oudheid van de Bataafse nu Hollandse Republiek, ed. Molewijk, and the English translation, Grotius, he Antiquity of the Batavian Republic, ed. Waszink et al.
21
Grotius, he Antiquity of the Batavian Republic, ed. Waszink et al., ch. 1, pp. 51
and 55.
22
Ibid., Ch. 2, p. 65.
23
Ibid., Ch. 3, p. 69.
24
Ibid., Ch. 6, p. 103.
law and literature – batavische gebroeders
469
time onwards, the sovereignty of the States, which had been much
obliterated by the licence of the latest princes, was brought back to light
and shone out brightly’.25 Grotius ends his tract with a detailed account
of the way in which this exemplary form of government now functions
in the Provinces, especially as far as internal afairs and military command are concerned. Because our ancestors instituted this form of government, ‘[i]t is now our duty, if we do not want to be ungrateful or
imprudent, irmly to defend this form of government, which is urged
by reason, approved by experience, and recommended by antiquity’.26
And even though he later retracted what in retrospect he confessed was
an embellishment of those features that could well be used to further
his political cause,27 the result was obvious, not only in that Grotius’s
contemporaries harked back to an imaginary and imagined Batavian
past as an allegorical vehicle to contribute to contemporary issues
but also, I would say, in that later interpretations of these seventeenthcentury literary works keep returning to the foundational Batavian
myth and thus conirm it as well.28 And while there is good reason to do
so, in the sense that literary narratives that function as a foundational
myth provide both a topic of scholarly interest and ofer a prism
through which to interpret the literary works themselves, I will suggest
below that this tendency also entails the risk of one-sidedness when it
comes to interpreting the legal perspectives that can be discerned in
the very same works, as can be seen in twentieth-century literary interpretations of Batavische gebroeders to which I will now turn. In short,
focus on the Batavian myth also makes interpreters miss or neglect
other aspects of legal interest.
All this seems to have been presaged historically. In the introduction
to his anthology of early Dutch literature, when sketching important
events in Dutch history, John Bowring names in one breath Vondel and
the ‘story of the old Oldenbarneveldt and of the hapless De Witts. he
struggles in favour of civil and religious freedom, and their triumphant
Ibid., Ch. 7, p. 105.
Ibid., Ch. 7, p. 115.
27
See Schöfer, ‘he Batavian Myth during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’,
p. 93, n. 33, for the view that Grotius dissociated himself from his earlier interpretation
of the Dutch past in a letter to his brother dated 24 January 1643, and De Groot, De
Oudheid van de Bataafse nu Hollandse Republiek, ed. Molewijk, p. 25.
28
See also on the conditions for success of a myth, Tilmans, ‘Aeneas, Bato and
Civilis, the Forefathers of the Dutch’. Tilmans distinguishes four characteristics of a
myth of origin as a historical narrative form, of which the third is important, ‘a myth
can only be successful if it has a function in society, that is, if it can be used as a means
to convey a political or moral message’ (p. 123).
25
26
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results – the proud march of the Batavian republic in increasing inluence and dignity – everything seems to have conspired to give interest
to a literature and a language which have hitherto scarcely penetrated
beyond their own natural and narrow bounds’. No wonder then that
Bowring sets the tone by including a part of Batavische gebroeders, the
Chorus of Batavian Women that ends Act II.29 In the 1829 sequel to this
anthology, Bowring cautiously remarks that so far, ‘Vondel has been
judged of by extracts, which are in every body’s mouth in Holland,
rather than by any entire piece of composition, or by the whole of his
writings’, and he approvingly mentions Witsen Geysbeek’s contribution
to the Vondel critique which aims at objectivity rather than ‘the blind
idolatry with which Vondel has been worshipped in the Netherlands’.30
his remark is important for interdisciplinary studies as well, for it is
indeed Witsen Geysbeek that ofers a sobering admonition when, ater
having listed the plays, he speaks of interpretive insinuations with
respect to the historical referentiality of Vondel’s plays. Of Palamedes
he subsequently remarks that ‘[i]t does not surprise us that this tragedy, when it was brought out in the open, was greeted with much
enthusiasm by those who were outraged by the political murder of
Oldenbarnevelt; the play made the blood of this old and honest servant
of the state splatter in the eyes of the power-hungry Maurits and his
kin.’31 On the other hand, Witsen Geysbeek is surprised at the fact that
the ‘play has never been of interest apart from its political impact’, to
the detriment of aesthetic valuations.32 It would seem that in Dutch
academia he was alone in this view. To cite but one example: the 1837
eulogy of Lulofs, a literature professor at Groningen University, portrays Vondel as the lampoonist of Maurits and as a zealous defender of
justice, liberty, and tolerance.33 he perceived interrelation between literature and history, which was coined early on in the Vondel reception,
29
Bowring and Van Dyk, Batavian Anthology, pp. 2–3, and 147–51, for the translation of the Chorus of the Batavian Women in Act II. Bowring must be credited for this
translation. I have not found any other translation of (parts of) the play.
30
Bowring, Sketch of the Language and Literature of Holland, pp. 40 and 127 (emphasis in the original).
31
‘Het verwondert ons niet dat dit treurspel, bij deszelfs in het licht verschijning
met geestdrit ontvangen werd door de genen die den staatkundigen moord van
Oldenbarneveld met diepe verontwaardiging verfoeiden, en het bloed des afgeleefden
eerlijken staatsdienaars den heerschzuchtigen Maurits en zijn believers bij elke gelegenheid in de oogen deed spatten […].’
32
Witsen Geysbeek, ‘Vondel’, pp. 91 and 239–40: ‘[…] treurspel nimmer enig ander
dan staatkundig belang heet ingeboezemd’.
33
My view is informed here by Simoni, ‘Lulofs to the Rescue’.
law and literature – batavische gebroeders
471
proved indicative of the interpretations of Batavische gebroeders in
twentieth-century literary criticism. he predominant critical concern
became the way in which the play allegorises actual historical events to
which Vondel wished to draw attention in order to criticise contemporary politics.
Interpretations of Batavische gebroeders: A Short Overview
Lieven Rens ofers the hypothesis that the sad plight of Julius Paulus
and Nikolaes Burgerhart is modelled on the execution of Egmont and
Hoorne, with Fonteius as Alva. To him this would explain why a number of references to the historical Batavian background in the play seem
out of joint, i.e. why Vondel had his characters say things that do not it
the Batavian context as described by Tacitus. According to Rens, this is
because the Batavian setting is a thinly disguised reference to what was
recent history to Vondel: the oath of allegiance of the Dutch to the
emperor Charles V and the revolt against the governor Alva, to whom
Charles’s son Philip II gave the right to start legal proceedings against
anybody, with disregard for prior rights and privileges should the
charge be insurrection against the authority of the sovereign.34 Like
many others ater him and, in his case, in order to support his own
thesis, Rens refers to Smit’s 1962 interpretation of Batavische gebroeders
as found in his Vondel study Van Pascha tot Noah, in which Smit claims
that the play is a portrayal of a case of injustice with as its main themes
aspects of ‘change of fortune’ (staetveranderinge) and wrongful administration of justice.35
Smit is truly the spider in the Vondel web here, for he takes to task
the historian Cornelissen’s view, in the latter’s ‘Vondel en de vrijheid in
1663’,36 that Batavische gebroeders is a warning against the appointment
of the son of William II, and he is himself in turn taken to task for this
critique by later interpreters. To Smit, there is no evidence whatsoever
in the play itself that justiies Cornelissen’s view that Vondel intended
the main topic to be ‘repressed freedom’ (‘onderdruckte vryheit’) rather
than the fate of the two brothers. In Smit’s opinion, the play is a tragedy
on ‘a change of fortune’ – it deals with the vicissitude experienced by
34
35
36
Rens, ‘Egmont en Hoorne model voor de Batavische Gebroeders?’.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 3, ch. V5, pp. 233–81.
Cornelissen, ‘Vondel en de vrijheid in 1663’.
472
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Julius Paulus and Burgerhart. Its main focus is on the unjustiied way in
which the tables are turned on the brothers by means of an unjust decision made by Fonteius in an unfair trial. As evidence for this reading,
Smit points to Fonteius’s inal words in the play: ‘Unruly fortune governs the state of the world / hus we see how one thing rises, and
another falls’.37 In short, how fate in one day changes Burgerhart and
Julius Paulus from autonomous royal princes into traitors who are
respectively condemned to be sent to Rome and to die; this is the only
interpretation possible that its Vondel’s development as a playwright
if, given the legal theme, the dramatic counterpart Adonias is taken
into consideration, as Smit is convinced that it should be.38
Since Vondel only had the short paragraph in Tacitus on which to
ground his plot, he could give his imagination free rein while at the
same time having to make sure that he connected to the concept of the
history of the Batavian people as it was then known by the general public, the source of which was Tractaet vande Oudtheyt (Treatise on
Antiquity) by Hugo Grotius, a friend and author to whose historical
and legal works Vondel had oten turned. hat he chose national subject matter is not remarkable given the fact that literary history, especially research on seventeenth-century drama, gives ample evidence
that history plays feature prominently in periods of heightened national
consciousness, and Vondel’s lifetime in general – as well as the genesis
of Batavische gebroeders in particular – is a case in point. Duits then
gives a thorough description of the political constellation and of the
change that Vondel’s original allegiance to the House of Orange underwent, irstly by describing Maurits’s role in the Oldenbarnevelt afair,
and later on by describing the attack on Amsterdam by William II.
In this context it is, or so Duits argues, no surprise that Vondel would
want to warn against the dangers of the oice of the stadtholder in the
ledgling Dutch republic; when the oice is held by the wrong person,
he might attempt to usurp full and absolute sovereignty. Like
Cornelissen before him, Duits reads the conjunction ‘of ’ in the title as
37
‘Het wilt geval bestuurt den weereltlijcken staet. Zoo zien we hoe’t een op, het
ander onder gaet.’ (ll. 1869–70)
38
To Henk Duits, on the other hand, it is Smit who is wrong and Cornelissen who
is right. Duits’s own dissenting reading takes ofence at Smit’s dismissal of the possibility that Vondel did indeed intend his play as an allegory of the then current threat of
the appointment of a descendant of William II as stadtholder. Duits, Van
Bartholomeusnacht tot Bataafse Opstand, esp. ch. 4. For a concise version of the argument, see Duits, ‘Tussen Bato en Burgerhart’. Also of interest is Poelhekke, Vondel en
Oranje.
law and literature – batavische gebroeders
473
‘as exemplary of ’, so that the play’s title and subsequently its plot should
be read as the exemplary performance of the abstract concept of
‘onderdruckte vryheit’ (‘oppressed freedom’) by means of the story of
Julius and Burgerhart’s change of fortune. In support of his claims,
Duits ofers ample textual evidence.39 Furthermore, to him the evidence with respect to the inspiration Vondel found in the Tempesta
etchings also goes to show that Smits’s view is incorrect: one of the
etchings depicts the stadtholder Fonteius with Julius decapitated at his
feet while Burgerhart is led away captive, and that is exactly the scene
Vondel portrayed in Act V.
Lia van Gemert takes Duits’s side as far as the reference to the play’s
title is concerned. In the same vein, she argues that the brothers’ passivity with respect to the Roman violation of the oath, which is understandable now that, in terms of rebellion, circumstances appear to be
against them, enabled Vondel to focus on the role of the women.
Heldewijn’s plea for her son’s safety and the Chorus of Batavian Women
at the end of Act II suggest moral and political cowardice on the part of
the brothers who cling to the oath, and to obedience. Together with
Walburgh’s plea for legal justice rather than mercy for her sons
(ll. 1401–78) which also predicts Vechter’s revenge should things go
wrong for the Batavians, the women’s roles are important in that their
clamour also helps raise suspicions of an approaching revolt in the eyes
of the statesmen (staetkundigen) who duly report to Fronto. hus
the women stand for emotion, political insight and moral bravery.
Van Gemert does not follow the reading proposed by Rens, Smit and
Duits – on the basis of textual evidence that verses 1466–68, with their
39
See for instance Duits, Van Bartholomeusnacht tot Bataafse Opstand, p. 260, his
reference to verses 1673–74 spoken by Walburgh on the approaching execution of
Julius Paulus, ‘Wy kussen zulck een schoone doot. Zy hanthaef ’t heiligh recht der
Staeten’ which Duits takes to mean that Julius, as a representative of the States, has
rightly defended the people’s legitimate rights against the tyrant, also known as
stadtholder. In Julius’s speech, ll. 1743–44 ‘Stadtholders do not hesitate to cut of the
head and crown of an ancient royal line on the ilthy scafolds of their court’
(‘Stadthouders schroomen niet op vuile hofschavotten / Een’ ouden koningsstam van
hoot en kroon te knotten’), Duits emphasises the plural noun ‘stadthouders’ and the
noun ‘hofschavotten’ as evidence of Vondel’s intention to draw our attention to the
scafold on which Oldenbarnevelt died and to his own Palamedes (p. 262). Again,
verses 1813–14 (‘To gain an empire is what a restless Caesar demands, / But to secure
an empire is what an heir like Augustus seeks’ or ‘Het rijck te winnen eischt een’ Cezar,
noit in rust; / Maer ’t rijck te veiligen, een’ nazaet als August’), refer to the then topical
issue of authority and sovereignty, and Duits points to a reading of August as the moderator reipublicae who leads the people, and does so by gathering support from morally
respectable people: Johan de Witt in 1663 (at 265).
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jeanne gaakeer
reference to the walking stick Walburgh uses for support, resemble
Vondel’s earlier lines on Oldenbarnevelt – to the efect that the character of Walburgh is modelled on Oldenbarnevelt’s wife. To her, Walburgh
is Oldenbarnevelt himself who also did not ask for mercy but for the
just application of the law.40
he importance of the role of the women is also emphasised by
Gerda Hoekveld-Meijer when she argues that the Chorus of Batavian
Women in Act III represents the notion that the Republic did not owe
its liberty to the Orange stadtholders but to the piety and decency of its
people in the stadtholderless period. At the same time she ofers yet
another allegorical suggestion when she points to the similarities
between the years 69 and 1660 CE. In Rome in 69, Vespasian and
Vitellius fought for world dominance; in 1660, the question was
whether the French King Louis XIV or the English King Charles II
would rule the world. Should Charles II be the winner, this would mean
the end of ‘true liberty’ in the Republic: William III would no doubt opt
for allegiance to his uncle Charles II. In short, the country would be
back to where it was under Stadtholder Maurits. To Hoekveld-Meijer,
the irst act already supports the reading that the Romans under Nero
can be looked upon as the British under Charles II: ‘Fonteius advances,
following Tigelinus’s trail / How wanton and greedy does he violate the
borders of the Rhine / On both sides; a plague for young and old. /
What woman remains unviolated?’,41 Tigelijn then stands for Downing,
Charles II’s favourite, who came to he Hague in 1661 as an ambassador and joined the ranks of the Orangists.42
In his seminal study of the representations of sovereignty in Vondel’s
works, Frans-Willem Korsten also agrees with Duits’s view that Batavische gebroeders is a warning against the dangers of an all-powerful
military leader. Along with Van Gemert and Hoekveld-Meijer, he
claims an active political role for the women in the play. To Korsten,
however, the women function as conceptual wrenches. In telling a different story, or by telling the story diferently, they forcefully argue for
alternative conceptions of sovereignty and liberty for the people.
Van Gemert, ‘Vrouwen voor vrijheid’.
‘Fonteius houdt voor aen het spoor van Tigelijn/ Wat geil en gierigh schendt hy
d’oevers langs de Rijn / Van wederzijde, een plaegh, voor ouden en voor jongen / Wat
vrou zit ongeschent?’ (ll. 59–62).
42
Hoekveld-Meijer, De God van Rembrandt, esp. pp. 186–87. For Downing and the
political situation, see Uit den Bogaard, De Gereformeerden en Oranje tijden het eerste
stadhouderloze tijdperk, ch. 7 and 9.
40
41
law and literature – batavische gebroeders
475
Burgerhart is the exemplary freedom ighter, but the women are the
intellect behind the enterprise.43
Towards a Literary-Legal Study of Vondel: Some Suggestions
On the basis of the above survey I think it would be fair to say that, in
twentieth-century literary studies, the interpretive focus on Batavische
gebroeders has largely been on allegorical interrelation of the foundational Batavian myth and the concept of sovereignty to be espoused on
that basis, i.e. ‘true liberty’, all of which is set against the background of
the sociopolitical situation of the day. From the literary-legal position
that I myself take, coming to the ield of Law and Literature as both a
legal theorist and legal professional, this leads me to the following
observations and suggestions that together aim to ofer a literary-legal
research agenda and extend an invitation to those working in literary
Vondel studies.
Firstly, I observe that this is a valuable point of departure from the
point of view of legal and literary-legal studies, and coincidentally a
timely argument for further interdisciplinary explorations in the civic
tradition already in full swing in Law and Literature. Conceptually,
however, we would do well to link further research on the subject to
Robert Cover’s work, the central theme of which is, irst and foremost,
the conlict between law and other normative worlds and the position
of the one that has to make judgments in that conlict. As Cover puts it
in ‘Nomos and Narrative’,
We inhabit a nomos—a normative universe. We constantly create and
maintain a world of right and wrong, of lawful and unlawful, of valid and
void […]. he rules and principles of justice, the formal institutions of
the law, and the conventions of the social order are, indeed, important to
that world; they are, however, but a small part of the normative universe
that ought to claim our attention. No set of legal institutions or prescriptions exists apart from the narratives that locate it and give it meaning.
For every constitution there is an epic, for every decalogue a scripture.
Once understood in the context of the narratives that give it meaning,
law becomes not merely a system of rules to be observed, but a world in
which we live.44
43
203.
44
Korsten, Vondel belicht, pp. 186 and 227; Sovereignty as Inviolability, pp. 131 and
Cover, ‘Nomos and Narrative’, pp. 4–5.
476
jeanne gaakeer
he consequence for law is that in the normative legal world, law and
literature are inseparably related and that this relation is located in narrative when the concept of narrative is taken broadly, i.e. as the way in
which all human experience inds its expression, and on the understanding that every narrative asserts its prescriptive point, its moral.
hus, as a methodology for jurisprudence, the narrative paradigm can
be especially fruitful when the moral dimension of law is the topic of
discussion.
For US foundational narratives, this idea is elaborated upon in two
by now seminal works by Robert Ferguson, Law and Letters in American
Culture, and Brook homas, Cross-Examinations of Law and Literature.45
hese works address the topic of the interrelation of the foundation of
a nation and its literature, as well as the inluence of law in the process,
given the unity of law and the humanities in lives of the lawyers in the
formative era when there was a strong emphasis on rhetoric, hermeneutics, and the classics. Research on the civic tradition has recently
been augmented once more by Brook homas who, while ‘not claiming
that law is the key that will unlock all of the mysteries of works of literature or that literature is the key that will open up a full understanding
of the law’,46 convincingly shows how the “the Founding Fathers of
American literary nationalism” created a usable past for a nation that
lacked one’.47 homas also shows the importance of a critical attitude
towards the past, given the danger of reading teleologically and thereby
preserving the very myth that is in need of clariication. A literary-legal
interpretation is not supposed to be a denial of the rule of law either; it
should dramatise various conlicts citizens subject to law have to confront, explore dilemmas, and interweave legal and literary analysis.
For British law and literature of the Stuart era, the subject of the ictionalisation of law, or mythopoesis, has recently been taken up by
Elliott Visconsi.48 His aim is to show how poets and playwrights such as
Milton and Dryden helped fashion the nation. To him, Dryden (for
example) ‘attributes to the poet an equitable function, seeing the outstanding writer of epic or tragedy as unusually well-qualiied to interpret the founding intentions of law and polity, and to grasp the
45
Ferguson, Law and Letters in American Culture; homas, Cross-Examinations of
Law and Literature.
46
homas, Civic Myths, Preface, p. i.
47
homas, Civic Myths, p. 20, endnote omitted. Also of interest is Pether,
‘Comparative Constitutional Epics’.
48
Visconsi, Lines of Equity, Literature and the Origins of Law in Later Stuart England.
law and literature – batavische gebroeders
477
universally valid thesis behind the facts and circumstances of a historical narrative of origins’.49 Visconsi’s suggestion that emotional identiication is central to most early modern models of political obligation
may be of interest for further research on the narrative ethos of early
modern writers, when law and literature are integrated in a cultural
moment, as is the case in Vondel.
To summarise this point, in Law and Literature the focus is on the
dominant narratives and ideologies as portrayed in literature and law,
as well as on alternative narratives, and in this sense Law and Literature
is a site of critique. Current literary Vondel studies augur well for further inquiries into the theme of civic aspects of law and literature, but
need a broader view: one more informed by legal history and theory.
More work could be done in comparative literary interpretations conjoined with literary-legal jurisprudential insights, by literary and legal
scholars in closer cooperation than has generally been the case thus far.
How, for example, does the literature of a period further exercise the
public imagination? On this view, Blair Worden’s recent study on
Milton would suggest a comparative study of Lucifer in Milton and
Vondel, the historically salient issue of religious dispute being present
in both authors’ works.50
In doing so, the need to address issues on the plane of a methodology for interdisciplinary undertakings becomes acute. For, secondly,
from the point of view of law, the focus in literary Vondel studies is
one-sided in its insistence on the allegorical aspects concerning liberty
and sovereignty in Batavische gebroeders. While my literary self agrees
with Korsten when he claims that the question as to whether Vondel
had actually read Hobbes and other legal-political philosophers of his
days is not important, as a lawyer I think that an exception should be
made for Grotius’s inluence on Vondel in view of the idea of literature
as a mirror for law, if only to involve legal historians in this form of
research as well. For example, little is made of the fact that later in life
Grotius distanced himself from the Batavian myth he himself helped
create. Both this mystiication and the fact that the history of the House
of Orange as liberators of the Low Countries was relatively short have
not been discussed from a legal point of view.
49
Visconsi, Lines of Equity, Literature and the Origins of Law in Later Stuart England,
p. 37.
50
Worden, Literature and Politics in Cromwellian England.
478
jeanne gaakeer
hirdly, these observations may also lead to further research on the
theme of the auctoritas poetarum, the authority in matters of truth and
fact that the humanists ascribed to poets as much as to philosophers
and scholars. On this view, further inquiry might also be made into the
unity of law, literature, and historiography – a unity that was presumed
to exist then and has become a consideration in interdisciplinary studies today – which has its roots in the Aristotelian view of iction as ‘the
thing that may happen’. he Aristotelian opposition of mythos, understood as narrative, to logos, as dialectical discourse, is of interest when
it comes to the ictionality of Grotius’s Batavian treatise itself. It would
seem that evidence of the Batavian past, whether ictional or not – ut
poesis historia? – leads to contradictions that Grotius is incapable of
resolving logically, hence his response in the form of a narrative of
foundation.51 While ictions are not lies,52 it may be of interest for both
literary and legal scholars generally and those specialising in the ield
of Law and Literature more speciically, to pay more detailed attention
to literary and legal belief systems and the way in which similar concepts generate diferent outcomes in diferent disciplines.53 his also
suggests a joint efort to address the broader theme of the dominant
epistemology and history of ideas of a period.
his strand in research could be taken together with yet another,
fourth, perspective that I think could fruitfully be incorporated for
methodological reasons: that of the similarities and diferences in literary and legal hermeneutics. What is paradoxical and striking, at least to
a lawyer, in the interpretations of the allegorical tendencies in Vondel,
is that so much is being made of the authorial intention. In his conclusion on Batavische gebroeders, Henk Duits (for example) claims that
Vondel must have had a special meaning with this play. Given the circumstance that the Burgerhart motif as developed in plays by other
authors always points to the later phase of the Batavian revolt, Batavische
gebroeders must for this very reason be about the threat of William III
becoming sovereign. Duits’s claim, then, that the Batavian past was
alive and kicking to Vondel, and that the audience had to know the ins
51
See Eyinger, ‘De relatie van recht en letteren in leven en werken van Hugo de
Groot’, p. 21. See also Duits, Van Bartholomeusnacht tot Bataafse opstand, p. 17.
52
See also homas, Civic Myths, p. 11, referring to Wolfgang Iser’s idea that ictions
are not lies (Iser, he Fictive and the Imaginary).
53
My view is inspired here by Bal, Travelling Concepts in the Humanities, with its
central argument that interdisciplinarity should seek its heuristic and methodological
basis in concepts rather than in methods.
law and literature – batavische gebroeders
479
and outs of the political scene in order to understand the author’s
intentions for the anti-Orangist plot, is highly speculative given the
additional information that he ofers. he play was performed only
three times, so that only an elite group may have had occasion to take
note of Vondel’s intention. Duits’s speculation that much must have
depended on the players’ performance in practice, i.e. on their knowledgeable internalisation of precisely that intended meaning, raises the
lawyer’s eyebrows when it comes to factual evidence to underpin the
argument. A reading through the writerly persona has hazards of its
own that should be addressed rather than silently overlooked. If the
lawyer’s astonishment and the literary scholar’s position in such matters are mutually provoked, then the discourse on the interpretive positions that we take in law and literature can be furthered for mutual
beneit.
Much more attention should therefore be paid to the importance of
the ‘turn to interpretation’ in law and the social sciences made on the
basis of Cliford Geertz’s inluential he Interpretation of Cultures and
Local Knowledge. he subject of intentionalist hermeneutics as contrasted to the interpretive method of ‘plain meaning’ together with allegorical interpretation once again addresses questions of the function
of iction that may prove viable for the development of literary-legal
studies. Not to mention the salutary, if not always workable (at least for
law), inluence of deconstructive hermeneutics, by now de rigueur for
quite some time in the critical strands of legal theory, such as Critical
Legal Studies and Feminist Legal Studies, a working knowledge of which
would beneicial for interdisciplinary studies. his may inculcate, if not
methodological consensus, then at least methodological consciousness
of the (im)possibilities and speciics of the proposed cooperation.
Consider, for example, the concept of culture, the recent development
of which in contemporary literary studies has already generated
Cultural Studies,54 and consider the need for sobering awareness of
what Jack Balkin has unsentimentally called the movement of invasion
or colonisation in interdisciplinary settings with the disciplines
involved either as invaders with expansionist policies or as turncoats,
‘[…] interdisciplinarity results when diferent disciplines try to colonise
each other. If the takeover is successful, work is no longer seen as interdisciplinary; rather, it is seen as wholly internal to the discipline as newly
54
Mooij, ‘Interdisciplinariteit’, pp. 18 and 23.
480
jeanne gaakeer
constituted. Interdisciplinary scholarship, then, is the result of an incomplete or failed takeover.’ 55
Being mutually informed about these issues and developments can
work as an antidote to blind spots on both sides of the interdisciplinary
venture and thus stimulate truly joint literary-legal enterprises.
Another, my ith, suggestion is one that is provoked by what I would
claim is a certain disregard within literary interpretations of Batavische
gebroeders of philosophical studies of Vondel’s inspiration for the play.
Coming to mind here is Vandervelden’s study Staat en recht bij Vondel
(‘State and Law in Vondel’).56 Cited approvingly by many when it comes
to the concept of sovereignty, the road directed by Vandervelden has
not been much travelled since. To a lawyer, this comes as a surprise, for
it is on the plane of legal-philosophical issues that the scope of literarylegal studies may be broadened. For example, more work could be done
on the inluence of Grotius’s legal views on Vondel, especially, again,
given the interrelation of literature, historiography and law. To this
end, Grotius’s De iure belli ac pacis (On the Law of War and Peace) is
more of interest than his Batavian tractate. In it, Grotius ofers his
thought on what has since then come to be regarded one of the most
important leading principles of civil and international law: pacta sunt
servanda, contracts should be honoured. Vandervelden has convincingly shown the inluence on Vondel of De iure belli ac pacis and
Grotius’s other famous law book Inleidinghe tot de Hollantsche rechtsgeleertheyd (Introduction to Dutch Jurisprudence). It would be interesting
to read Batavische gebroeders through the prism of Vandervelden’s view
that Vondel’s works are a testament of the spirit of his times: he, too,
partook of the quest for certainty, the search for causal relations and
foundations of belief that was characteristic of his own war-stricken
and religiously divided age.57
It may be argued, for instance, that Julius Paulus and Burgerhart’s
reluctance to violate the conditions imposed by the treaty with the
Romans by means of which sovereignty is transferred should be read in
the sense that it is the Batavian community that can decide to revolt
against the Romans.58 On this view Burgerhart’s long hesitation before
Balkin, ‘Interdisciplinarity as Colonization’, p. 952.
Vandervelden, Staat en recht bij Vondel.
57
See Toulmin, Cosmopolis: he Hidden Agenda of Modernity.
58
I am referring to the pactum subjectionis in the Hobbesian sense, see ll. 809–12:
‘he power of princes consists / In appearance and outward bearing: / For to prevent
55
56
law and literature – batavische gebroeders
481
he takes action may be deemed a moral if not a political law. he same
holds for his attitude towards Fonteius in the inal scene. However, it
can also be regarded as springing from his justiied desire of honouring
the contract made between Batavians and Romans as equals. he fact
that one party, the Romans, violates the pact59 need not mean that he,
Burgerhart, should do the same. his would degrade him, and that is
what he desperately wants to avoid. Furthermore, legally as well as
politically, it would also be unwise, in that it would give the Romans
ammunition to initiate a war against the Batavians. As Grotius says in
the Prolegomena to De iure belli ac pacis, paragraph 15: ‘Again, since it
is a rule of the law of nature to abide by pacts [stare pactis, my addition]
(for it was necessary that among men there be some method of obligating themselves one to another, and no other natural method can be
imagined) out of this source the bodies of municipal law have arisen’.60
All characters, or so Vandervelden argues, are driven by a desire for
either law or justice as they perceive it. his is clear from the ‘trial scene’
in Act III and Walburgh’s plea for her sons in Act IV, in which a moral
tone and cogent legal arguments are forcefully combined. Coming
to mind here are verses 984 and 985 – in which the Krijghsraet say
‘[c]onjecture does not lead to justice / Only clarity and evidence do’, to
which Fonteius responds that ‘[i]n the interest of the state, conjecture
may suice’61 – and verses 1409–12, where Walburgh says that mercy is
only requested for criminals; in other words, she does not ask for mercy
them going astray, / he people holds them in cramped constraint.’ (‘Der vorsten maght
bestaet / In schijn en uiterlijck gelaet: / Want om niet af te dwaelen / Bepaelt haar
’t volck in enge paelen.’)
59
ll. 230–32: ‘[…] a growing host of tyrants / Suppresses freedom, and spares neither honour nor oath […]’ (‘[…] een aenwas van tyrannen / Verdruckt de vryheit, en
ontziet noch eer noch eedt te schenden. […]’).
60
See De Groot, Het recht van oorlog en vrede, tr. Lindemans. For the English translation used here, with the Prolegomena, see http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/grotius/
<accessed 10 January 2009>, and for one without the Prolegomena, On the Law of War
and Peace, tr. Campbell [1814, repr. 2001], see http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/econ/
ugcm/3ll3/grotius/Law2.pdf <accessed 10 January 2009>. One wonders whether
Vondel may also have been inspired by another breach of trust and contract, the 1646
incident in which it came to public knowledge that Frederick Henry was involved in a
plan to marry the French dauphin to the Spanish infanta, for purposes of resolving the
conlict between France and Spain. he province of Catalonia would then be exchanged
for the southern part of the Lower Countries and Mazarin had ofered Frederic Henry
to swap Maastricht for Antwerp via the envoy D’Estrades. Frederick Henry pretended
not to be involved when things came to light, but the suspicion of a plot remained.
61
‘Men recht op geen vermoên, maer klaerheit en bewijzen’; ‘Men mag om staetbelang oock rechten op vermoên’.
482
jeanne gaakeer
on behalf of her sons because the stand they take is justiied. In fact,
one might argue that the whole of the play is law in action, that it is a
court session in which opposite points of view are being taken agonistically. here is the dramatic tension in the debate on the choice between
resistance and maintaining reticence, the Aristotelian dialectics of
deliberare and agere: the women versus the brothers and Fronto versus
Fonteius Kapito in the early phase, Fonteius versus the Krijghsraet later
on, Walburgh confronting Fonteius, and the inal clash between
Fonteius and Burgerhart that ends the play.
Playing the devil’s advocate one might, on the one hand, argue that
the plea for liberty for the brothers and the Batavians – with liberty also
equating to wanting what is reasonable – simply means asking for what
has been agreed upon between them and the Romans (pacta sunt servanda), and what the bona ides requires. In short, what is asked for is
justice in the (somewhat circular) Grotian sense of being the virtue of
the will to do what is legitimate, with legitimate meaning ‘in conformity with the law’. On the other hand, however, the Aristotelian idea that
tragic conlict is not, or not only, the duality of good and evil, but rather
the conlict embodied in the protagonist himself leads me to the observation that Burgerhart is such a character.62 he dictates of his conscience seem more important to him than the question of what is to be
done under the circumstances; they are more important to him than
intellectual judgments. On this view, it may be argued that Burgerhart’s
main law is that of hamartia: he cannot get beyond his self-conceit and
exclusive interest his own integrity. Unsupportive of the Batavian
women, his sister and mother included, he opts for silence in order not
to arouse Roman suspicion, and this mistaken way of acting follows
from his hamartia, his character law of being stuck in what he deems
is right, and that leads to catastrophe.
I would suggest yet another line of research, namely a more thorough exploration and discussion of the moral-formal dilemma perceived in Batavische gebroeders, for this, I would argue, lies behind
Burgerhart’s hamartia, and connects the play to one of the topics of
ongoing debate within contemporary ‘Law in Literature’, in which
Sophocles’ Antigone and Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, Sailor feature
62
See (for example) Spies, ‘Argumentative Aspects of Rhetoric and heir Impact on
the Poetry of Joost van den Vondel’.
law and literature – batavische gebroeders
483
prominently.63 Basically, the moral-formal dilemma arises if a character is confronted with what he regards as a choice between applying the
law against what his conscience dictates him, or following one’s conscience, or what one deems to be the right thing to do, i.e. having one’s
moral view prevail over the dictates of the law. Put diferently, it is also
the conlict between ‘the will to form’, the one-sided attachment to
what external demands order one to do, and a contextual interpretation of the same external demands. Comparable to Captain Vere in
Melville’s Billy Budd and both Antigone and Creon, who are each in
their own way adamant with respect to their view of what justice and
law demand, Burgerhart is stubborn in clinging to his idea of honouring the treaty with the Romans, pacta sunt servanda, without looking at
what would be best for his people under the circumstances. In other
words, and paradoxically perhaps, here we ind the dialectics of an
interpretation of his legal character or ethos, whereas in literary interpretations the focus is predominantly on his sense of justice – which is,
incidentally, also rather narrowly deined, at least from the point of
view of legal philosophy. What Burgerhart sorely lacks, and what the
women reproach him for, is insight into the true demands of the situation; he lacks agnitio (recognition) in the Aristotelian sense, or as
Vondel put it, ‘herkentnisse’. his may well be linked fruitfully to the
observation that in the play the women stand for practical wisdom,
they see what must be done and thus can be the agents for a break in
the action, a peripeteia, not incidentally a role that women have fulilled in literature since Homer had Andromache and Hecuba voice
their desire for peace in the Iliad.
At the same time, it is precisely Burgerhart’s indecision that makes
identiication with his dilemma possible. Dramatically, when the choice
is being made for him when Fonteius decides to send him to Rome
ater having executed Julius Paulus, his inal break with his principle of
obedience to the demands of the original alliance with the Romans –
his obedience to a secular leader as a matter of fact – exempliies what
the women have tried to bring about before: that he should exercise
prudence rather than formally apply the law. Only at the end of the play
is he granted anagnorosis, the inal recognition of the truth. Is it too late
63
For a seminal text on the moral-formal dilemma, see Cover, Justice Accused, esp.
pp.1–7. See also Verheul, ‘Herman Melville and the Moral-Formal Dilemma’.
484
jeanne gaakeer
or just in time for further action? Burgerhart’s mirror image here is
Fonteius Kapito whose tragedy is that he has to enforce the law and
thus be obedient to law as much as Burgerhart, though in a diferent
way. Consider, for example, verse 416 where Fonteius says, ‘We are
executors of his will’, or verse 891, ‘I acknowledge we also bear the
name of guardians of the state’, and his cognitive dissonance in verses
1815–17, ‘my Lord, excuse us, and learn to bear your grief. / We can do
no less than mourn your great sorrow. / hat blow came from Rome,
not from our will’.64 he same goes for the Krijghsraet too, as verses
1473–75 show: ‘Illustrious princes, whom a Nero’s empire beits, / Do
condone the war counsil, justiied to execute the commands / of the
Stadtholder (he orders it)’.65 hose coming to literary-legal studies
from the legal side of things will therefore beneit from a reading of
the play informed by literary insights pertaining to the function of
dramatic action, since this topic is unfortunately not part of the legal
curriculum.
For my inal, seventh, suggestion, I return to the topic of Grotius’s
inluence on Vondel for the very reason that law ‘goes European’.
Following Korsten, further research may be done on the importance of
Grotius for Vondel on the concept of the polity of the state on the basis
of another play. In 1635, Grotius wrote Sophompaneas (Joseph at Court)
in Latin. Vondel translated his friend’s work within a few weeks, and
this translation was oten performed as part of Vondel’s own Joseph
trilogy. his is important, because in Sophompaneas Grotius has Joseph
voice a new political arrangement for Egypt identical to the one Grotius
had in mind for the Dutch provinces. his is another example of literature as a mirror of society. Combined with my irst suggestion for further research on constitutive iction(s) and my third point on the
ictional aspect of law and literature, this opens up the possibility for a
further sophistication of the strand of ‘Law in Literature’ as discussed
above, in the form of attention to the law of iction in both law and literature and to the iction of the enterprises of law and literature themselves. As the examples of Sophompaneas and the foundational
64
‘Wy zijn uitvoerders van zijn’ wil’; ‘‘k Beken wy draegen oock den naem van staetbehoeders’; ‘[M]yn heer, ontschuldigh ons, en leer uw leedt verdraegen. / Wy kunnen
min niet dan uw’ grooten rou beklaegen. / Van Rome quam die slagh, en niet by onzen
wil’.
65
‘Doorluchtste vorsten, wien een rijck van Nero past, / Verschoont den krijghsraet
toch, gewettigt om den last / Des stedehouders (hy gebiet het) uit te voeren.’
law and literature – batavische gebroeders
485
narratives in the American civic tradition suggest, law can originate
from works of literature. he way in which law is depicted in a literary
work may be inluential or formative when it comes to developing
law in its institutional, ordering garb of norms, rules, and statutes. In
other words, law in literature can be studied not only for its descriptive
aspect – an indication of how the law is perceived by those external to
it – but also for its prescriptive aspect.66 If we take this line of thought
one step further, we can also say that an investigation of how iction
itself works in law and in literature is strongly suggested for the whole
ield of Law and Literature. To this end, law would indeed beneit from
a cross-examination by literature, both at the level of law’s ictions in its
language of concepts and the level of the iction of the story of law told
as part of a broader culture.
As far as the latter is concerned, and to return once more to Grotius,
not only with his thought on the principle of pacta sunt servanda, but
also with his ideal of bringing about pax, unitas and humanitas,
Grotius’s contribution is that he aimed to subject warfare to legal rules
in De iure belli ac pacis, and thus tried to contribute to peace. Connected
to this is his proposal for an integrated view of Christianity and classical views and precepts – with Cicero prominently present – with which
he hoped to contribute to a certain unity in the diversity of opinions of
his times, a way to regulate social conlict on many planes which I think
we should take as paideic with respect to contemporary attempts at
establishing unity and solidarity in Europe.67
Not only does this line of thought pertain to the quest for certainty
but also to the development of law in the European Union. Brook
homas is quite right when he claims that ‘the increased luidity of
national boundaries does afect citizenship’.68 Obviously, in our days,
since we can no longer aford to attach totemic signiicance to national
literatures and legal systems and/or jurisprudences of national identity,
given the overarching inluence and power of the supranational level
within the European Union, an interdisciplinary and historical
approach can nevertheless enhance our knowledge and understanding
66
A literal example of the latter can be found in numerous works of American literary realism, such as Frank Norris’s novels he Octopus: A Story of California and he Pit
(1902), and Upton Sinclair’s novel he Jungle (1906), which resulted in the codiication
of the Pure Food and Drug Act.
67
See Eyinger, ‘De relatie van recht en letteren in leven en werken van Hugo de
Groot’, p. 21.
68
homas, Civic Myths, p. 1.
486
jeanne gaakeer
of our national past and (that of) our partners in the treaty that is the
European Union while at the same time providing a space in which
cultural translation can take place. Such an approach also leaves ample
room for methodological integration and collaboration on the subject
of a literary-legal methodology. If Habermas is right when he claims
that a political culture is more important and inluential cement for
society than a shared language on the basis of ethnic or cultural origin,69 we lack an overarching discussion of European sovereign power
so far, i.e. one comparable with the discussions on national sovereignties, while at the same time we have to acknowledge that ongoing globalisation, the internet and other technologies make for tensions of
various kinds as territorial boundaries dissolve. ‘Gens semper Batav(or)
um, nec inhospita Musis’, Grotius wrote, and Witsen Geysbeek took
this as an epigraph for his critical literary biography. In discussing law
in the context of the original national communities that form Europe,
we would indeed do well to be hospitable to the muses, Batavians that
we all are.
Further Reading on the Topic of Law and Literature
Works pertaining to the relation between law and letters in the
foundation of the polity
Biet, Christian, La Jeu de la Valeur et de la Droit: Droit et littérature sous l’Ancien Régime
(Paris: Honoré, 2001).
Carta, Paolo, ‘Humanisme juridique du XXe siècle’, Laboratoire Italien, 5 (2004), 13–37.
Cau, Maurizio, ‘Hans Kelsen et la théorie de l’État chez Dante’, Laboratoire Italien
(5:2004), 125–50.
Ferguson, Robert A., ‘We Do Ordain and Establish: he Constitution as Literary Text’,
William and Mary Review, 29 (1987), 3–35.
Pech, hierry, Conter le Crime: Droit et literature sous la Contre-Réforme (Paris:
Champion Slatkine, 2001).
Soifer, Aviam, Law and the Company We Keep (Cambridge, Mass., and London:
Harvard University Press, 1995).
Suretsky, Harold, ‘he concept of ideology and its applicability to Law and Literature
studies’, ALSA Forum, 5 (1981), 29–39.
homas, Brook, American Literary Realism and the Failed Promise of Contract,
(Berkeley: 1997).
69
Habermas, ‘Citizenship and National Identity’, p. 264.
law and literature – batavische gebroeders
487
Some general studies in Law and Literature
Beekman, Klaus and Ralf Grüttemeier, De wet van de letter: Literatuur en rechtspraak
(Amsterdam: Athenaeum-Polak & Van Gennep, 2005).
Biet, Christian, ‘L’empire du droit, les jeux de la littérature’, Europe, 4 (2002), 7–22.
Cau, Maurizio, and Marchetto, Giuliano, ‘Droit et littérature’, Laboratoire Italien,
5 (2004), 7–12.
Dolin, Kieran, A Critical Introduction to Law and Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2007)
Ost, François, Raconter La Loi: aux sources de l’imaginaire juridique (Paris: Odile Jacob,
2004).
Posner, Richard, Law and Literature: A Misunderstood Relation (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1988, revised edition 1998).
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
NEW PHILOLOGY – VARIANTS IN ADAM IN BALLINGSCHAP
(1664)
Jan Bloemendal
Adam in Ballingschap, its Genesis and First Readers
When Vondel wrote his Adam in ballingschap (Adam Exiled) in 1664,
its model had been published more than sixty years earlier and its
author – who had been a good friend of Vondel’s – had been dead for
almost twenty years. It was in 1601 when a young Hugo Grotius (1583–
1645) wrote and published his Adamus exul (Adam Exiled), on the
theme of the irst and foremost human tragedy, the loss of paradise.1
Or, as Grotius himself put it in the letter of dedication to Henry of
Bourbon: ‘the fall of Man from his pure and felicitous state into his
present misery.’2
he subject of both tragedies is what John Milton called ‘man’s irst
disobedience / And the fruit of that forbidden tree / Whose mortal
taste brought death into the world / And all our woe, with loss of Eden’,
told in Genesis 1–3 and by Flavius Josephus.3 And seemingly the object
of both plays is ‘to justify the ways of God to men’, as Milton put it in his
famous poem on the same subject, Paradise Lost (1667, 1, 26).4 Vondel
openly acknowledges his debt to Grotius’s tragedy in the letter of dedication. He wrote a creative imitation, in which he made ample use of
ampliication. Whereas Grotius employed only one Sathan, for example, Vondel introduced three ‘hellish’ characters, and whereas Grotius
presented only one angelus, Vondel replaced this angel with three of
1
Grotius, Sacra in quibus Adamus exul tragoedia, he Hague (Albertus Henricus)
1601; Grotius, Adamus exul, ed. Meulenbroek.
2
Grotius, Adamus exul, ed. Meulenbroek, pp. 24–25: ‘Historia est prima quae in
Sacris occurrit Literis et Catastrophen habet Hominis ex integro felicique statu in hanc
miseriam lapsus’.
3
Flavius Josephus, Antiquitates Judaicae (Jewish Antiquities) 1, 1, 4 [40–51].
4
Cf. Tate, Milton’s Paradise Lost and Vondel’s Adam in ballingschap; Nyquist,
‘Reading the Fall’.
490
jan bloemendal
them.5 He also changed the role of Eve, who in Grotius’s play had been
the evildoer par excellence, even before the Fall. Vondel’s Eve is an ideal
woman at the beginning, one that becomes a malefactrix only at the
end.6 Furthermore, Vondel added a wedding party, which could have
resulted from his wish to write a tragedy with a Sophoclean peripeteia,
in contrast to his Senecan model.7
During his lifetime, only two editions were published, both in 1664
at the same printer’s oice. Ater Vondel’s death, other editions appeared
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, separate ones in 1698 and
1736, and an edition as part of Alle de treurspelen (All the Tragedies) in
1720.8 Naturally it was included in all subsequent editions of the collected or complete works. It was not until 1910 that Adam in ballingschap was performed in Holland;9 Vondel himself never saw the play
on stage.
Contrary to Grotius’s play, Vondel’s tragedy aroused some controversy. hree poems were promptly published in attack: one by Vondel’s
enemy Jacob Steendam, probably in 1664; one by Jan Pietersz.
Beelthouwer (a good friend of Spinoza) in 1664 and 1671; and one by
the otherwise unknown Meynarda Verboom, also in 1664. he latter
took up the defence of Eve and was a gender reader even before the
term existed.10
Vondel and the Book
In contrast to Shakespeare, who as a theatre professional was interested
only in performances of his plays, Vondel engaged in the printing of his
Vondel, Lucifer, Adam in Ballingschap, Noah, ed. Schenkeveld-van der Dussen,
p. 301.
6
See also Vondel, Lucifer, Adam in Ballingschap, Noah, ed. Schenkeveld-van der
Dussen, pp. 303–07.
7
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 3, pp. 362–64; 372–74.
8
Unger, Bibliographie, nos. 676, 677, 678 and 679, and 27a [2]; Schuytvlot,
Catalogus, nos. 741–746.
9
A free (and spectacular) adaptation by Jan Frans Cammaert was rather popular in
Flanders between 1756 and 1796; see Langvik-Johannessen, ‘1746: In de Brusselse
Muntschouwburg wordt Charles Simon Favart directeur: Jan Frans Cammaert brengt
de spektakelrijke première van Vondels Adam in ballingschap.’
10
Unger, Bibliographie, nos. 878 (Steendam), 876 and 877 (Beelthouwer) and 879
(Verboom). he irst two poems are published by Van Lennep and Unger, De werken,
1664–1667, pp. 323–25 and 327–38. Van Lennep (10, p. 458), gives an outline of the third.
For the poem by Steendam, see also Vondelkroniek, 1 (1930), p. 82. he poem by Verboom was edited by Riet Schenkeveld in her Met en zonder lauwerkrans, pp. 304–12.
See also her contribution in this volume, and Van Gemert, Women’s Writing, pp. 48–49.
5
new philology – adam in ballingschap
491
dramas. his diference poses anew the question of the relation between
printed text and performance. he book historian and Shakespeare
scholar Kastan rightly states that both are dissimilar and discontinuous
modes of production.11 he print conserves the text and ixes in time
and space the word that performance releases as the very condition of
its being. Viewed this way, performance makes, rather than enacts the
text, and both of the expressions in common currency - ‘page to stage’
and ‘stage to page’ - are problematic.12 hus printed texts of dramas
have a life of their own. his chapter deals with the various (printed)
texts of Vondel’s dramas.
Remarkably, during his long lifetime Vondel himself had his dramas
published by only a few printers. Vondel’s irstling, Het Pascha
(Passover), was published in 1612 at Adriaen Cornelison’s bookshop in
Schiedam, his second tragedy, Hierusalem verwoest (Jerusalem Destroyed), in 1620 by Dirck Pietersz. Pers in Amsterdam, and his De
Amsteldamsche Hecuba and the highly controversial play Palamedes
(1625–1626) by Jacob Aertz. Calom. Two or three plays were published
by the famous cartographer and publisher Willem Blaeu: Sofompaneas
and Gysbreght van Aemstel (1635 and 1637), and most probably Hippolytus (1628). When Blaeu died – perhaps to Vondel’s relief, since the
printer was a notoriously slow worker –13 Vondel went to Abraham de
Wees. Ater his death in 1654 his widow continued her husband’s oice,
as oten happened in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Vondel
stuck with this publishing house until his last translations: Herkules in
Trachin and Feniciaensche (Phoenician Women) of 1668. All plays were
printed in quarto, except for Het Pascha of which the irst edition was
printed in octavo. We know almost nothing of the amount of copies
that were printed. Only in the case of Lucifer is it recorded by Vondel’s
biographer Geeraardt Brandt that 1,000 copies of the irst print were
made.14 Furthermore, it is known that at the turn of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries Vondel’s plays were amply available.15
Kastan, Shakespeare and the Book, pp. 7–8.
he remark on the title page of the 1729 edition that it is ‘[n]ow for the irst time
printed word for word as it is being staged on the Amsterdam heatre’ (see infra) is
telling. A diferent text had been performed than the one printed. Because of its controversial theme Palamedes was not performed at all.
13
Oey-de Vita, ‘De edities van Gysbreght van Aemstel’, pp. 94–95.
14
Brandt, Leven van Vondel, ed. Verwijs, p. 94 (ed. Leendertz, p. 45; ed. Van Oostrom
and Schenkeveld-van der Dussen, p. 59); cf. Molkenboer, ‘Vondels drukkers en uitgevers’, p. 24.
15
he board of the guild of booksellers were asked for advice on a request from the
Rotterdam publisher Pieter vande Veer. On 11 January 1700 they replied to the efect
11
12
492
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In 1660 twenty-three of Vondel’s plays were reprinted by Kornelis de
Bruyn in the handy octavo size.16 De Bruyn bound them together in
two composite volumes, each work having its own pagination.
Apparently in order to advance the interest of the ‘Fellow Compatriots
who Love Art and Poetry’ (Konst- en Rijmlievende Landtslieden) for
the ‘Founding Father of Dutch Poetry’ (Vader en Vinder der
Nederlandtsche Poëzye) De Bruyn added his own preface and a laudatory poem by Jan Zoet.
his collection of Vondel’s works was meant to be taken to the theatre as text booklets. Other, voluminous, editions of his collected works
earned Vondel his place in the pantheon of Dutch poets.17 However,
the terms ‘Collected Works’ or ‘Complete Works’ have to be qualiied
beforehand. he irst collections of Vondel’s works were composite sets
of separate editions bound together by a private collector or by a publisher. In these instances no external editors were involved. he irst
real attempt to publish Vondel’s Alle de wercken was made in 1793
when two Dordrecht and Bergen op Zoom publishers planned a project of iteen or sixteen volumes.18 In the preface the editor, the retired
minister Bernardus Bosch, expressed his conviction that every lover of
Vondel could now aford to buy all his works.19 his was the beginning
of a series of complete works edited by one (external and amateur)
editor.20
It was only in 1855, with the edition by the Dutch novelist Jacob van
Lennep, that Vondel got his irst genuinely Complete Works, in twelve
that that many copies of Vondel’s works were available ‘both in verse and in prose […]
in several copies and formats’ (soo in rijm, als in prosa […] in verscheijden stucken en
formaten) printed by Dirk Boom, Jan de Wees, Gijsbert de Groot, And. van Damme,
and W. and J. Lamveld and ‘obtainable in large amounts from the same persons’ (bij
deselve nog in groote quantiteijt te bekomen), see Molkenboer, ‘Vondels drukkers en
uitgevers’, pp. 27–28.
16
Unger, Bibliographie, no. 24; cf. Molkenboer, ‘Vondels drukkers en uitgevers’,
p. 27.
17
Dongelmans, ‘he Prestige of Complete Works’. Cf. Kastan, Shakespeare and the
Book, p. 69, where he states that the Shakespeare folio edition tried to create him as an
author; ibidem, p. 72, where he shows how the folio edition presented itself as literary,
and especially ch. 3: ‘From Contemporary to Classic: Textual Healing’, pp. 79–110.
18
Vondel, Alle de wercken, ed. Bosch. Unger, Bilbiographie, no. 37; Schuytvlot,
Catalogus, no. 2.
19
See Dongelmans, ‘he Prestige of Complete Works’, p. 70.
20
In the 1820’s the Amsterdam publisher and bookseller Marten Westerman published a new edition in 21 volumes (Unger, Bibliographie, no. 38).
new philology – adam in ballingschap
493
volumes. Van Lennep arranged the works in chronological order, in
order to relate them to Vondel’s life, and added annotations.21 he edition was rather expensive. An inexpensive edition was produced in two
volumes made by the professor of Dutch literature Johannes van
Vloten.22 He modernised the spelling, annotated the text, and started to
put Vondel on a pedestal in the preface by equating him with the
painter Rembrandt and the admiral Michiel de Ruyter when he lauded
him as the greatest Dutch poet. In 1867 this edition was reprinted with
a new introduction that itted in with the emancipation of the Roman
Catholics in the (self-proclaimed Calvinist) Netherlands that had
started in the meantime. Because of his conversion to Catholicism,
Vondel became their icon and this edition served as a banner of their
growing self-conidence.23
A monumental edition of Vondel’s complete works (De werken:
Volledige en geïllustreerde tekstuitgave, or he Works: Complete and
Illustrated Text Edition, 1927–1937) was the result of a collaboration
between several specialists, edited in ten substantial volumes by the
‘Wereldbibliotheek’ (World Library), also known as the ‘Maatschappij
voor Goede en Goedkoope lectuur’ (Society for the Distribution of
Good and Inexpensive Literature), abridged as ‘WB’. he edition was
very expensive. Other, less expensive ‘Complete Works’ were published
in 52 volumes by the Utrecht publishing house ‘De Torentrans, edited
by H.C. Diferee, and by the ‘Hollandsch Uitgeversfonds’, edited by
Reinder Blijstra and Hettel Bruch, in twelve volumes. he Dutch poet
and professor of Dutch literature Albert Verwey edited an equally
inexpensive edition in one volume, which was reprinted, with a new
introduction by Mieke Smits and Marijke Spies, for the Vondel commemoration year 1987. Vondel had been granted the prestige of several
editions of his complete works.
But Vondel himself had been the ‘editor’ of his own works as well. He
was critical about his works and kept correcting and changing them,
either as a result of the changing circumstances, which allowed him to
21
De werken van Vondel, ed. Van Lennep, see Unger, Bibiliographie, no. 39. he
Leiden publisher Sijthof bought the Van Lennep edition from Binger and asked the
archivist Unger to revise and update it. It was published in thirty thin, very inexpensive
volumes between 1888 and 1893.
22
Published by the Schiedam publisher Roelants; see Unger, Bibliographie, no. 41.
23
Unger, Bibliographie, no. 43. See also Dongelmans, ‘he Prestige of Complete
Works’, p. 74.
494
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say more or less than before, or for stylistic reasons or reasons of delicacy.24 In the letter of dedication to Joseph in Dothan Vondel informs
the readers about his conduct. Professor Van Baerle will help him to
discern what is correct or wrong, ‘and mending the faults, he will cause
them to be corrected in the next print’.25 Vondel cared about his work.
Old and New Philology
At irst glance, it seems quite unproblematic to edit a play written by
Vondel. Seldom do we have manuscripts, in many cases a set of contemporary editions that do not contain many diferent readings.
Vondel’s language is not always easy, ranging as it does from formal to
colloquial, from the rhetorical genus sublime to the genus humile, but it
can be explained in annotations. But the textual constitution itself does
not seem overly complicated. It is no surprise, therefore, that in the vast
body of scholarship on Vondel, the several editions attracted only occasional attention and, where they did so, this attention came from ‘new
bibliographers’.26
Of course, there may be discussion surrounding the alteration to
which the text has been subjected for the convenience of the readers,
such as changes to spelling or punctuation, or translating it into modern Dutch.27 Such choices may be fundamental, but they mainly depend
on the intended readership of the editions.28 Secondly, there is the
intention of the editor, which is an important factor. What kind of edition does he or she want to produce? It may be a critical edition, an
24
See Kalf, ‘Vondels zelfcritiek’; Oey-de Vita, ‘De edities van Gysbreght van
Aemstel’, pp. 82–87. On Vondel changing his works, see Brandt, Het leven van Vondel,
ed. Verwijs, p. 124 (ed. Leendertz, p. 61; ed. Van Oostrom and Schenkeveld-van der
Dussen, pp. 77–78). Several reasons are given by Kalf in ‘Vondels zelfcritiek’.
25
‘[…] en de misslagen beterende, oirzaeck geven, die in den naesten druck te verbeteren’, WB, 4, p. 76.
26
See (for example) Hellinga, Copy and Print; Gerritsen, ‘De eerste druk van de
Palamedes’; idem, ‘Vondel and the New Bibliography’; Oey-de Vita, ‘De edities van
Gysbreght van Aemstel’. All authors mentioned draw attention to the material form
and history of the book, which is the object of new or analytical bibliography. Analytical
bibliography can be divided into descriptive (or physical) and historical bibliography.
he former takes as its point of departure the description of the book, the latter the
context in which a book is produced, i.e. is printed, published and distributed.
27
Korsten, ‘Twee nieuwe Vondels, of te oude?’. On literary criticism as preserver of
heritage, see also Van Vaeck, ‘Omgaan met “dichters van cierlijcke netheit” ’.
28
See Sneller’s review of Schenkeveld’s edition of Lucifer, Adam in ballingschap, and
Noah, and Korsten ‘Twee nieuwe Vondels, of te oude?’.
new philology – adam in ballingschap
495
annotated edition, a genetic edition, a reading text, or a facsimile edition, each with their own needs in terms of textual constitution and
presentation, as well as in terms of commentary, each intended for a
diferent readership.29 But in all cases, the editor is steering the interpretation of the reader by his or her choices with regard to the text, the
annotations and the way in which those annotations are presented.
he issues on which there can be a more or less thorough debate
seem to be the interpretation of some lines, scenes or the play as a
whole, and the kinds of annotation the text requires.30 his commentary may difer, dependent on the type of edition produced and on the
basic assumptions of the editor.
he Amsterdam ‘neophilologist’ Wytze Hellinga stated fundamentally that an editor should ‘preserve texts and prepare their revival by
research and information’, and a commentator should enable the readers to understand the ‘supply of facts’ as it functioned in the days of the
texts themselves, so that the distance between the old text and the
modern reader would disappear.31 According to others, whose opinion
difers slightly, the task of the commentator is to provide the modern
reader with as much information as the ideal contemporary reader
would have had.32 And a third stance – now scarcely applicable – is to
reveal ‘the author’s intention’.
Before writing the commentary an editor has to establish ‘the’ or at
least ‘a’ text.33 Modern editors of Vondel’s plays oten base themselves
on the WB edition produced in the 1920s and the 1930s.34 And that
they do so is quite understandable, as this has been the standard edition since its publication. he WB editors chose the irst editions as
their starting point. At any rate, they attempted to publish an ‘ideal
29
Mathijsen, Naar de letter. Within the Dutch and German context, the ‘historicocritical edition’ and the ‘study edition’ are also discerned.
30
hese questions have been raised by Frans-Willem Korsten (‘Twee nieuwe
Vondels, of te oude?’) and by Agnes Sneller in their reviews of the editions by Konst
and Schenkeveld-van der Dussen.
31
Hellinga, ‘De commentaar’, pp. 110 (‘teksten te bewaren en de herleving ervan
door onderzoek en voorlichting voor te bereiden’), and 117. Cf. Spies, ‘Vondel in veelvoud’, p. [9]/246.
32
See Matthijsen, Naar de letter, pp. 333–51.
33
he exemplary edition of two of Vondel’s poems on shipping made by Marijke
Spies.
34
Vondel, Gysbreght, ed. Smits-Veldt, idem, Jeptha etc., ed. Konst, pp. 304–07; idem,
Lucifer etc., ed. Schenkeveld-van der Dussen, pp. 331–33 (here, p. 331, unfortunately
for Adam in ballingschap WB, 9 is referred to, instead of WB, 10).
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text’, as close as one can get to the ‘author’s intention’.35 In the case of
Adam in ballingschap, too, the editor Molkenboer, has chosen to take
one of the two editions from 1664 as his basis.36 In a way, in doing so he
dovetailed with positivistic classical textual criticism in the paradigm
of Lachman.37 his ‘Lachmannian method’ also tried to establish an
Urtext, as close to the author’s ideal text as possible. For early modern
and modern texts, the ultima manus (‘Ausgabe letzter Hand’) is oten
taken as the starting point of the edition, depending on the type of edition to which is aspired. his reveals a fundamental diference between
classical and modern philology: classical philology deals with the
transmission of the text, its modern counterpart mainly with its genesis. Of course, this diference has to do with material diferences; there
are no autographs of classical authors, while in some texts that are the
object of modern philology several (autograph) phases of the same text
are extant.
In 1989 the French medieval scholar Bernard Cerquiglini upset
medieval scholarship with his book L’éloge de la variante (translated as
In Praise of the Variant).38 He pleaded for a theoretical reappraisal of
the variants in medieval manuscripts, with an appeal to the reception
of the texts, distinguishing between manuscripts and printed books.
Medieval readers did not consume an ideal text, but the text as it was
before their eyes. hey did not have a concept of a deinitively complete
text, but a text was considered ‘open’, and each reader or copyist, even
the author himself, was expected to adapt the text to perpetually new
circumstances and (social) contexts in which the text was copied.39
herefore, he states, the task of an editor should not – or, I add, not
only – be the constitution of an ideal text, but the presentation of a text
with its variants in the several manuscripts. Cerquiglini, therefore,
focussed on two main points: irstly, that variance is an essential feature
of the medieval text, and secondly, that modern scholars have mistreated the medieval text by editing the variance out of it. His approach
was one of the foundations of ‘New Philology’, as it was labelled by
See Mathijsen, Naar de letter, pp. 21, 122, etc.
Unger, Bibliographie, no. 676; Schuytvlot, Catalogus, no. 741.
37
See Mathijsen, Naar de letter, pp. 20–22; West, Textual criticism.
38
Cerquiglini, Éloge de la variante; idem, In Praise of the Variant. For this survey I
was helped by the convenient summary presented by Werner Gelderblom in an unpublished paper ‘Erasmus en de nieuwe ilologie’; he is also to provide an example of the
application of New Philology to Neo-Latin texts in his anticipated edition of the poems
by Janus Secundus.
39
Provocatively he stated: ‘Now, medieval writing does not produce variants; it is
variance’, Cerquiglini In Praise of the Variant, pp. 77–78 (see also idem, Éloge de la vari
ante, p. 111).
35
36
new philology – adam in ballingschap
497
Stephen Nichols in a thematic issue of Speculum bearing that name.
Since the term encountered some opposition from the ‘old’ philologists, Nichols proposed to change it into ‘material philology’.40
It seems that the label New Philology is mainly ideological, while
‘material philology’ (note the diference in capitals and minuscules)
has a mainly practical orientation. In any case, ideologically, ‘New’ and
‘Old’ Philology difer at several levels and in several respects. Whereas
‘Old’ is concerned with the independent authority of a text with its
verbal essence, ‘New’ deals with the text as it is in its material form;
whereas the aim of ‘Old’ is to reconstruct the text (if necessary) by
intervention, apart from its original context, ‘New’ sets out to simulate
the material forms of the text in comparison and contextualize it;
whereas ‘Old’ has as its hero the author, for ‘New’ the scribe or the
printer holds more importance; inally, ‘Old’ loves unity, ‘New’ is fond
of variance.41
At irst sight, such explicit attention to variance does not apply to
early modern texts. We do not have many variant texts caused by misreadings, or the interpolation of glosses. And more fundamentally, the
invention of movable type made it possible to make texts in hundreds
of copies without variance.42 But even then variants appear. he starting
point difers, however; variants are now oten a result of the genesis of
the text – in the author’s mind or on the printer’s press – or of its reception.43 On the other hand, the variants were not only caused by the
reception of Vondel’s works, but they steered it as well. For this reason
the variants of Vondel’s texts should retain their signiicance. As for the
editions that Vondel supervised himself, this helps to assess the relationship between the printer and the author; as for the other editions, it
may shed some light on the ways in which the plays were received.
here are some fundamental assumptions underlying these considerations: the need for relativism in the conception of the text; the conviction of a ‘variability over time and space of any given work itself ’;
the idea of the dynamics of the text itself with is own ‘material history’,
with its ‘vast and largely uncharted alterations imposed by that history
and by the mediation of generation upon generation of printers,
editors, publishers’, i.e. the conviction that there is no such thing as ‘the’
40
Nichols, ‘Introduction’; idem, ‘Why Material Philology?’.
See also http://magyar-irodalom.elte.hu/colloquia/000601/cerq.htm.
42
See, for example, Eisenstein, he Printing Press as an Agent of Change and Martin,
he History and Power of Writing.
43
In the Middle Ages it was the scribes who steered or even determined the
reception.
41
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text.44 But nowadays scholarship is aware of the ‘luidity’ of texts, especially theatrical texts. his certainly holds true in view of the paradigm
shits literary scholarship has witnessed, from the nineteenth-century
‘evolutionary’ and ‘progressive’ model (the author and his work were
considered to develop and improve over time), through the ‘monolithic’ model (the literary text conceptualised as monolithic, invulnerable, existing in its extratemporal reality) to the postmodern, rather
deconstructionist model of the text as a ‘network’ or ‘sphere of inluence’.45 his opens the door to a more materialistic view of the text with
increased interest in the several textual carriers, away from a Platonic
or Neoplatonic idealist view of the search for the ‘ideal’ or ‘best’ text.46
With regard to the relationship between text and performance, analytical bibliography applies directly to the printed editions, but indirectly its results may shed some light on the performance tradition.
Some editions relected and steered the staging of the plays – leaving
out the chorus lines, for instance, or adding tableaux vivants. hus the
editions inluenced staging, and vice versa: performances had their
impact on the editions.
New Opportunities in Editing Vondel’s Texts
he question, then, is what implications such considerations could
have for the philology of Vondel’s texts. First of all, an editor should list
the several editions and their sequel and relationships. here he can
make use of analytical bibliography, analysing the typographical material, the paper used, and the bindings.47 Even in establishing the prints,
problems may arise. In the same year, two editions of Adam in ballingschap appeared, slightly difering from each other. Which one was irst?
It can also be a serious problem to determine the order of the editions,
as has been shown in the case of Palamedes.48 he edition dated 1626
must have been printed before the editions that have the year 1625
on their title page. Vondel altered the play considerably in 1652.49
See Marcus, Unediting the Renaissance, p. 1.
Marcus, Unediting the Renaissance, pp. 17–25; one could also speak of multiple
factors; cf. Roland Barthes’ famous essay ‘From Work to Text’.
46
Cf. Marcus, Unediting the Renaissance, pp. 29–30.
47
See, e.g., Hellinga, Copy and Print; Gerritsen, ‘Vondel and the New Bibliography’.
48
Gerritsen, ‘De eerste druk van de Palamedes’.
49
In his edition Jacob van Lennep printed the variants alongside the text. Ater
in 1650 there were no stadholders in Holland anymore, more editions appeared
44
45
new philology – adam in ballingschap
499
he editor of a scholarly edition should take the changes into account,
but anyone publishing a reading text should make a choice between the
irst edition and the ultima manus. As early as the seventeenth century
it was necessary to annotate the edition. Geeraardt Brandt did so, and
his remarks were published in 1705 as Aanteekeningen op J. van Vondels
Palamedes in the ‘Amersfoort edition’ of Vondel’s tragedy.50
he editor of Vondel’s plays should take all these aspects into account
before editing them. He or she should consider the speciic circumstances of every play: its editions, several versions, proofs, and the
annotations of Vondel and others. And the editor must always be aware
of Vondel’s attitude towards his works; he involved himself in the printing process and kept altering his texts.51 Here, some telling examples of
problems the editor may encounter will be discussed: several difering
versions of the text can exist, as in the case of Gysbreght van Aemstel; he
may have to deal with the printer’s proofs corrected by the author;
remarks by Vondel on a performance may have been preserved, leading to a new text, as in Gebroeders (Brothers); or diferent prints that
look alike may have been produced in the same year, such as the two
irst prints of Adam in ballingschap.
Several Versions – Gysbreght van Aemstel
Gysbreght is notorious for the history of its printings.52 here are two
diferent editions from 1637 and 1638. Vondel altered the text under
the inluence of the Amsterdam ministers’ critique. he title page
therefore states that it was ‘corrected and enlarged by himself ’ (door
(see Unger, Bibliographie, pp. 38–39), and Vondel may have felt free to publish his
pamphlet again. Kalf, ‘Vondels zelfcritiek’, and Walch, De varianten van Vondel’s
Palamedes – both inluenced by the romantic Dutch ‘Beweging van Tachtig’, which
focused on style and expression of emotions – assumed that the changes were mainly
the result of linguistic and stylistic motives.
50
See Kemperink, ‘Een bijzonder exemplaar van Vondels Palamedes’. Unger,
Bibliographie, pp. 5–6, assumed Rotterdam as the place of print, on the basis of typography and iconography. he annotations of Brandt were edited by Unger, ‘Vondeliana
IV: Palamedes’, pp. 59–67. here is another edition of Palamedes, reputedly printed in
Amersfoort by P. Brakman, containing a biting poem on William II, who attacked
Amsterdam in 1650, on the occasion of his death. he poem never made it to the WB
edition. See the contribution by Gaakeer in this volume, and Witsen Geysbeek, ‘Vondel’,
pp. 80–82.
51
Oey-de Vita, ‘De edities van Gysbreght van Aemstel’, p. 83.
52
See Markus, ‘De Gysbreght bestaat niet’; Oey-de Vita, ‘De edities van Gysbreght
van Aemstel’.
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hem zelf verbetert en vermeert). He also changed the term of address
for Hugo Grotius in the letter of dedication.53 In 1659 the widow of
Abraham de Wees published a version that Vondel had altered thoroughly.54 Ater his conversion to Roman Catholicism, Vondel could no
longer tolerate terms such as ‘fate’ (noodlot) anymore, and he changed
them into expressions such as ‘God’s Providence’ (Gods schickinge) or
‘misfortune’ (ongeval). He also let out the mute characters, perhaps to
leave out a scene in which nuns were slaughtered in their monastery as
something too blasphemous to show or tell.55 Another telling detail is
the change of the address for Grotius from ‘Your Excellency’
(Exc[ellentie]) into ‘Your Honour’ (Edele). In the very sentence in
which he dedicated the play to Grotius, he even let out ‘Excellentie’
without any substitution.56 Furthermore, Vondel added four lines to
the monologue of Raphael, ater l. 1864, referring to Roman-Catholic
faith:
If for you the demolishment of religiousness is too hard,
Stick irmly to the old faith and God’s altar,
In the footsteps of the older ones who led the way courageously.
hus one rushes to God immediately, through all stars.57
In 1720 Johannes Oosterwyk bought all copies let in the bookshop of
Abraham de Wees and made his own quarto edition, in which for
Gysbreght he followed the version of 1659. his edition must be the
ultima manus, so it is striking that WB and the last Gysbreght editor
Smits-Veldt made their edition on the basis of the 1637 publication
without giving an account of their choice.
Gysbreght van Aemstel was also printed in octavo, by Pieter vande
Veer mentioned above.58 Most of his editions were made in the
1660’s, but according to Markus, Gysbreght was published in 1700.59
53
A discussion of the variants can be found in Albach, Driehonderd jaar Gysbreght
van Aemstel.
54
he situation is highly complex; of this print three copies are extant, all are difering from each other. One of the three (UBA Vdl 8 C 12) must stem from 1699; see
Markus, ‘De Gysbreght van Aemstel bestaat niet’.
55
A list of the changes can be found in WB, 3, pp. 927–31.
56
He was able to do so as Grotius had died in 1645.
57
‘Valt u ’t verwoesten der godtsdienstigheit te lastigh, / Volhardt by ’t out geloof en
Godts altaer standvastigh, / Op ’t spoor der ouderen, u moedigh voorgetreên. / Zoo
draet men recht naer Godt, door alle starren heen.’
58
Markus, ‘De Gysbreght bestaat niet’. Pieter vande Veer could be a ictitious name;
see Gerritsen’s introduction to Schuytvlot, Catalogus, p. xxiii. See also p. 491, n. 15.
59
Markus, ‘De Gysbreght bestaat niet’.
new philology – adam in ballingschap
501
hree copies are extant, that also difer from each other.60 hey can be
traced back to the 1659 version, but some parts, for instance the letter
of dedication, are based on the 1637 edition. he editions by the widow
of Gijsbert de Groot (1704 and 1709), and by the widow of J. van
Egmond (s.a.) were also in octavo.61 Each follows the version of 1659
with some slight misprints. he octavo editions by the heirs of J.
Lescaille contain other misprints; their layer must have been 1699/1716,
following the 1659 version.62
Another landmark was the abridged edition of 1729, made by David
Ruarus under the inluence of changing perceptions of tragedy and
theatre and of changing ideas on staging matters of religion.63 It was not
before 1876 that the ‘original’ text was returned to. he title of the 1729
edition contains the phrase: ‘Now for the irst time printed word for
word as it is staged on the Amsterdam heatre’ (Nu voor de eerste reize
van woord tot woord gedrukt, gelijk het op den Amsterdamschen
Schouwburg gespeeld wordt).64 he ‘original’ reading text had been
reprinted repeatedly, but on stage something completely diferent was
being played.65 his shows the intricacy of the relationship between the
changing attitude of the literate and the printing history: prints may
steer performances and vice versa, and people may or may not give the
printed text sacrosanct status.
So Gysbreght van Aemstel underwent several changes, by Vondel
himself and by the neoclassical audiences and readerships of the eighteenth century. One would hope for an edition of the 1659 version that
takes into account the changes made by Vondel himself at that time
and in 1638, as well as the changes in the 1729 edition, so that the
author’s and the readers’ responses can be seen at a glance.66
60
UBA Vdl 1 G 32a and 32b in octavo; Vdl 2 E 62, printed in quarto, but with the
typesetting for an octavo size.
61
UBA Vdl 1 G 36; Vdl 1 G 39 and 316 F 36 respectively.
62
Unger, Bibliographie, no. 254; Schuytvlot, Catalogus, no. 530a.
63
Van der Haven, ‘De herziene schouwburgdrukken van 1729’; Albach, Drie eeuwen ‘Gysbreght van Aemstel’, p. 37 ‘verthoonige vande superstitien vande paperije als
misse en andere ceremonien’; Albach, Drie eeuwen ‘Gysbreght van Aemstel’, pp. 13
and 20. In an appendix, Markus printed the 1637 text with the changes of 1729 in a
second column.
64
UBA Vdl 2 G 27; Unger, Bibliographie, no. 262.
65
he text of the preface and the changes can be found on the Internet, in the contribution by Markus, ‘De Gysbreght bestaat niet’, appendices 1 and 2. It is a pity –
although understandable – that Markus compared the 1729 edition with the one of
1637 and not with 1659, which had actually been altered.
66
here is no edition of Gysbreght like he hree-Text Hamlet by Bertram and
Kliman, ofering a parallel edition of three difering texts of Hamlet.
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Vondel’s Proofs – Maria Stuart
Maria Stuart appeared in 1645 with a ictitious printer’s address ‘In
Cologne, at the old printing oice’ (Te Keulen in d’oude druckerye).
In one year, six editions saw the light of day.67 Vondel let out his own
name and the name of the printer and the publisher because he deemed
the subjects too holy to expose them to satire and mockery. Yet the
name of the author and the printer soon became known and the magistrates (‘Schepenen’) of Amsterdam imposed a penalty of 180 guilders
on Vondel.68 he publisher, who was actually Abraham de Wees, paid
the ine.
In 1912 the Vondel-Museum bought a manuscript that was the
printer’s proof of this play, annotated by Vondel himself.69 It shows that,
at least in this case, the playwright painstakingly checked this proof.
He corrected typesetter’s errors, but also altered verses. hus in lines
791–92 the text reads ‘Laet schepes loopen en verslinnen / Wat wil
[…]’. his is incomprehensible, but Vondel indicated that the inal ‘s’ of
‘schepes’ should be combined with ‘loopen’, so that the lines ran ‘Laet
schepe slopen en verslinnen / Wat wil […]’ (Let anyone wishing to do
so scrap ships and devour them).70 He also changed words; on p. 225,
for instance, he altered ‘secta hominis’ (cut of by [the hand of] a man)
into ‘secta odio’ (cut of by hatred) and in line 691 ‘knotte’ (truncated)
into ‘maaide’ (mowed), which corresponds better to the ‘scythe’ (zeis)
that is the instrument for this purpose.
Gebroeders – Notes on a Performance
In the case of Gebroeders a copy is extant with autograph annotations
by Vondel himself.71 In it he preserved his memories of a special
Unger, Bibliographie, nos. 431–36; Schuytvlot, Catalogus, nos. 633–43.
Sterck, Oorkonden, p. 221.
69
Sterck, Oorkonden, pp. 220–34. Now in the University Library of the University of
Amsterdam.
70
Sterck, Oorkonden, p. 224.
71
Leerintveld, ‘Een bijzonder exemplaar van Vondels Gebroeders’; Smits-Veldt, ‘De
aantekeningen bij Vondels Gebroeders’, transcription in WB, 3, pp. 900–02. he copy is
in the Royal Library in he Hague, shelf no. 392 H 28; facismiles in Geesink and
Bossers, Vondel!, p. 89; Albach, Langs kermissen en hoven, p. 48; Van Gemert, Tussen de
bedrijven door?, p. 127; Honderd hoogtepunten van de Koninklijke Bibliotheek, p. 127;
Oey-de Vita and Geesink, Academie en Schouwburg, p. 228.
67
68
new philology – adam in ballingschap
503
Joost van den Vondel, Gebroeders, t’Amsterdam, by Dominicus vander Stichel, for Abraham de Wees, 1640. 4°. KB 392
H 28, fol. 6v–7r.
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performance for the magistrates of Amsterdam on 20 April 1641.72 On
an extra leaf bound between B and Bij he noted the actors (ig. p. 503).
He also changed the cast. hese handwritten changes did not materialise in a printed edition until the 1970s, when Karel Porteman adopted
them in his edition.73
On a second leaf, inserted between [x]v and [x2]r Vondel described
the props used at the performance, such as the ark and a candle, and
the garments of the priests and the high priest. Moreover, he wrote
down that musicians played on wind instruments and that the priests
sang. For instance, on p. [B4]r, there is a note stating that ‘the tableau
vivant of the Ark of the Covenant and the candle, and the additional
song is spoken by the priests thus’ (de vertooning. van de bondskist en
kandelaer en de toesang. word aldus van de priesters gesprooken). All
this also afected the performance.
Another important change concerned the expansion of the role of
general (‘veldheer’) Joab. His role was enlarged by adding a few clauses
from other characters: general Benajas and highpriest Abjathar. he
direct cause of this change was perhaps the talent of the seventeen-year
old actor Jan Baptist van Fornenberg, whom Vondel provided with the
role of Joab.74
Diferent Prints – Adam in Ballingschap
Adam in ballingschap was published twice in 1664 by the widow of
Abraham de Wees.75 he two editions are printed by two diferent
printers: the successor of homas Fonteyn and Daniel Dakkamude,
both in Amsterdam. At irst sight, the two editions are identical, but
they are made with diferent letters, contain several variants in spelling
and have some diferences in wording. hey even have diferent
vignettes – one (B) with the printer’s motto ‘Elk zyn beurt’ (Each has
his turn), the other one (A) without. To cite a few other instances, in
72
his date was found by Leerintveld, ‘Een bijzonder exemplaar van Vondels
Gebroeders’.
73
See Vondel, Gebroeders, ed. Langvik-Johannessen and Porteman, esp. pp. 37–38.
74
Vondel, Gebroeders, ed. Langvik-Johannessen and Porteman, p. 37; Albach, Langs
kermissen en hoven, pp. 44–46. Korsten, Sovereignty as Inviolabity, p. 97, argues that the
change was motivated by the content of the conlict.
75
Unger, Bibliographie, nos. 676 and 677; Schuytvlot, Catalogus, nos. 741 and 742.
I will refer to them as ‘A’ and ‘B’. he ingerprint of A is 166404 – b A2 $nae: b2 H3 aele;
the ingerprint of B is 166404 – b1 1 $nae: b2 H3 rael.
new philology – adam in ballingschap
505
the Title of the dedication A has ‘oudemannenhuis’ and ‘weeshuis’, B
‘Oude Mannen-huis’ and ‘Weeshuis’. Although the spelling difers
within each copy too, A oten spells words ending in an alveolar plosive
consonantal sound using a ‘t’ (e.g. ‘out’, ‘tyt’ and ‘niemant’), whilst B
does so using ‘dt’ (e.g. ‘oudt’ ‘tydt’ and ‘niemandt’).76 On p. Br, A has
‘Erfrechtveerdigheit’, B ‘Erfrechtvaerdigheit’. On p. 23, A has ‘in de
lommer’, B the metrically less correct combination ‘in lommer’. he
question subsequently arises as to whether A is a text emended by the
printer or by Vondel himself, with B therefore being the oldest version,
or whether B is a rashly made reprint of A, with A therefore being the
oldest one. In any case, the variants enable us to trace one of them, B,
as the layer for the subsequent editions of Joannes de Wees, 1698, and
Steeve van Esveldt, 1736.77 he 1720 edition is more complex, containing variants from both editions.78
What is the use of this exercise? I think there are four reasons for
doing this. Firstly, something can be said about Vondel, his spelling
and his treatment of his texts; secondly, one could look at later editions
in order to establish which text was the layer of this edition; and thirdly,
it says something about the readers’ reception of Vondel’s works. he
fourth reason is the most fundamental – it shows the luidity of texts
which we think of as a ixed entity, but above all it afects our attitude
to the text and opens our eyes to their manifold material forms. A good
edition therefore takes these variants into consideration and presents
them.
From the Book to the Computer
In 2003 the Digitale Bibliotheek der Nederlandse Letterkunde (www.
dbnl.nl) began to digitise the WB edition of Vondel’s works. Now
Vondel’s texts are available all over the world. his development makes
us once more aware of the fact that a text in itself is not suicient, but
needs mediation through materialisation in any form. In other words,
we can read the text only by means of a visualisation. he electronic
text is an additional form to the printed book. Of course, the monumental material form of the WB series is lost at the dbnl website, but
76
77
78
P. A2r and p. 3.
Unger, Bibliographie, nos 678 and 679; Schuytvlot, Catalogus, nos 743 and 746.
Unger, Bibliographie, no. 27a; Schuytvlot, Catalogus, no. 744.
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the advantage of being able to consult the text on a computer is tremendous. It renders the text readily searchable for words, citations, etc.
And yet the dbnl site has not yet been able to explore the possibilities of
digitised texts (the costs would have been too high for the project). At
the Huygens Institute for the History of Netherlands in he Hague
tools are being developed for further exploration of the opportunities
presented by electronic texts. here is the option of presenting several
text formats (such as facsimiles, transcriptions, transliterations and
annotations) next to each other on the screen.79 he users may make
their own choices, or even add their own comments, either for their
own eyes only or to share their remarks with others. Several scholars
can work together on an edition, using information-sharing programs
such as e-Laborate. But even larger text corpora may be searched and
analysed. For instance, style analysis can be carried out, or the dissemination or development of concepts and ideas in Vondel’s dramatic oeuvre can be sorted out at a single glance. Although we present our
electronic texts – and hypertexts – in forms that look like books, using
traditional bookish fonts, they actually difer from the traditional book,
as well as ofering new opportunities, for old and new philology too.
Coda
What is new about this story? In classical philology, text editions contain intricate apparatus critici with variant readings and emendations
suggested by previous scholars. he same holds for some editions of
early modern Latin texts. his has also been done (though presented in
a diferent way) in some editions in the Monumenta Literaria
Neerlandica series. So the presentation of variants in itself is not new in
philology. But for the works of Vondel, such an exercise has not been
carried out in this way. In the WB edition the variants of some texts are
listed in appendices, yet are not closely related to the text itself. hus
the variants are relegated to a position of subordination, and the text
itself is presented as an ideal one.
As I stated earlier, the aim of classical and modern philology difers;
classical text editions pertain to transmission of the text, while in
79
he electronic text has been called a ‘liberation technology’ that renders it possible ‘to free the writing from the frozen structure of the page’, Bolter, Writing Space,
p. 21, quoted in Kastan, Shakespeare and the Book, p. 112.
new philology – adam in ballingschap
507
editions of, shall we say, poets of the 20th century the issue is the genesis of the text. As such, classical philology tries to trace back to the
‘original’ text, while in many cases modern philology tends to try and
pin down the ‘inal’ text that corresponds to the author’s ‘intention’.80
Vondel’s editors stood in the tradition of classical philology. herefore
they used the irst text authorised by Vondel himself.
I am not arguing a case for the contrary (for editing Vondel’s ‘inal’
versions – ‘Ausgaben letzter Hand’), nor a case for the same (editing
Vondel’s irst texts). Rather, I favour a combination, a fully ledged
place for the variants in line with New Philology and doing justice to
the luidity of the texts or the dynamic process in which they were
formed and transmitted, both in prints and performances. In this form,
each text should be subjected to its own set of questions. In the case of
Gysbreght van Aemstel, Vondel himself changed the text to such an
extent that a separate edition of the second version (or a parallel edition) could be expedient, all the more so since the ‘Urtext’ has already
been published several times. For Maria Stuart, the adoption of
Vondel’s remarks in an apparatus criticus on the page itself may make it
perfectly and veriiably clear what he did to the text, and for Gebroeders
it could be prudent to present the reader with Vondel’s own annotations close to the text itself. And in the case of Adam in ballingschap the
variants could be put in an apparatus to make it possible to see the differences between the two versions at a glance.
Of course, not all variants are of the same value, but the material history of the texts and their luidity should be shown, just as is oten done
in the restoration of buildings and paintings that do not do away with
the several changes in time. he editor should show the inconsistencies, lacunas and the like, rather than reason them away as has been
done in twentieth-century preoccupation with a ‘monolithic’ text in
which everything its in with everything else. hus the variants, even
the ones that at irst sight seem to be uninteresting, play a major role,
since they afect our perception of early modern texts. he task of the
reader will also change – instead of reading a text in which the editor
has made the choices for him – to the exclusion of other readings – the
scholar using an edition should make his or her own choices, and
80
See (for example) Greg, he Editiorial Problem in Shakespeare, p. x: ‘he aim of a
critical edtion, should be to present the text, so far as the available evidence permits, in
the form in which we may suppose that it would have stood in fair copy, made by the
author himself, of the work as he inally intended it.’
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jan bloemendal
relect on the choices she or he makes. hus editing texts and reading
such editions is not just a game for connoisseurs, it can become a kind
of deconstruction and reconstruction. Seen in this way, showing the
variants should be part of editing. For variants are parts of the text in
their own right, they are the text, and they deserve to be emancipated.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
PHILOSOPHY – NOAH (1667) ON GOD AND NATURE
Wiep van Bunge
Noah, of Ondergang der Eerste Weerelt (Noah or Downfall of the First
World) is the last play Vondel wrote, and he never saw it performed.
Although it was published in 1667, it was probably written in 1665,
when Vondel was turning 78 and had 14 more years to live.1 It really
was the product of a Golden Age; in 1665 Vermeer painted the Girl
With a Pearl Earring, Anthonie van Leeuwenhoek built his irst microscope, and Spinoza started writing the Tractatus heologico-Politicus
(heological-Political Treatise). hese were indeed exciting times; the
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society started appearing,
Newton carried out his irst optical experiments, ater Cambridge
University was temporarily closed on account of the plague, and Britain
went to war with the Dutch Republic. In Paris, the irst issue of the
Journal des Sçavans appeared, while Racine published his Alexandre le
Grand and Molière his L’amour médecin.
In view of the theological importance of the Flood and the astounding facts involved, the story of Noah had surprisingly little impact on
the literary tradition of the Netherlands. While the Ark was depicted
variously and repeatedly throughout Christendom from the irst centuries onwards, Noah’s story appears to have failed to inspire authors in
the way Adam’s had, let alone Moses’s.2 From St. Augustine onwards,
the story of the Flood and in particular the reconstruction of the logistics involved in shipping all the animals that Genesis purports were
1
I use the edition made by Molkenboer in WB, 10, pp. 391–454. Act One, ll. 43–44:
‘he sixteen centuries and another ity-six [sic] years / Have since then, feel free to
boast, not passed fruitlessly.’ (‘De zestien eeuwen en noch zesenvijtigh [sic] jaeren /
Zijn sedert, roemt vry, niet onvruchtbaer heengevaeren.’) I owe all translations of
Vondel’s Dutch to Michiel Wielema, without whom this paper could not have been
published in English.
2
Fink, Noe der Gerechte in der frühchristlichen Kunst. For some early theological
and scholarly assessments, see Garcia Martínez and Luttikhuizen, Interpretations of the
Flood. In Allen, he Legend of Noah, pp. 151–53, Vondel is the only Dutch literary
author (briely) mentioned.
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wiep van bunge
saved had vexed a host of biblical scholars attempting to hold on to a
literal interpretation of Noah’s achievements. he limited lack of interest in the literary potential ofered by the Flood also stands in stark
contrast to early modern genealogical eforts to establish the holy lineage of the royal dynasties ruling Europe, all of whom were supposed to
have descended from Aeneas and/or Noah.3 A rare precursor to
Vondel’s play appears to have been staged by Karel van Mander, who in
the early 1570s produced a Noah, the text of which is lost, however.4
Vondel’s Noah does not seem to have inspired fellow Dutchmen to follow his lead either; the only major Dutch author who also turned to
Noah was Willem Bilderdijk, who in 1820 published his own (uncompleted) Ondergang der eerste wareld.5
By the middle of the seventeenth century, wayward scholars such as
Isaac La Peyrère and Isaac Vossius had started questioning the universality of the Flood as well as the chronological accuracy of the biblical
account supplied in Genesis.6 Vondel, however, clearly did not want to
be associated in any way with the harmful implications held by such
scholarship regarding the infallibility of Scripture. An obvious clue as
to Vondel’s personal assessment of the relevance of Noah is to be found
in its Dedication, in which the playwright declares it to be the inal part
of a trilogy; following Lucifer (1654) and Adam in ballingschap (1664),
Noah (Vondel claims) completes the biblical account of the birth of evil
and the outcome of its irst encounter with man or, to put it another
way, man’s original response to the challenges presented to him by the
lure of evil, only to be overcome by the making of a covenant, restoring
God’s conidence in man.7
Noah or the Downfall of the First World
he irst act is set somewhere in the Caucasus, at the gates of
‘Reuzenburgh’, a castle inhabited by giants, the ofspring of the up
right sons of Seth and the mischievous daughters of Cain. hese giants
Tanner, he Last Descendants of Aeneas.
Langvik-Johannessen, Zwischen Himmel und Erde, p. 261.
5
Bilderdijk, Ondergang der eerste wareld, ed. Bosch.
6
Allen, he Legend of Noah, Chapters 4, 5 and 7.
7
Vondel’s sources are clear: besides Genesis, he relies mainly on Jacob Salianus,
Annales Ecclesiastici Veteris Testamenti, Tomus primus (Paris, 1619). he plays have
been presented as a trilogy in the edition by Schenkeveld-van der Dussen.
3
4
philosophy – noah
511
commit adultery on a gargantuan scale and revel in the practice of all
sorts of other vicious crimes. In front of the castle we meet the antediluvian patriarch Noah, who is deeply concerned over the licentiousness
of his contemporaries, and who is busy building a huge ship. Water is
rising.
he next act introduces Achiman, ‘ruler of the East’, who is preparing his royal wedding to Urania and who is told by Noah’s ‘Bouwmeester’
(Architect) that he had better prepare for a swim. he Architect also
informs Achiman of Noah’s precise plans and of his holy walk of life: he
will ship his own family and had already stored pairs of all known animals. Soon he will sail away while the rest of the world will drown.
Although his son Ham inds it diicult to obey his father, Noah’s righteousness has kept his family intact. For a moment even Achiman seems
impressed, upon which Noah appears, delivering his inal warning: he
is now 500 years old and for the last century he has been predicting that
the end was nigh and all this time he has been working on his ship.
Over the next few years water will lood the earth and darkness will fall,
he prophesies, because the ofspring of Seth and Cain was doomed and
is only interested in sensual pleasures and material gain, and because it
holds only the sword in reverence.
In the third act Achiman is forced to swallow his original libertine
response to Noah’s epiphany: as the water keeps rising and the irst
reports on drowning cattle reach him, he starts to recognise that Noah
was, perhaps, right ater all and he abandons the festivities at the
Reuzenburgh. his leads to a violent reaction from Achiman’s wife-tobe, Urania. She is furious and forces Achiman to swallow his hesitations. Suddenly Noah enters the scene and a dialogue ensues between
Noah and Urania on the subject of women. Was not Noah born from a
woman, does he not have a wife and daughters-in-law of his own?
Urania boldly reminds Noah of his own father who was anything but
prudent himself, but Noah retorts by declaring that he is committed to
cleanse his family name.
At the opening of the fourth act we meet Noah’s son Ham, who has
apparently just been at the party and has spoken to Urania, and who
now meets up with his father. Now that the Flood is about to wash away
all living things, Ham questions the moral grounds on which God
could possibly have decided to punish mankind in the way in which he
is clearly about to. If you are right, Ham wonders, does that not turn
God into a vengeful judge? His father tries to explain: irstly, Noah
argues, we are simply unable to judge God’s ways, and secondly, man
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has brought misery upon himself. Once Noah and his family have
embarked, the Ark proves its worth and Noah turns his attention to
Shem, continuing his argument that God cannot be blamed for the
Flood: man is endowed with a free will, and has no one to blame but
himself.
he ith and inal act brings us back to the court of Achiman.
Lightning strikes, a giant lood is about to swallow the Reuzenburgh,
and the archangel Uriel appears. Urania begs for mercy, and while it is
certain that the entire court of Achiman will drown, the inal words of
Uriel proclaim that those who persevere in their repentance and are
sincere in their remorse, will be saved and will receive God’s grace ater
all. he chorus explains: they will have to wait until the coming of
Christ, whose grace will allow them to leave purgatory for good.
heologians and Philosophers on the Origins of Evil
Vondel was no theologian and no philosopher either, but as a playwright and a poet he did not back down from addressing major theological and philosophical issues. Arguably the most contested problem
in seventeenth-century theology and moral philosophy concerned the
nature of evil or, to be more precise, the assessment of man’s part in
what theologians used to refer to as ‘sin’. By far the most important
intellectual quarrel that was fought in the Dutch Republic during
Vondel’s lifetime was, of course, the dispute between Arminians or
Remonstrants and Gomarists or Counter-Remonstrants. As will be
only too familiar, the question of the responsibility for what is wrong
with God’s creation was at the heart of what started as an academic
dispute between two Leiden professors of theology, but soon spilled
over to the public domain, bringing the Republic to the brink of civil
war.8
A former Remonstrant himself, Vondel’s stance toward this famous
episode in Dutch church history is clear enough: he completely rejected
the ‘orthodox’ Calvinism triumphant at the Synod of Dordrecht,
according to which a correct understanding of God’s sovereign grace
let man utterly impotent.9 According to ‘Dordt’, ater the Fall man is
8
See most recently Goudriaan and Van Lieburg, Re-examining the Synod of Dordt.
See Brom, Vondels geloof, esp. Chapter 3; Molkenboer, De jonge Vondel; Calis,
Vondel, Chapters 5 and 6.
9
philosophy – noah
513
sinful by nature and God’s decision as to who will be saved cannot in
any way be afected by the eforts of man. Any attempt to bring man’s
own achievements into the equation will inevitably harm the core of
Reformed theology and lead to ‘popish’ speculations regarding a free
will, or so Counter-Remonstrants argued. While the ‘precise’ wing of
the Dutch Reformed church put all its cards on securing the sovereign
nature of divine Grace, following from an essentially omnipotent God,
their Remonstrant opponents continued to insist on the necessity to
account for the origins as well as the reality of evil, that in view of God’s
essential benevolence could only be attributed to man.10
By the time Vondel wrote Noah, he had been a devout RomanCatholic for at least a quarter of a century and according to Catholic
doctrine, and to the Jesuit point of view in particular, man is free to
accept Grace or not, and good deeds – the possibility of which is subject to Grace itself – must be performed by the individual because that
individual wants to perform them. Salvation, therefore, is always possible, but has to be earned. It should be added, though, that in the heart
of French Catholicism Jansenism would raise the same issue that was
under contention in Dordt, for the Flemish priest Cornelius Jansenius
had come close to Calvinism in stressing that ater the Fall man is no
longer capable of doing any good deeds and grace cannot be earned.11
Although Jansenism made a considerable impact on Dutch Catholics,
Vondel would have none of it.12
From a philosophical point of view, the question that split the Dutch
Reformed Church during the 1610s and troubled French Catholicism
until well into the eighteenth century revealed the diiculty of conceiving a Perfect Being that is omnipotent as well as perfectly benevolent.
At the same time as Vondel was sitting down to complete his trilogy on
the origins of human evil and its relationship to divine Grace, Spinoza,
the greatest Dutch philosopher ever, was discussing the same subject in
a remarkable bout of correspondence with Willem van Bleijenbergh, a
grain merchant from Dordrecht, as is evident from Letters 18 to 24 in
10
In the decades following Dordt the Remonstrant tradition would be upheld most
convincingly by Vondel’s personal friend Hugo Grotius to whom he dedicated
Gysbreght van Amstel and by Simon Episcopius, to whom Vondel dedicated an epitaph:
WB, 5, p. 242.
11
Abercrombie, he Origins of Jansenism; Sedgwick, Jansenism in SeventeenthCentury France.
12
Brom, Vondels geloof, pp. 324sqq.; Spiertz, ‘Jansenisme in en rond de Nederlanden’;
Roegiers, ‘Jansenisme en katholieke hervorming in de Nederlanden’.
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Spinoza’s correspondence.13 In assessing this episode in Spinoza’s intellectual biography, it should be borne in mind that, except for a small
circle of friends, the reading public were only able to acquaint themselves with his philosophical intentions in 1670. Prior to the (anonymous) publication of the Tractatus heologico-Politicus, only Spinoza’s
debut was available, and since these Principia Philosophiae Cartesianae
(Principles of Cartesian Philosophy, 1663) were supposed to serve as a
general introduction to the metaphysics and the natural philosophy of
Descartes, the wider public had to read between the lines in order to
reconstruct the general thread of a budding ‘Spinozism’.14 To his credit,
Van Blijenbergh, a staunch Calvinist, had come across several passages
that caught his attention and made him curious to ind out more, so he
addressed Spinoza on 12 December 1664, wondering how he felt about
the freedom of the will and its part in the origins of evil. In his irst
reply, Spinoza summarises the issue as follows:
it seems clearly to follow, both from God’s providence, which is identical
with his will, and from God’s concurrence and the continuous creation of
things, either that there is no such thing as sin or evil, or that God brings
about that sin and that evil.15
While Spinoza is plainly very careful in this encounter with a perfect
stranger from Dordrecht, he is adamant that in reality there is no such
thing as ‘evil’ or ‘sin’, neither for that matter in Adam’s behaviour:
Neither can we say that Adam’s will was at variance with God’s law, and
was evil because it was displeasing to God. It would argue great imperfection to God if anything happened against his will, or if he wanted something he could not possess, or if his nature were determined in such a
manner that, just like his creatures, he felt sympathy with some things
and antipathy to others.16
In the next letter, Spinoza tries to explain to Van Blijenbergh that
there is nothing ‘positive’ about evil, since it has no reality of its own,
and is merely ‘a mode of thinking’ (ens rationis), construed by man,
13
Spinoza, he Letters, transl. Shirley, pp. 128–72. See Deleuze, Spinoza, Chapter 3.
On Van Bleyenbergh, see my entry in Van Bunge et al, he Dictionary of Seventeenth
and Eighteenth-Century Dutch Philosophers.
14
Oicially, Spinoza’s debut was entitled Renati Des Cartes Principiorum Philosophiae
Pars I, et II, More Geometrico demonstratae. Accesserunt Ejusdem Cogitata Mataphysica
generali, quam speciali occurrunt, quaestiones breviter explicantur (Amsterdam, 1663).
A Dutch translation appeared in 1664.
15
Spinoza, he Letters, p. 132.
16
Ibid., pp. 133–34.
philosophy – noah
515
‘comparing things with one another’.17 By this time, Spinoza must have
felt that his philosophy, according to which ‘that which constitutes the
speciic reality of evil, error and villainy does not consist in anything
that expresses essence’,18 could not possibly convince Van Blijenbergh,
so he politely made an end to the correspondence. Of course, Spinoza’s
extremely rationalist ‘solution’ was only one of many attempts to
account for the essence of evil launched by seventeenth-century philosophers, of which Leibniz’s heodicée (1710) would become the most
famous example on account of its notoriously counterintuitive conclusion that we actually live in ‘the best of all possible worlds’.19 In view of
the great efort invested by contemporary theologians and philosophers, what, we might ask, did Vondel contribute to the ongoing debate
concerning the nature of evil?
Noah: God and Nature
W.A.P. Smit was the irst expert to draw attention to the merits of the
remarkable fourth act of Noah, which according to earlier critics was a
failure in that it slowed down the pace of the play.20 Smit readily admits
that it does, but the reason for this, he argued, was a good one: by showing the efect Urania has on Ham, Noah’s world becomes a far more
dynamic one than might be expected from the dominant principle of
the duality or dichotomy between Urania’s domain and Noah’s. he
fourth act keeps the tension intact, Smit argues, but the conlict between
the two acquires new depth once Urania proves to be able to strike at
the heart of Noah’s family, who are just about to embark, i.e. about to
close the doors of the Ark. Furthermore, once Urania is told that ultimately she will not be lost forever either if her repentance is sincere, it
could even be argued that a common future emerges.
Frans-Willem Korsten has pursued this observation as part of a
highly ambitious interpretation of Vondel’s entire legacy, according to
which the latter’s plays contain a sustained analysis of the sovereignty
of potentia embodied in the desire to realise autonomy.21 Korsten similarly takes as his point of departure an analysis of Ham’s questioning
17
18
19
20
21
Ibid., p. 153.
Ibid., p. 166.
Nadler, he Best of All Possible Worlds, Chapter 4.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 3, pp. 554–60.
Korsten, Vondel belicht, Chapter 2; Sovereignty as Inviolability, Chapter 2.
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God’s impending punishment. As we saw in the fourth act, Ham is
complaining about the injustice of God’s punishment: what did we do
to deserve the complete destruction of the world? Does not God himself show signs of ‘female’ ickleness by reacting in this way? Korsten,
however, draws our attention to Noah’s reply, in which it is revealed to
Ham that Urania even attempted to cause a rit in his own family, by
separating brothers and daughters in law from each other, and even
father from mother: no other conclusion seems warranted than that
Noah himself has come under the spell of Urania.
Riet Schenkeveld-van der Dussen has observed that Vondel repeatedly refers to events following the Flood, and more speciically to the
famous passage in Genesis 9:18–26 in which Noah will be found naked
and drunk ater he tasted the wine he made from the grapes planted
once the Ark has touched land again. Korsten has further explored the
ambiguities simmering beneath the surface of Noah’s encounter with
Urania.22 To begin with, Noah’s future behaviour clearly demonstrates
that God failed to cleanse the world: even his most loyal servant succumbs to temptation at the irst occasion that presents itself once the
Ark has reached dry land. Is God ultimately unable to control Nature?
Consider the remarkable opening speech of the play, delivered by
Apollion, who is supposed to represent Evil: it pictures the world ater
the Fall – a world in which all of nature enjoys a wide variety of the
most lurid pleasures. Clearly, this situation was far from perfect, yet
Genesis 6:5 carries little information on the matter: men have become
evil, but what exactly does this evil amount to? According to Noah,
antediluvian man was living lawlessly (ll. 389–400) and in sexual anarchy (ll. 431–506). It should be added, though, that Vondel appears to
depict this sorry state of afairs with considerable relish:
Here sensual desire inds everything that human lust yearns for,
Beautiful gardens, meadows, brooks and springs all around.
Fruits drop from the branches right into your mouth
And melt on your tongue. Birds warble.
Dancing, playing, endless feasting
And wedding celebrations are the custom here throughout the year.
Men’s souls are not constrained by laws or subject to coercion.23
22
Vondel, Lucifer, Adam in ballingschap en Noah, ed. Schenkeveld-van der Dussen,
pp. 318–19.
23
‘Hier vint de snoeplust al wat ’s menschen lust loopt zoeken, / Lusthoven, beemden, beek en bronnen in het ront. / De vruchten druppen van de takken in den mont,
/ En smilten op de tong. de vogels quinkeleeren. / Het danssen, speelen, het gedurigh
philosophy – noah
517
What is more, the real chaos pictured in Noah results from God’s decision to make an end to this lawless life of pleasure, this abundance of
potentia, and it is only natural that the violence with which God will
destroy the First World provokes indignation with Noah’s sons Ham,
Shem and Japheth (ll.1032–54; 1289–1301; 1505–34): by what right
does God decide to end the existing order of nature? Consider also
Achiman’s remarkable eloquence, where he points out how natural it is
for a man to seek the company of beautiful women:
Freed of discipline and severe constraints, we ind joy
In passing the time that is now fully ours to dispose of.
It pleases us to exercise these limbs, now full of youth and health,
And not, tortured by rigid shackles, with a melancholy mind
And our heads hanging low, to lament, to weep.
Pour out wine. Bring balsam. Rejoice. his is our moment.
Make garlands of roses. Put a bride on each knee
Before our time runs out and death closes the door.
If father likes, let him play the tune to which we dance.
A youthful heart should miss neither feast nor a chance to wed.24
By the same token, there’s something undeniably splendid about
Urania’s reaction to the irst account of impending doom:
If due to this teaching men start to live woman-less
hen for sure things have gone far enough.
here is no need to drown the world in a lood of water:
For it cannot persist without women. (ll. 766–70)25
And then there is Urania’s violent reaction to Achiman’s refusal, in Act
III, to continue with the wedding. Indeed, her indignation is perfectly
natural and seems even justiied: what nonsense to keep women
responsible for what might be wrong with the world if men and women
enjoyed themselves together, and what is more, is Achiman really about
to break his promise to her?
banketteeren, / En bruiloten gaet hier het gansche jaer in zwang. / Men bint de zielen
aen geen wetten, en bedwang’ (ll. 68–74).
24
‘Het luste ons ’s levens tijt, nu tijdigh en voorhanden, / Te bezigen, ontboeit van
tucht en strenge banden. / Het luste ons deze leên, nu jeughdigh en gezont, / Te bezigen, en niet, geprangt door naeu verbont, / Zwaermoedigh, hangends hoots, te jammeren, te treuren. / Schenkt wijn. brengt balssem. juicht. het magh ons nu gebeuren. /
Vlecht roozekranssen. zet op elke knie een bruit, / Eer ’s levens tijt verloop’, de doot den
draeiboom sluit’. / Beliet het vader, hy magh speelen, daer wy danssen. / Een jeugdigh
hart verzuim’ noch feest noch bruilotskanssen.’ (ll. 493–502).
25
‘Begint het mansdom door dees leering vrouweloos / Te leven, zeker ’t is dan ver
genoegh gekomen. / Men hoet de weerelt in geen zee en waterstroomen / Te smooren:
want zy kan niet vrouweloos bestaen.’ (ll. 766–70)
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We reclined, our mouths touching, our arms locked in embrace,
Two souls fused and merged into one.
How did you not swear that you would rather see the sun
Robbed of its light than love’s lame quenched in your bosom.26
But there is more to come, for Urania’s ensuing cross-examination of
Noah is surely one of the highlights of the entire play, delivering a perfectly self-conident declaration of independence:
And is this foolishness going to continue? Old man,
You are fretting yourself to death. What have you gained
All your life other than strife, nothing of value!
How can you think so badly of women?
A woman has borne you, her love in childbearing obliges you
To be faithful: and your sons, devoted to women,
Rather behold her face than the most beautiful thing,
hat is the face of the all-warming sun,
he joy of the living and source of every light:
Or has old age withered away your desire for women,
hen your senility and not any woman is to blame.27
And listen to the song Urania and her friends sing when they return to
the wedding party, celebrating the swan, a noble symbol of love, a beautiful animal that cannot drown. It would seem, then, that these women
refuse to be intimidated by Noah’s bleak message of repentance:
If all things sunk and perished
Where would the swan be?
Where would the swan be,
he swan, that joyful water creature,
Never tired of kissing?
No waters put out
Her burning passion.
She likes to nest midstream.
26
‘Wy hingen, mont aen mont, en arm in arm gestrengelt, / Twee zielen beide in een
gesmolten en gemengelt. / Wat zwoertge niet! de zon van straelen eer beroot / Te zien
dan ’t minnevier in uwe borst gedoot.’ (ll. 875–79)
27
‘En blijt dees sufery noch duuren? oude knecht, / Gy sut u selven doot. wat
hebtge toch gewonnen / Uw leven lang, als twist gerokkent, niet gesponnen! / Hoe
staen de vrouwen u zoo byster in het licht? / Een vrou heet u gebaert, haer liefde uw
trou verplicht / Door kinderbaeren: en uw zoons, verknocht aen vrouwen, / Haer aenschijn liever dan het allerschoonste aenschouwen, / Dat is het aenschijn van
d’alkoesterende zon, / Der levendigen vreught, en aller lichten bron: / Of is door
ouderdom uw vrouwezucht gesleeten, / Dat werde uw’ ouderdom, en geene vrou
geweeten.’ (ll. 962–73)
philosophy – noah
519
She nurtures passion,
She nurtures passion
With her merry mate,
And sits on her eggs,
And neither cares for weepers,
Nor fears any harm.
Her lying young swim along,
Over river and sea,
Over river and sea.
She lives in the element full of motion,
And cleans her feathers,
And glides with striding gait
Till the end of her life.
Dying she sings a merry song
Among the reeds,
Among the reeds.
She deies spiteful death out of lust for life,
With her song
And triumphant air,
And dies calmly.
Dying, her fading eyes
Seek again the light,
Seek again the light,
he dowry, nature’s loan
Given to each,
To live in joy.
hus she departs.28
Surely this passage, packed with melancholy, reveals a wisdom of its
own, which reaches well beyond the blind pursuit of physical pleasure.
If Urania and her companions are to be deemed ‘hedonists’, there is an
undeniable dignity in the way they face their end. Ham’s anger, as
expressed in the fourth act, is just as well put, and even manages to
make fun of God’s motives: has He turned into a woman?
28
‘Zou het al zinken en vergaen, / Waer bleef de zwaen? / Waer bleef de zwaen, / De
zwaen, dat vrolijke waterdier, / Noit zat van kussen? / Geen watren blussen / Haer
minnevier. / ’t Lust haer te nestlen op den vloet. / Zy queekt den gloet, / Zy queekt den
gloet / Met haere vrolijke wederga, / En kipt haere eiers, / En acht geen schreiers, /
Noch vreest geen scha. / Vliegende jongen zwemmen me, / Door stroom en zee, / Door
stroom en zee. / Zy groeit in ’t levendigh element, / En wast de veêren, / En vaert spansseeren / Tot ’s levens endt. / Stervende zingtze een vrolijk liet / In ’t suikerriet, / In ’t
suikerriet. / Zy tart de nijdige doot uit lust, / Met quinkeleeren, / En triomfeeren, / En
stert gerust. / Stervende zoekt haer laeu gezicht / Noch eens het licht, / Noch eens het
licht, / Den bruitschat, van de natuur te leen / Aen elk gegeven, / Om bly te leven. / Zoo
vaertze heen.’ (ll. 1059–93)
520
wiep van bunge
You do not install a father but an executioner,
Who counts every fault, scrupulously weighs each crime,
And threatens people’s lives with a bare sword.
You portray the deity as a wild bear.
A bear, a wild boar uproots some bushes,
A tyrant an empire, the divinity all empires,
Nay the whole world. Whoever saw greater injustice!
Such an accumulation of waters and clouds,
Gradually and powerfully building up in the air,
When it bursts nations and mountains together will drown,
And we shall hear the world expire in one last gasp.
Does God become angry and infuriated, like a woman?
Is God’s providence afected by remorse?
hat’s not providence but a disorder, inconstant,
And ickle. Have mercy on yourself irst.29
Noah’s response to Urania’s proud deiance and to Ham’s probing questions seems feeble. In reply to his sons, Noah claims that God could
have forgiven man before the Flood, but that God’s essence is incomprehensible. All we can do is guess:
I know, God be praised, that we lack the powers
To speak without stammering about God’s nature,
Something incomprehensible, subject to no alteration.
One must grasp God’s attributes by way of human speech.30
God’s revenge, however, is justiied since man has sinned out of free
will (l. 1355) and because God’s sovereignty, that is his potestas, enables
him to take revenge:
When lately heaven’s judge sternly opened court,
Where God’s justice and God’s mercy pleaded their cause,
His ofended majesties could not be reconciled:
hey stood in each other’s light.
No verdict was spoken as long as the scales were balanced.
29
‘Gy zet geen’ vader, maer scherprechter op den troon, / Die elke struikling telt, de
misdaet naeu wil weegen, / En dreigen ’s menschen hals met eenen blooten deegen. /
Gy beelt de godtheit uit, gelijk een’ wilden beer. / Een beer, een everzwijn rukt een
bosschaedje neêr, / De dwingelant een rijk; de godtheit alle rijken, / Ja al de weerelt. wie
zagh grooter ongelijken! / Zoo veele wateren en wolken aengezakt, / En aen de lucht
allengs met kracht op een gepakt, / Aen ’t scheuren, zullen volk en bergen tefens
smooren, / Wy ’s weerelts jongsten snik, in eenen dootsnik hooren. / Wort Godt verbolgen en oploopende, als een vrou? / Wort Godts voorzienigheit geraekt van naberou? /
Dat ’s geen voorzienigheit, maer krankheit, ongestadigh, / En wispeltuur. ay zijt u zelven eerst genadigh.’ (ll. 1211–25)
30
‘Ik weete, Godt zy lof, dat krachten ons ontbreeken / Om zonder stameren van
Gods natuur te spreeken, / Een onbegrijpzaemheit, geen steurnis onderdaen. / Men
moet door ’s menschen spraek Godts eigenschap verstaen.’ (ll. 1232–35)
philosophy – noah
521
Finally anger proved weightier.
he curse prevailed ater blessing’s downfall,
And humankind, seeking in vain to extenuate its atrocities,
Was harshly punished and sent to its doom.31
Apparently this suices to convince Noah’s sons to embark: God is
capable of destroying nature, and therefore he is entitled to do so.
As a consequence, we are let with a view of human history that is
marked by the continuing movement between two opposing forces of
Nature and Grace, which are not mutually exclusive, however, for while
nature does not appear to be evil by itself, God’s benevolence is not
obvious either. In the end, God’s potestas overrules nature’s potentia.
And while nature will not be overcome by God’s decision to cleanse
Noah’s world from ‘sin’, God’s interference with the natural order of
things does not end with the Flood, which will only turn out to be a
irst step toward the coming of Christ, at which point even Urania will
be saved. Let us see how far a more thorough exploration of the ambiguities contained in this conclusion may bring us, for it just so happens
that Vondel’s mature meditations on the dialectics of Nature and Grace
originated at the dawn of the Radical Enlightenment. In 1665, when
Spinoza started writing the Tractatus (and was trying to escape from
Van Blijenbergh’s prying eyes), half of his Ethics had been completed.
Vondel versus the Radical Enlightenment
Vondel was deinitively no Spinozist. As Fokke Akkerman put it: ‘One
might ask whether a concept of tragedy is at all conceivable in the rigid
deterministic system of Spinoza. He does not acknowledge a personal
God as the ultimate foundation of morality, he does not believe in fate
or chance. Everything that is or happens results from causes with inevitable necessity.’32 On the other hand, Vondel’s thought is in no way ‘part
of ’ the Radical Enlightenment, but in a play such as Noah, Korsten
argues, Vondel ‘thinks by acting’, for literature is always part of a universe in which words, ideas and concepts constantly evolve and acquire
31
‘Toen ’s hemels rechter streng ter jongste vierschaer ging, / Daer Godts rechtvaerdigheit en Godts genade pleitten, / Kon geen verzoening by gequetste majesteiten /
Verworven worden. d’een stont d’andere in het licht. / De tong der weeghschael zweegh,
zoo langze in tegenwight / Bleef twijnen. entlijk quam de boosheit t’overweegen. / De
vloek stont boven, na het zwichten van den zegen, / En ’t menschdom, dat vergeefs zijn
gruwelen verbloemt, / Wert door het vonnis streng der strafe toegedoemt.’ (ll.
1367–75)
32
Akkerman, ‘A Spinozistic Perspective’, p. 174.
522
wiep van bunge
meaning in the continuing interaction between the text, its surroundings, and its readers.33 As soon as Vondel turns to the language of
theology and philosophy, he rejects the Radical Enlightenment emphatically, as is evident from his Bespiegelingen van Godt en Godtsdienst
(Relections upon God and Religion), a long ive-part poem, packed
with arguments against the ‘ongodisten’ (the irreligious) and irst
published in 1662. It was probably completed as early as 1659.34 From
the nineteenth century onwards experts have discussed the issue of
whether this text was indeed, as its editor Molkenboer argued, a reply
to the budding thought of the young Spinoza.35 I see three reasons
for subscribing to Molkenboer’s suggestion: (a) the speciicity of the
equation of God and Nature as criticised by Vondel; (b) our present,
increased awareness of the part Franciscus van den Enden played in
Spinoza’s circle of friends – Vondel knew Van den Enden well;
(c) Filippo Mignini’s reconstruction of Spinoza’s early career as a philosopher – by 1660, it would seem, Spinoza had composed both the
(uninished) Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione (Treatise on the
Emendation of the Intellect) and the Korte Verhandeling (Short Treatise).
For now we are, I feel, best advised to consider the Bespiegelingen as
indeed being a irst refutation not so much of Spinoza but of his
‘circle’ – if the Bespiegelingen were indeed completed before the 1660s,
it is simply impossible to identify any single author as the leader of the
Amsterdam circle of freethinkers that must have been active from
the late 1650s onwards and of which both the young Spinoza, banned
from the Jewish community of Amsterdam in 1656, as well as his
teacher Franciscus van den Enden, were prominent members.36
33
Korsten, Vondel belicht, p. 58; Sovereignty as Inviolability, p. 59, and more in general Chapter 1.
34
WB, 9, pp. 406–653.
35
Molkenboer’s claims were prepared by De Valk, ‘Vondel en Spinoza’, and rejected
simultaneously by Leemans, ‘Vondel en Spinoza’ and Zijderveld, ‘Heet Vondel Spinoza
bestreden?’. Molkenboer replied in: ‘Heet Vondel Spinoza niet bestreden?’, which provoked a inal reply by Zijderveld: ‘Kantteekeningen bij Prof. Molkenboer’s verweer’.
36
Mignini, ‘Données et problèmes de la chronologie spinozienne entre 1656 et
1665’. Remarkably, Vondel’s intervention is ignored by Gullan-Whurr, Within Reason:
A Life of Spinoza, as well as by Nadler, Spinoza. Besides Van den Enden, one other
member of the Amsterdam group of freethinkers active around 1660 also deserves
to be mentioned in this context, although he probably did not belong to Spinoza’s and
Van den Enden’s ‘inner circle’ and is (again) ignored by Gullan-Whurr and Nadler: Jan
Pietersz. Beelthouwer. For as early as 1661 he published the crudely pantheist
De Hoogste en Laetste bedenckingen over Godt, en Goddelicke Saken, and in 1664 he also
wrote a pamphlet against Vondel, entitled Adams Antwoort tegen Joost van den Vondel
over Adam in Ballingschap. See Meinsma, Spinoza en zijn kring, p. 243; Zilverberg, ‘Jan
philosophy – noah
523
Akkerman even feels that Vondel and Spinoza simply must have known
each other.37
Since man is by nature endowed with reason, Vondel argues, denying God’s existence is as irrational as it is unnatural, although the traditional a priori arguments in favour of God’s existence fail to convince,
since God’s essence is beyond our grasp (I, 348). As a consequence,
God’s existence has to be demonstrated a posteriori, that is from His
‘work’ (I, 367). his, of course, is perfectly in tune with Aquinas, whom
Vondel appears to follow closely, for instance where he arrives at the
conclusion that God must be considered the ‘unmoved mover’ of the
created universe:
But reason does not permit an ininite regress;
It comes to a halt before the omnipotence of the Mover
Who is never moved: for in the concatenation of things
No thing can set in motion another thing
Except through the agency of a irst power, as a staf
Moves a stone through someone’s hand: thus we meet
With a Mover who is himself at rest.38
Once God’s existence has been established, Vondel feels free to launch
his attack on the atheists, who call nature God (I, 521 f.). Still in
line with homist tradition, Vondel analyses the various meanings of
‘nature’. Firstly, it refers to the essence of substances, secondly to the
‘body’ of the universe as whole, thirdly to its ‘order’, and inally to
its laws. If God is called Nature insofar as He is considered the irst
cause of Nature, i.e. ‘natura naturans’, no problems need arise. However,
as soon as God’s natural efects or products are identiied with
His essence, atheism becomes inevitable (I, 603). God is ininite,
Nature is not:
he creator and his work are two, not one and the same:
So the diference between both remains ininite.39
Pieterszoon Beelthouwer (c. 1630–c. 1669) en de joden’; Van Bunge, Johannes
Bredenburg, pp. 184–87; Bordoli, Ragione e Scritura tra Descartes e Spinoza, pp. 245–56.
Beelthouwer also makes a brief appearance in Israel, Radical Enlightenment, p. 204.
37
Akkerman, ‘A Spinozistic Perspective’, p. 174.
38
‘Doch reden laet niet toe onendigh voort te gaen; / Zoo blijt men voor de maght
des albewegers staen, / Die noit bewogen wiert: want in het ommevoeren / Der dingen
kan geen tweede iet anders ommeroeren / Dan door een eerste maght; gelijck de staf
een’ steen / Beweeght door iemants hant: dus stuit men dan op een’ / Beweger, die zelf
rust.’ (I, 395–401)
39
‘De schepper en het werck zijn twee, niet eenerley: / Dus blijt het onderscheyt
oneindich tussen bey’ (I, 931–32).
524
wiep van bunge
Vondel frequently rebukes classical authors such as Democritus,
Epicurus and Lucretius, and some of his arguments hit ancient and
modern ‘atheists’ alike (see the lines in which he criticises the denial of
divine providence, III, 43 f.), but in particular his insistence on the
need to distinguish God from his ‘efects’ (see also II, 234–36) clearly
suggest concern about contemporary atheism, especially once he sets
out to argue that being an ‘unmoved mover’ God cannot be understood
to have any cause, so neither can God be conceived of as causa sui (II,
946). he same holds for his explicit defence of the Mosaic authorship
of the Pentateuch (V, 94). And although there are some passages in
which echoes of Descartes can be heard,40 Vondel’s remarks concerning
the impossibility of deining the essence of the soul and of arguing
‘mathematically’ concerning its immortality do not suggest great sympathy for Cartesianism:
But to show the immortality of the soul merely by the light
Of reason and nature, as in a view from afar,
To the understanding, since people’s eyes
Cannot see the soul’s essence:
he gracious reader will forgive me for being
Brief in my demonstration, so as not to cover this soul-paper
With sounds that weakly vanish
And seem more clever than profound.
he reasoning that is down-to-earth is too crude,
he proof that slips through your ingers too poor:
he middle way is sound. In airming a truth
So necessary one should observe brevity and clarity
As far as the nature of the matter permits: for if
Mathematics were demanded here to make demonstrable,
hrough measurement and number, the nature of the souls,
Which never, like the body, befell the fate of mortality:
hat would be an error. Let no-one demand from reason
A clearer day than the matter can naturally give.
And this satisies a heart that does not, like those too blind to see,
Demand tangible evidence, which cannot here be found.41
40
Van Otegem, ‘Vondels bespiegelingen over de nieuwe ilosoie’.
‘Maer om d’onsterlijckheit der ziele alleen door ’t licht / Van reden en natuure, als
in een veergezicht, / Te toonen aen ’t verstant; dewijl des menschen oogen / Het wezen
van de ziel geensins aenschouwen mogen; / Zoo zal een heusche my verschoonen, dat
ick hier / Beknopt ben in ’t bewijs, om niet dit zielpapier / Met klancken te beslaen, die
krachteloos verdwijnen, / En meer scherpzinnigheên dan grontbewijzen schijnen. / De
reden is te grof, die laegh langs d’aerde kruipt, / Het grontbewijs te dun, dat door de
vingers druipt: / De middelmaet houdt stant. in ’t stercken van een waerheit / Zoo
noodig, dient gelet op bondigheit, en klaerheit; / Behoudens naer den aert der stofe:
41
philosophy – noah
525
It is also in the Bespiegelingen, and more in particular in the analysis
provided in this scholarly poem of the freedom of the will, that Vondel
comes closest to answering the question as to how an omnipotent God
can allow the existence of evil (II, 1113–22; 1219–36 and IV,
317–27).42
Noah: Conclusion
Once Vondel abandons the vocabulary of Scholasticism, however, and
starts to reconnoitre the polyphony of possibilities ofered by a play,
he is able to explore a wider variety of perspectives than the conceptual
logic Scholasticism allows for. he outcome of the clash between Nature
and Grace is never in doubt. Vondel lived long enough to see the publication, in 1678, of Adriaan Beverland’s Peccatum Originale (Original
Sin), in which a rare, explicitly libertine reading of Spinoza inspired
the author to propose an interpretation of the Fall, glorifying man’s
natural desire to have sex.43 We don’t know how Vondel reacted to this
book; perhaps he never saw a copy. But while he was fully entitled to
feel that in his biblical tragedies he had already provided a wholesome
reply to this ‘Spinozist eroticism’, Noah, on the other hand, and the
character of Urania in particular also suggest that Beverland’s views
may well have put a smile on his face, if only leetingly. Being a great
playwright, Vondel did not shy away from articulating perspectives
that he himself was supposed to condemn with such rhetorical panache
that until the end of the play, the tension between Nature and Grace
remains intact.
In the Dedication to Noah, Vondel naturally reinforces the necessity
to combat the atheists, including their denial of the historical accuracy
of Moses’s account of the Flood. Vondel does not merely want to convince them of the error of their ways, he claims, for how could a play
want indien / Men hier de wiskunst eischt, om toonbaer te bediên, / Door maeten en
getal, den eigen aert der zielen, / Die noit, als ’t lijf, in ’t lot der sterlijckheit vervielen;
/ Dat waer een onbescheit. men eisch’ geen’ klaerder dagh / Van reden dan de zaeck
natuurlijck geven magh, / En dit vernoeght een hart, dat niet, als ziende blinden, / Een
tastbre reden eischt, die hier niet is te vinden’ (III, 999–1018).
42
Konst, ‘ “Het goet of qaet te kiezen” ’.
43
See Elias, ‘Het spinozistisch erotisme van Adriaan Beverland’; De Smet, Hadrianus
Beverland (1650–1718); Israel, Radical Enlightenment, pp. 87–88; Leemans, Het woord
is aan de onderkant, pp. 250–56.
526
wiep van bunge
decide a dispute on the early history of the world? He also states it to
have been his purpose to picture God’s justice (Dedication, 73–76.). As
it is precisely the justice of God’s ‘revenge’ that is so severely being
called into question in Noah, it remains to be seen what Noah is actually telling us. Perhaps the Bespiegelingen ofer a clue to the theatrical
logic ruling Noah, for Vondel’s essay in Scholasticism reveals a particular emphasis on the female character of nature. Vondel repeatedly calls
Nature ‘a woman’ (I, 143 and 910) and ‘God’s daughter’ (I, 625). God’s
power, Vondel continues, produces ‘everything’ from the ‘womb’
[‘schoot’] (I, 439–41) of nature, which remains passive until ‘touched’
by God. his is not to say that Vondel employed this scheme consistently in all of his work – in Adam in ballingschap (ll. 894–96), for
instance, Adam compares Eve to the Moon, following him, the Sun –
but both in the Bespiegelingen and in Noah he does. In Noah, there is
talk of ‘vrou natuure’ (l. 214) as well, and Nature is said to have a woman
at its helm (l. 793). But it also has, I should like to suggest, a spokesperson. For in Noah, it is Urania who most consistently speaks out on
behalf of Nature’s lawlessness, its abundance and the pleasures it procures. It seems no accident, that out of all of Noah’s characters, Urania
has invariably drawn most attention. In 1864, A.S. Kok felt compelled
to call her the most hideous female character ever drawn by Vondel,
a ‘crude improbability’, a ‘monstrous exception’.44 More recently, Jan
Konst called her ‘nymphomaniac’.45 Schenkeveld-van der Dussen
has warned against a misogynous reading of this play, although she
too, emphasised the role that Vondel’s female characters play as
temptresses.46
It is true that we are told again and again that Cain’s daughters are at
the root of the destruction of the irst world (ll. 56sqq.; 390), and
Achiman cries out that ‘vrouwenmin’ (love of women) lies at the origins of all evil, once he recognises the end is nigh (l. 845). On the other
hand, if Nature itself is female, shouldn’t we perhaps conclude that in
Noah’s ultimate shame, it also triumphs in that it proves to be indomitable? his much seems clear: that if human reason, evidently male in
its conception, is ultimately unable to account for the reasons God may
44
Kok, Vondel in eenige van zijn vrouwenkarakters, p. 17: ‘een grove onwaarschijnlijkheid’, ‘een monsterachtige uitzondering’, ‘de afzichtelijkste vrouweniguur […] die
Vondel ooit getekend heet.’
45
Konst, Determinatie en vrije wil, p. 20.
46
Schenkeveld-van der Dussen, Vondel en ’t vrouwelijk dier, pp. 16–23.
philosophy – noah
527
have had – irstly to allow for the rise of evil, and inally for administering Grace – it remains to be seen who in Noah should be deemed the
weaker sex. Only if we compare Urania to Noah himself, who is a man
of God and therefore not entirely ‘of this world’, she has found her
match. Compared to Achiman, who turns out to be a coward and cannot make up his mind for himself, Urania seems deinitely superior.
At the very end of the play, of course, she begs for mercy as well, for
being human; even she has to succumb to the authority of her Maker,
but to her credit, she is the last of the play’s characters to do so.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF VONDEL’S DRAMAS (1850–2010)
Jan Bloemendal
Abbreviations
dbnl: De bibliotheek der Nederlandse letterkunde (www.dbnl.org)
KLP: Klassiek letterkundig pantheon
Ntg: Nieuwe taalgids
SpL: Spiegel der letteren
TNTL: Tijdschrit voor Nederlandse taal- en letterkunde
WB: Vondel, Joost van den, De werken: Volledige en geïllustreerde tekstuitgave, ed. by
J.F.M. Sterck et al., 10 vols. (Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek, 1927–1940).
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(Nijmegen: Universiteitsbibliotheek, 1987).
Gerritsen, J. ‘Gedachten over een Vondel-bibliograie’, Dokumentaal, 16 (1987), 90–94.
Gerritsen, J. ‘Honderd jaar Unger: Wat nu?’, Spektator, 17 (1987), 457–64.
Gerritsen, J. ‘Vondel and the New Bibliography: Notes Towards a New Edition of
‘Unger’, A.R.A. Croiset van Uchelen (ed.), Hellinga Festschrit/Feestbundel/Melanges:
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dichterschap (’s-Gravenhage: Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 1987), pp. 73–90.
Gielen, Jos J., ‘Vondel en Bogaert in 1629’, Vondel-kroniek, 7 (1936), 108–33.
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laatste levensjaren’; ‘IV: Palamedes’, Oud Holland, 1 (1883), 17–29; 2 (1884), 13–33;
111–34; 225–32; 293–308; 4 (1886), 113–29; 6 (1888), 51–67.
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A Editions
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etc.: Hollandsch Uitgeversfonds and Van Ditmar, [1934–1935]).
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voor goede en goedkoope lectuur, [1937]). 3 vols (Nederlandsche bibliotheek, 128–
130, 136–138, 144–146, 205–207, 219–222, 239–241, 252–254, 279–281, 295–297).
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Jacob van Lennep, 12 vols. (Amsterdam: Binger & Zonen, 1855–1869).
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(1940), 315–16); B.H. Molkenboer, Vondel-kroniek, 11 (1940), 35–36; Martien
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Sterck et al., 10 vols. (Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek, 1927–1937). dbnl (WB)
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Verwey (Amsterdam: Becht, 1937) [repr. ed. by Mieke B. Smits-Veldt and Marijke
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Eemeren, G. van, Het motief ‘schuld, straf en genade’ in de drama’s van Vondel (unpublished doctoral thesis Leuven).
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Boekdrukkersbedrijf […] and Noord-Hollandsche uitgeversmij, 1962) [= idem,
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[…] and Noord-Hollandsche uitgeversmij, 1962)]. dbnl
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Review, 41 (1956), 203–14.
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1720 (Hilversum: Verloren, 2003) [rev. by Betsy Wormgoor, Nederlandse letterkunde,
9 (2004), pp. 96–99; Lia van Gemert, Neerlandica extra muros, 42 (2004), 72–73;
W.R.D. van Oostrum, Mededelingen van de Stichting Jacob Campo Weyerman, 27
(2004), 52–53; Johan Koppenol, Literatuur 21 (2004), 58–59; A.J.E. Harmsen, De
zeventiende eeuw, 20 (2004), 174–76; Hubert Meeus, Nachbarsprache Niederländisch,
29 (2005), 88–90].
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Gorcum, 1993) (doctoral thesis Utrecht).
Korsten, Frans-Willem, ‘Twee nieuwe Vondels, of te oude? Overwegingen aangaande
Vondel en diens taal naar aanleiding van twee uitgaven in de Delta-reeks’, TNTL,
2005 (121), 349–55.
Korsten, Frans-Willem, Vondel belicht: Voorstellingen van soevereiniteit (Hilversum:
Verloren, 2006) [rev. by Johan Koppenol, De Groene Amsterdammer literatuur,
130 (2006), 53–54; Feike Dietz, Vooys, 25, 2 (mei 2007), 72–74; Riet Schenkeveld,
‘Vondel geïnterpreteerd’, TNTL, 123 (2007), 139–44; Maria-heresia Leuker,
Neerlandica Extra Muros, 45, 3 (Oct. 2007), 70–71; Jan Bloemendal, De zeventiende
eeuw, 23 (2007), 281–83; Marijke Meijer Drees, ‘Nomadische voorstellingen: Een
nieuwe herlezing van Vondels toneel’, Nederlandse letterkunde, 13 (2008), 174–84].
Korsten, Frans-Willem, Sovereignty as Inviolabitily: Vondel’s heatrical Explorations in
the Dutch Republic (transl. by Will J. Kelly) (Hilversum: Verloren, 2009).
Kramer, W., ‘De sententies in Vondels drama’s’, Vondel-kroniek, 11 (1940), 224–40.
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Haan, 1946) Maerlandtbibliotheek, 18.
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B.H. Molkenboer, Vondel-kroniek, 1 (1930), 83–85.
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Visies op Vondel na 300 jaar, pp. 289–305. dbnl
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Opstellen (Wommelgem and Antwerpen: Den Gulden Engel, 1987) [rev. by Jef van
Meensel, Creare, 16 (1987–1988), 41–44; G. van Eemeren, Ons Erfdeel, 32 (1989),
534
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(1990), 425–27].
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Vondel’s biblische Tragödie in gattungsgeschichtlicher Perspektive (Oslo:
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(1965), 19–30].
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Vlaamsche Academie voor Taal- en Letterkunde, 1937, pp. 701–25.
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Forel, 1968).
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Nederlanden 1600–1650 (Leuven: Acco, 1983), pp. 179–89.
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N.N., ‘Uitgevers en drukkers van Vondel’, Vondel-kroniek, 4 (1933), 183–85.
Parente, Jr, James A., ‘Chapter hree: he Biblical Tragedies of Joost van den Vondel’,
idem, Religious Drama and the Humanist Tradition: Christian heater in Germany
and in the Netherlands 1500–1680 (Leiden etc., Brill, 1987) Studies in the History of
Christian hought, 39, pp. 95–153.
Poulssen, J., ‘Tragiek van Vondels glans: Bijdrage tot de beschrijving ener dichterlijke
eigenheid’, Raam, (1963), 2, 1–140 [reaction by Gerard Knuvelder, Brabantia, 13
(1964), 22–26; repr. in idem, Kitty en de mandarijntjes […] (’s-Hertogenbosch: s.n.,
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Prieckaerts, P., Vondels plano’s: Bibliograische en andere aspecten (Utrecht: s.n., 1983)
(unpublished master’s thesis Utrecht).
Rens, Lieven R.F., ‘Het clair-obscur in Vondels drama’, SpL, 12 (1969–1970),
81–175.
Rens, Lieven R.F., Het priester-koningconlict in Vondels drama (Hasselt: Heideland,
1965) [rev. by Carlos Tindemans, Streven, 19 (1965–1966), 1116; Lode Roose,
Kultuurleven, 33 (1966), 72; Pierre Brachin, Études Germanistiques, 22 (1966),
306–07].
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drama’, Witstein and Grootes, Visies op Vondel na 300 jaar, pp. 270–88.
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Quarto, 1990).
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the Joseph Plays of Joost van den Vondel (1635–1640), European Review of History /
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Dutch Crossing, 8 (1979), 55–65.
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continuïteit en ontwikkeling in hun grondmotief en structuur, 3 vols. (Zwolle:
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95–103.
Braak, Menno ter, ‘Vondel-Shakespeare’, Verzameld werk, 6 (Amsterdam: Van
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Claeyssens, Steven, ‘ “Een fatsoenlijk colporteur verkoopt niet”: Salomon van Raalte
brengt Derkinderens “Gijsbrecht van Aemstel” aan de man’, Jaarboek voor
Nederlandse boekgeschiedenis, 9 (2002), 133–48; 198.
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Langvik-Johannessen, Kåre, ‘1746: In de Brusselse Muntschouwburg wordt Charles
Simon Favart directeur: Jan Frans Cammaert brengt de spektakelrijke première van
Vondels Adam in ballingschap: Weense invloeden en vernieuwingen in het Brusselse
theater’, Erenstein, Een theatergeschiedenis der Nederlanden, pp. 320–25.
Leuker, Maria-heresia, ‘Der integrierte Außenseiter: Vondel und der “Muiderkring”
bei Jacob van Lennep und J.A. Alberdingk hijm’, José Cajot, Ludger Kremer and
Hermann Niebaum (eds.), Lingua theodisca: Beiträge zur Sprach- und
Literaturwissenschat: Jan Goossens zum 65. Geburtstag (Münster: Lit, 1995)
Niederlande-Studien, 16, pp. 1087–94.
Meerwaldt, J.D., Vormaspecten (’s-Gravenhage: Stols, 1958).
Michels, L.C., ‘Twee 18e-eeuwse opinies over Gysbreght’, idem, Filologische opstellen, 4:
Stofen van verscheiden aard, registers (Zwolle: Tjeenk Willink, 1964), pp. 232–33.
Michels, L.C., ‘Vondel in de achttiende eeuw’, idem, Filologische opstellen, 4: Stofen van
verscheiden aard, registers (Zwolle: Tjeenk Willink, 1964), pp. 227–31.
Molkenboer, B.H., ‘Bij de Vondeltentoonstelling te Keulen’, Vondel-kroniek, 8 (1937), 3,
2–12.
Molkenboer, B.H., ‘Vondelopvoeringen’, Vondel-kroniek, 6 (1935), 84.
Molkenboer O.P., B.H., Het rhythme van de Vondelwaardeering (Nijmegen: Dekker &
Van de Vegt; Utrecht, 1933) (inaugural oration).
Nijs, Pieter de, ‘Taal van een ontroerende schoonheid: In gesprek met Hans Croiset en
Guus Rekers’, Bzzletin, 31, no. 281 (March 2002), 40–55.
N.N., ‘Dr. h. Weevers over Vondel en Duitschland’, Vondel-kroniek, 7 (1936), 44–45
Oey-de Vita, Elise, and Marja S. Geesink, Academie en Schouwburg: Amsterdams
toneelrepertoire 1617–1665 (Amsterdam: Huis aan de drie grachten, 1983).
Ouwerkerk, A., ‘Katholische Vondelfreundschat im 19. Jahrhundert: Alberdingk
hijm und Reichensperger’, H. Vekeman and H. Van Ufelen (eds.), Jetzt kehr ich and
den Rhein: Een opstellenbundel bij Vondels 400ste geboortedag / Eine Aufsatzsammlung
zu Vondels 400stem Geburtstag (Köln: Runge, 1987), pp. 209–29.
Porteman, Karel, ‘De receptie van “Gysbreght van Aemstel” in de Zuidelijke
Nederlanden’, Spektator, 17 (1988), 404–14.
Porteman, Karel, ‘Vondel herdacht’, Dietsche Warande en Belfort, 132 (1987), 11–13.
R., ‘Tooneel’, Vondel-kroniek, 1, (1930), 39–40.
Rens, Lieven, ‘Over het probleem van de invloed van Vondel op de drama’s van Andreas
Gryphius’, Handelingen van de Koninklijke zuidnederlandse Maatschappij voor Taalen Letterkunde en Geschiedenis 20 (1966), 251–62.
Roose, Lode, Karel Porteman, et al., Vondel bij gelegenheid 1679–1979: Handelingen
van het Vondelcolloquium, gehouden te Leuven op 2 maart 1979 (Middelburg:
Merlijn, 1979).
Schravendeel, Rogier, ‘De Amsterdamse rederijkerskamer Achilles (1846–1861)’, De
negentiende eeuw, 16 (1992), 185–97.
Simons, Leo, Studies over Vondel’s Gysbreght en over nationaal leven: 1891–1902
(Haarlem: Bohn, 1902).
bibliography of vondel’s dramas
537
Smit, Wisse A.P., ‘De waardering van Vondel’, D. Kouwenaar (ed.), De Vondelherdenking
1937: Gedenkboek van de viering van den 350sten geboortedag van Joost van den
Vondel […] (Amsterdam: Stadsdrukkerij Amsterdam, 1938). pp. 243–61.
Smits-Veldt, Mieke B., ‘Vertoningen in opvoeringen van Vondels tragedies, 1638–1720:
Van emblema tot “sieraad” ’, De zeventiende eeuw, 11 (1995), 210–22.
Smits-Veldt, Mieke B., ‘Vondel en de schouwburg van Jacob van Campen’, Witstein and
Grootes, Visies op Vondel na 300 jaar, pp. 247–69.
Smits-Veldt, Mieke B., and G. Teusink, Conventies in de mise-en-scène op het toneel van
Van Campen (1637–1665): Een onderzoek naar de voorsteling van de ‘gespeelde
ruimte’ (Amsterdam: Instituut voor Neerlandistiek, 1978).
Spies, Marijke, ‘Nederlands vele Vondels: Vier eeuwen Vondelwaardering’, Bzzletin, 31,
no. 281 (March, 2002), 4–15.
Spies, Marijke, ‘Vondels actualiteit’, Marja Geesink and Anton Bossers (eds.), Vondel!
Het epos van een ambachtelijk dichterschap (’s-Gravenhage: Koninklijke Bibliotheek,
1987), pp. 45–47.
Tiesema, Watze, ‘Vondel: Tijdgenoot?’, Marja Geesink and Anton Bossers (eds.),
Vondel! Het epos van een ambachtelijk dichterschap (’s-Gravenhage: Koninklijke
Bibliotheek, 1987), pp. 49–53.
Veldhorst, Natascha, De perfecte verleiding: Muzikale scènes op het Amsterdams toneel
in de zeventiende eeuw (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2004). (doctoral
thesis Amsterdam).
Verhofstadt, Edward, ‘Vondel und Gryphius: Versuch einer Literarischen Topographie’,
Neophilologus, 53 (1969), 290–99.
Vosmaer, Carel, ‘J.A. Alberdingk hijms Vondel’, Nop Maes (ed.), Een en ander
(Nijmegen: Vriendenlust, 1984) Vaderland-reeks, 4, pp. 32–46.
Wiskerke, Evert, ‘Visies op de katholieke Vondel 1780–1850’, Spektator, 17 (1987–
1988), 447–56.
Wiskerke, Evert M., De waardering voor de zeventiende-eeuwse literatuur tussen 1780
en 1813 (Hilversum: Verloren 1995) (doctoral thesis Amsterdam).
Wiskerke, Evert, ‘ “Wat zal ik U van onzen Vondel zeggen”: Enkele stemmen over
Vondel in het begin van de negentiende eeuw’, De negentiende eeuw, 9, (1985),
171–92.
Zalm, Rob van der, ‘Rooyaards in revisie’, Peter G.F. Eversmann, Rob van Gaal, Rob van
der Zalm (eds.), heaterwetenschap spelenderwijs / heatre Studies at Play: Liber
amicorum voor prof. dr. Rob Erenstein (Amsterdam: Pallas Publications, 2004),
pp. 104–22.
Zonneveld, Peter A.W., ‘Vondel en de antithese klassiek-romantisch: Een aspect van de
receptiegeschiedenis in de eerste helt van de negentiende eeuw’, Witstein and
Grootes, Visies op Vondel na 300 jaar, pp. 306–18. dbnl
he Separate Drama’s
1 Adam in Ballingschap (1664)
A.1 Editions
WB, 10, pp. 94–170.
Adam in ballingschap, gedrukt voor de Amsterdamsche rederijkerskamer Achilles
(Amsterdam: Noordendorp & Van Kesteren, 1851).
Adam in ballingschap of aller treurspelen treurspel (Amsterdam: Hollandsch
Uitgeversfonds, [1935]).
Adam in ballingschap, of aller treurspelen treurspel ([’s-Hertogenbosch: Mariënburg,
1928]) Geert Groote Genootschap, 244.
538
jan bloemendal
Adam in ballingschap (Leuven: Keurboekerij; Amsterdam: Van Langenhuysen, 1910).
Adam in ballingschap (Maastricht: Leiter-Nypels, 1920) [repr. Amsterdam: International
heatre Bookshop, 1983; Tekstboekjes Publiekstheater, 52].
Adam in ballingschap, of Aller treurspeelen treurspel (Utrecht: Oosthoek, 1910).
Adam in ballingschap, of Aller treurspelen treurspel, ed. by Cyriel De Baere (Amsterdam
etc.: De Nederlandsche boekhandel, 19776 [19421]) Nederlandse keurboeken voor
het secundair onderwijs, 15.
Adam in ballingschap verklaard, ed. by Gerard Brom ([Amsterdam, s.n., 1911]).
Adam in ballingschap, ed. by Gerrit Dekker (Pretoria: Van Schaik, 1968) Vondel vir
Suid-Afrika, 2.
Adam in ballingschap, ed. by Esgo T. Kuiper (Zutphen: hieme, 19061 [19112]) KLP, 12.
Adam in ballingschap, ed. by Bernard H. Molkenboer (Zwolle: Tjeenk Willink, 19473
[19251]) Nederlandsche schrijvers, 3.
Adam in ballingschap, of Aller treurspelen treurspel, ed. by Clem Neutjens (Antwerpen:
Plantyn, 19703 [19641]) [abridged edition].
Adam in ballingschap, ed. by Jacob Prinsen, J.L.zn (Amsterdam: Meulenhof, 1922)
Meulenhof ’s bibliotheek van Nederlandsche schrijvers, 14.
Adam in ballingschap: Aller treurspelen treurspel, ed. by homas H. Le Roux and
Johannes J. Groeneweg (Pretoria: De Bussy; Kaapstad: Dusseau, 19302).
Adam in ballingschap: Aller treurspelen treurspel, ed. by A. Saalborn (Apeldoorn: De
Zonnebloem, 1920).
Adam in ballingschap. Treurspel in vijf bedrijven, ed. by Jozef Salsmans, S.J., Joris Noë
(Antwerpen etc.: Standaard Boekhandel, 196616).
Adam in ballingschap, of Aller treurspelen treurspel: prima malorum causa, ed. by Leo
Simons (Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek 19429 [19081].
Adam in ballingschap, ed. by H.A. Wage (Zutphen: hieme, [1968]) KLP, 12.
Adam in ballingschap, ed. by A. Zijderveld (Zutphen: hieme, 19494) KLP, 12.
Lucifer, Adam in ballingschap, of Aller treurspelen treurspel, Noah, of Ondergang der
eerste wereld, ed. by Riet Schenkeveld-van der Dussen (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker,
2004) Delta [rev. by A. Agnes Sneller, Nederlandse letterkunde, 10 (2005), 70–72;
Frans-Willem Korsten, TNTL, 121 (2005), 349–55].
Viertal treurspelen (’s-Gravenhage: Fuhrli, 1851) [contains Lucifer; Adam in ballingschap; Palamedes; Gijsbrecht van Aemstel].
Vondel’s Lucifer en Adam in ballingschap, in verkorten vorm, ed. by Ph.A. Lansberg
(Groningen, etc.: Wolters, 19312 [19231] Lyceum-herdrukken, Reeks A, 3 [reaction
by G.E. Opstelten ‘Vandalisme’, Ntg, 18 (1924), 91–99. dbnl].
Vondel toneelschrijver: Vijf spelen voor studie en opvoering uitgegeven, voorzien van
inleidingen, illustraties, regie-aanwijzingen en annotaties, ed. by Ph. Lansberg and
J.E. Veugelers (Zwolle: Tjeenk Willink, 1952) [contains Gysbreght van Aemstel;
Joseph in Dothan; Lucifer; Leeuwendalers; Adam in ballingschap].
Vondels trilogie: Lucifer, Adam in ballingschap, Noah, ed. by Cyriel Verschaeve (Brugge:
Zeemeeuw, 1941).
A.2 Translations
Adam in exile, transl. by W. Kirkconnell, he Celestial Cycle: he heme of Paradise Lost
in World Literature, with Translations of the Major Analogues (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1954), pp. 434–79.
Vondel, Joost van den, Cinq tragédies, transl. by Jean Stals (Paris: Didier, 1969) [contains: Gisbert d’Amstel; Joseph à Dothan; Lucifer; Jephté; Adam exilé].
A.3 Reactions
Beeldhouwer, Jan Pietersz, Adams antwoordt, tegen Joost van den Vondel, over Adam in
ballingschap, of Aller treurspelen treurspel […] (Amsterdam: Pieter Arentz, 1664)
[repr. in idem, Alle de werken (Amsterdam: Pieter Arentz, 1671)].
bibliography of vondel’s dramas
539
Cammaert, Joannes Franciscus, Adam ende Eva uyt het lust-paradys gejaegt in ballingschap, ote Aller-treur-speelen-treur-spel, verryckt met verscheyde verssen van den vermaerden J. V. Vondel, getrocken uyt de H. Schrituere, ende voorts in-rym-gestelt
(Brussels: Weduwe G. Jacobs, 1746).
Steendam, Jacob, Op Joost van den Vondel, of Adam in ballingschap (Utrecht: Gijsbertus
van Veelen, 1664).
Steendam, Jacob, Rechte Grouwel der verwoestinge, ontdekt in den seer doorluchtigen
verdichter Joost van den Vondelen [see Vondel-kroniek, 1 (1930), 82–83;
J.A. Alberdingk hijm, De Dietsche Warande, (1876), 393–99; A. Zijderveld, Verslag
Vereeniging het Vondel-museum, (1938–1939)].
Verboom, Meynarda, Pleyt voor onse Eerste Moeder Eva, Tegens Joost van de Vondels
Treurspel aller Treurspelen, Van Adams Ballingschap [cf. Riet Schenkeveld-van der
Dussen et al. (eds.), Met en zonder lauwerkrans: Schrijvende vrouwen uit de vroegmoderne tijd 1550–1850 van Anna Bijns tot Elisa van Calcar (Amsterdam:
Amsterdam University Press, 1997), pp. 304–12]; also in Lia van Gemert et al. (eds),
Women’s Writing from the Low Countries 1200–1875 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam
University Press, 2010), pp. 48–49
B.1 Studies
Boshof, S.P.E., ‘Over: Vondel, Joost van den, Adam in ballingschap, of Aller treurspeelen treurspel’, Ons eie boek, 7 (1941), 1, 39–41.
Brom, Gerard, ‘Duivelsbeelden’, Ntg, 47 (1954), 346.
Demoor, Marysa, ‘Vondel uit de korre-kelder opgediept’, Documenta, 6 (1988),
181–84.
Donker, Anthonie, Het schip dat gij bouwen zult: Verbeeldingen van zondvloed en ark
(Amsterdam: Querido, 1959), pp. 97–109 [irst publ. Nieuwe stem, 14 (1959),
447–56].
Duinkerken, Anton van, ‘Adam in ballingschap’, Gemeenschap, 16 (1940), 469–72.
Gemert, Lia van, Norse negers: Oudere letterkunde in 1996 (Nijmegen: Katholieke
Universiteit Nijmegen, 1996) (inaugural oration), pp. 6–11.
Kemp, Bernard, ‘Vondelingen: Adam goede pedagoog en onbeholpen minnaar’,
Dietsche Warande en Belfort, 109 (1964), 754–55.
Kemp, Bernard, ‘Van paradijs naar Oedipoes, of de eenzaamheid van Adam en Eva’,
Dietsche Warande en Belfort, 124 (1979), 723–52.
King, Peter K., ‘Twee symbolische allegorieën in Adam in Ballingschap’, TNTL, 72
(1954), 201–31.
Koning, Joh., Adam in ballingschap: Tragedie: Toelichting van de tragedie en korte
beschrijving (Breda: Van Oirschot, 1908).
Konst, Jan, ‘Fortuin, noodlot en voorzienigheid Gods in Vondels toneeloeuvre’, Hugo
Brems et al. (eds.), Nederlands 200 jaar later (Woubrugge etc.: Internationale
Vereniging voor Neerlandistiek (IVN), 1998), pp. 201–12
Konst, Fortuna, Fatum en Providentia Dei, pp. 197–200.
Konst, Jan, ‘ “Het goet of quaet te kiezen”: De rol van de vrije wil in Vondels “Lucifer”,
“Adam in ballingschap” en “Noah” ’, Nederlandse letterkunde, 2 (1997), 319–37. dbnl
Langvik-Johannessen, Zwischen Himmel und Erde, pp. 249–88.
Maximilianus O.F.M.Cap., ‘De tweede scheppingsdag bij Vondel (Adam in ballingschap vs. 229–242)’, TNTL, 59 (1939–1940), 81–85.
Maximilianus O.F.M.Cap., ‘Prima malorum causa’, Vondel-kroniek, 11 (1940),
162–63.
Modderman, Sybrend B., ‘Adam in ballingschap’, Waag, 6 (1942), 1347.
Neutjens, Clem, [Brieven van 16 mei 1984 over Vondel], idem, Brieven over literatuur:
Aan de gecultiveerden onder haar miskenners (Leuven, Amersfoort: Acco, 1984),
pp. 68–71.
Neutjens, Clem, ‘Receptie-esthetische literatuuranalyse: “Adam in ballingschap” (Joost
van den Vondel)’, idem, Methoden als listen: Literatuuranalyses (Leuven, Amersfoort:
540
jan bloemendal
Acco, 1984), pp. 75–87 (rev. by G. de Vriend, Spektator, 15 (1985–1986), 303–04;
P.F. Schmitz, Forum der letteren, 26 (1985), 316–17).
Nichols, Fred J., ‘Language and Drama in Vondel’s “Lucifer” and “Adam in ballingschap” ’, Review of National Literatures, 8 (1979 [= 1978], 40.
Notermans, Jef M.G., ‘Adam in Ballingschap’, De vacature 80 (1968), 6, 4; 7, 6; 8, 4; 10,
4; 11, 2; 12, 4.
Nyquist, Mary, ‘Reading the fall: Discourse and drama in Paradise Lost’, English Literary
Renaissance, 14 (1984), 199–229.
Oorda, I. [= Cyriel Verschaeve], Vondels ‘Adam in ballingschap’: Eene letterkundige
studie (Dendermonde: Bureel van Jong Dietschland, 1910).
Ossenblok, E.J., Eene lezing over Vondel’s treurspel ‘Adam in ballingschap’ (Lier: Jozef
van In, [1908]).
Schenkeveld-van der Dussen, Riet, ‘Een vreemde vraag en een niet-gewenst antwoord:
Eva over Adam, Verboom over Vondel’, Willem van den Berg and Herman Pleij
(eds.), Mooi meegenomen? Over de genietbaarheid van oudere teksten uit de
Nederlandse letterkunde (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1997),
pp. 135–40.
Schutter, Frans de, ‘Al ’t geluck hangt aen ’t begin’, Voortgang, 23 (2005), 91–106.
Schutter, Frans de, ‘Een leerachtig treurspel: Joost van den Vondels “Adam in ballingschap” opnieuw gelezen’, Voortgang, 21 (2002), 47–75.
Schutter, Frans de, ‘De zonde in het paradijs volgens Vondels “Adam in ballingschap” ’,
Stem uit Nieuwland, 41 (1971), 159–80.
Sims, James H., ‘Christened Classicism in “Paradise Lost” and “he Lusiads” ’,
Comparative Literature, 24 (1972), 338–56.
Smit, Wisse A.P., ‘[Over Adam in ballingschap vs 216]’, Ntg, 54 (1961), 236.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 3, pp. 346–431.
Smit, Paul J., ‘Diersymboliek in Rembrandts Zondeval (1638) en in Vondels Adam in
ballingschap (1664), De zeventiende eeuw, 26 (2010), 2–20.
Stoett, F.A., ‘Kleine mededelingen. 78. Adam in ballingschap, vs. 845’, TNTL, 37 (1918),
80. dbnl
Tate, Jr, Charles Delmer, Milton’s Paradise Lost and Vondel’s Adam in ballingschap (Ann
Arbor etc., MI: University Microilms International, 1966) (doctoral thesis Boulder,
University of Colorado).
Veenstra, F. ‘Het motto van de Adam in ballingschap’, Ntg, 45 (1952), 236.
Verschaeve, Cyriel, ‘Adam in ballingschap, 1–3’, Verschaeviana, 1986 [1987], 42–52
[irst publ. Gazette van hielt, 30 March, 9 and 20 April, 1910].
B.2 Performances
Brom, Gerard B., Vondel’s Adam in ballingschap: Vertoond door N.V. Het Tooneel
([Amsterdam: Binger, 1908]).
Bruycker, Chris de, ‘Eigenwijze Vondel eigenzinnig en zinvol op de planken in 1989’,
Hugo de Jonghe (ed.), Het schoolvak Nederlands in het secundair/voortgezet onderwijs: Verslag van actuele ontwikkelingen in onderzoek, beleid en onderwijspraktijk:
Vierde conferentie ‘H.S.N.’ Brussel 7 oktober 1989 (Enschede [etc.]: VALO-Moedertaal
etc., 1991), pp. 60–64.
Gomperts, H.A., ‘[Over de toneelopvoering van Joost van den Vondels “Adam in
Ballingschap” (7.5.’63)]’, idem, De eend op zolder (Amsterdam: Van Oorschot, 1970),
pp. 161–62.
Harmsen, Ton, ‘Adam in ballingschap nu over opstand tegen de heersende orde’,
Magazijn, 129 (Jan. 1984), 19–20.
Heijer, Jac, ‘Vondels verzenparadijs bloeit op de puinhopen: Publiekstheater
met humanistische interpretatie van Adam in ballingschap’, Judith Herzberg
et al. (eds.), Jac Heijer: Een keuze uit zijn artikelen (Amsterdam: International
bibliography of vondel’s dramas
541
heatre & Film Books, 1994), pp. 498–500 [irst publ. NRC Handelsblad, 28
Dec. 1983].
Kloos, Willem, ‘Sir Philip Sidney, Karel van de Woestijne, Vondel en Royaards’, idem,
Nieuwere literatuurgeschiedenis (Amsterdam: Veen, 1944), pp. 75–83 [irst publ.
Nieuwe gids, 23 (1908), 1173–80].
Kramer, Herman, ‘Een nationale taak voor ons Nederlandsch tooneel’, Waag, 4 (1940),
561.
Langvik-Johannessen, Kåre, ‘1746: In de Brusselse Muntschouwburg wordt Charles
Simon Favart directeur: Jan Frans Cammaert brengt de spektakelrijke première van
Vondels “Adam in ballingschap”: Weense invloeden en vernieuwingen in het
Brusselse theater’, Erenstein, Een theatergeschiedenis der Nederlanden, pp. 320–25.
Lindt, Hendrik J., ‘Nieuwe herfst – nieuw geluid: Concertgebouw-begin, toneelmuziek
bij Vondel en D’Albert’s “Tieland” ’, Waag, 6 (1942), 1344–45.
Molkenboer, B.H., ‘Adam in Nijmegen’, Vondel-kroniek, 11 (1940), 160–62.
Molkenboer, B.H., ‘De Adam-opvoering’, Vondel-kroniek, 11 (1940), 196–98.
N.N., ‘Over de opvoering door het Amsterdamsch Toneel onder regie van Caroline van
Dommelen van: Asselijn, homas. Jan Klaaz, of Gewaande dienstmaagt: blijspel.
Amsterdam, 1682; en over de opvoering door het Gemeentelijk heaterbedrijf
Amsterdam, afdeeling tooneel onder regie van Cor Hermus van: Vondel, Joost van
den. Adam in ballingschap, of Aller treurspeelen treurspel. Amsterdam, 1664, De
tooneelrevue, 8 (1941–1942), 10, [3–4].
Poel, D.C. van der, ‘De tooneelgroep “Studio” in het muzieklyceum te Amsterdam’,
Kroniek van kunst en kultuur, 5 (1939–1941), 19–20 (15 Nov. 1940), 274.
Rekers, A.J.G. (Guus), ‘Over de opvoering door het Publiekstheater van Vondel, Joost
van den, Adam in ballingschap, of Aller treurspeelen treurspel’, Jonas, 14 (1983–
1984), 13, 13.
Rekers, A.J.G. (Guus), Adam in ballingschap (for television) (Hilversum: N.O.S., 1984).
Rutten, André, ‘Dua’s Adam of: Hoe verzoent men Vondel met toneel van nu?’, Toneel,
86 (1965), 77–82.
Rutten, André, ‘Vondels Adam geprofaneerd’, TT, 105 (1984), 2, 15–17 [reaction by
Hans Brans, TT, 105 (1984), 5–6, 57–58; Hans Croiset and Guus Rekers, TT, 105
(1984), 5–6, 58].
Schutter, Frans de, ‘ “Adam in ballingschap”: Een kort pleidooi’, Nova et vetera, 42
(1964–1965), 270–81 [reaction by J. Noë, ‘Heet “Adam in ballingschap” een innerlijke structuur’, Nova et vetera, 43 (1965–1966), 169–71].
Speeten, Geert van der, ‘Vondel en het Publiekstheater: De omkeerbaarheid van universele waarden’, Documenta, 2 (1984), 34–48.
Versteegen, Jos, ‘God schiep –eden. Adam in ballingschap bewerkt’, Literatuur, 20
(2003), 8, 6–8.
Weersma, Wouter, ‘Vondel de rijmelaar’, Schouw, 2 (1943), 217–18.
Wennekes, Emile G.J., ‘Een schouwburg voor acteurs met strotten (ballet, toneel en
divertissement)’, idem, Het Paleis voor Volksvlijt (1864–1929) ([Den Haag: Sdu
Uitgevers], 1999), pp. 235–74 Nederlandse cultuur in Europese context, 16; IJkpunt
1900, 2.
Wieme, Dries, ‘Joost van den Vondel uit zijn vergeethoek gehaald’, Randschrit, 4
(1987–1988), 18, 18–20.
Wolters, Max, ‘Opbouw of abraak? Opbouw door critiek, abraak door exploitatie’,
Waag, 6 (1942), 1460–61.
2 Adonias (1661)
A.1 Editions
WB, 9, pp. 304–379.
542
jan bloemendal
Adonias, of Rampzalige kroonzucht, ed. by Leendert Strengholt (Zwolle: Tjeenk
Willink, 1963) Klassieken uit de Nederlandse letterkunde, 25 [rev. by J. Noë, SpL,
8 (1964–1965), 153; W.J.C. Buitendijk, Ntg, 57 (1964), 169–71; D.F. Kouwenhoven,
Levende talen, 1966, 233 (March), 140–41].
Adonias (Breda: Jansen, [2002]) De Nieuw Agrippynse zwaan, 2.
Salmoneus, en Adonias, ed. by J. van Vloten (Schiedam: Roelants, 1882; Zutphen:
hieme, 18832) KLP, 113.
B.1 Studies
Korsten, ‘Constitueren’, Vondel belicht, pp. 144–68; ‘Constituting the sovereign’,
Sovereignty as Inviolability, pp. 132–50.
Langvik-Johannessen, Zwischen Himmel und Erde, pp. 227–37.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 3, pp. 169–232.
3 De Amsteldamsche Hecuba (1626)
A.1 Editions
WB, 2, pp. 529–612.
B.1 Studies
Gemert, Tussen de bedrijven door?, p. 236.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 1, pp. 132–43.
Strien, A. van, ‘6 augustus 1625: Vondel draagt De Amsterdamsche Hecuba op aan
Antonis de Hubert: Taalopbouw door dichters’, M.A. Schenkeveld-van der Dussen
(ed.), Nederlandse literatuur: Een geschiedenis (Groningen: Martinus Nijhof, 1993),
pp. 212–17.
4 Batavische Gebroeders (1663)
A.1 Editions
WB, 9, pp. 898–971.
Batavische gebroeders: Treurspel (Tilburg: De Tilburgsche Handelsdrukkerij, s.a.)
Letterkundige bibliotheek voor katholieken, 8.
Batavische gebroeders, ed. by Eelco Verwijs (Leeuwarden: Suringar, 1867).
Batavische gebroeders, Faeton en Zungchin: Treurspelen, ed. by J. v[an] Vl[oten]
(Zutphen: hieme, 1884) KLP, 117–118.
B.1 Studies
Cornelissen, J.D.M., ‘Vondel en de vrijheid in 1663’, Historisch Tijdschrit, 17 (1939),
321–55.
Duits, H., ‘ “Uw stroom kan geen stadthouders draegen”: Vondel en het stadhouderschap in 1663 of de politieke actualiteit van Batavische gebroeders’, idem, Van
Bartholomeusnacht tot Bataafse opstand: Studies over de relatie tussen politiek en
toneel in het midden van de zeventiende eeuw (Hilversum: Verloren, 1990) Doctoral
thesis Amsterdam, pp. 154–272 [rev. by E.O.G. Haitsma Mulier, Bijdragen en
Mededelingen betrefende de Geschiedenis van Nederland, 108 (1993), 78–79; Simon
Groenveld, TNTL, 109 (1993), 364–71].
Gemert, Lia van, ‘Vrouwen voor vrijheid: Krachtmetingen in Vondels Batavische
gebroeders’, Wouter Abrahamse, Anneke C.G. Fleurkens and Marijke Meijer
Drees (eds.), Kort tijt-verdrijf: Opstellen over Nederlands toneel (vanaf ca. 1565)
bibliography of vondel’s dramas
543
aangeboden aan Mieke B. Smits-Veldt (Amsterdam: AD&L Uitgevers, 1996),
pp. 213–18.
Michels, L.C., ‘Hercules – Arkel’, Tijdschrit voor Taal en Letteren, 29 (1941), 190–92
[repr. idem, Filologische opstellen, 3: Stofen uit Vondels werk (Zwolle: Tjeenk Willink,
1961), pp. 326–27].
Michels, L.C., ‘Matrozen-matronen’, Tijdschrit voor Taal en Letteren, 29 (1941), 187–90
[repr. idem, Filologische opstellen, 3: Stofen uit Vondels werk (Zwolle: Tjeenk Willink,
1961), pp. 328–31].
Michels, L.C., ‘Woordgebruik bij Vondel’, idem, Filologische opstellen, 3: Stofen uit
Vondels werk (Zwolle: Tjeenk Willink, 1961), pp. 332–49.
Notermans, Jef, ‘Batavische Gebroeders of: Onderdruckte vrijheit’, De Vacature 79
(1967), 30, 2.
Rens, Lieven, ‘Egmont en Hoorne model voor de Batavische gebroeders?’, Ntg, 62
(1969), 425–40.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 3, pp. 233–81.
Teitler, Hans, De opstand der ‘Batavieren’ (Hilversum: Verloren, 1998) Verloren
verleden, 1 [rev. by J.A. van Rossum, Hermeneus, 71 (1999), 44–45].
Witstein, Sonja F., ‘De rei van Batavische vrouwen in het tweede bedrijf van Vondel’s
Batavische gebroeders (1663)’, Ntg, 48 (1955), 264–68 [repr. Ton Harmsen and Ellen
Krol, Een Wett-steen vande Ieught: Verzamelde artikelen van dr. S.F. Witstein
(Groningen: Wolters-Noordhof, 1980) De Nieuwe Taalgids Cahiers, 7, pp. 18–23].
5 Elektra (1639)
A.1 Editions
WB, 3, pp. 649–707.
B.1 Studies
Hermans, heo, ‘24: Joost van den Vondel (vert.), I.V. Vondels Elektra van Sofokles.
Treurspel: […] Ghespeelt in de Amsterdamsche Schouwburgh, in November, 1640:
Amsterdam: Cornelis Houthaeck, 1639’, idem (ed.), Door eenen engen hals:
Nederlandse beschouwingen over vertalen 1550–1670: Vertaalhistorie: Deel 2 (Den
Haag: Stichting Bibliographia Neerlandica, 1996), pp. 104–06. dbnl
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 1, pp. 229–40.
Wijnpersse, W.M.A. van de, ‘Vondels Elektra-vertaling’, Vondel-kroniek, 2 (1931),
24–34.
6 Faëton (1663)
A.1 Editions
WB, 10, pp. 29–93.
Faëton, ed. by Hans Croiset (Scheveningen: Appeltheater, 1987).
Faëton, ed. by A.A. Verdenius (Zutphen: hieme, 19392) KLP, 174 [18841 ed. by J. van
Vloten, KLP, 117–118] [rev. by H. Godthelp, Taal en leven, 4 (1940–1941), 71–72].
Jeptha, of oferbelote, Koning David hersteld, Faëton, of roekeloze stoutheid, ed. by Jan
W.H. Konst (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2004) Delta [rev. by A. Agnes Sneller,
Nederlandse letterkunde, 10 (2005), 70–72; Frans-Willem Korsten, TNTL, 121
(2005), 349–55].
Vondel hervonden: Een nieuwe keuze uit zijn gedichten en proza verzorgd door Wim
Zaal, gevolgd door het treurspel Faëton (Amsterdam-Sloterdijk: Wereldbibliotheek,
1963) [rev. by F.W. van Heerikhuizen, Het nieuwe boek, 1 (1963), 495–96].
544
jan bloemendal
Batavische gebroeders, Faeton en Zungchin: Treurspelen, ed. by J. v[an] Vl[oten]
(Zutphen: hieme, 1884) KLP, 117–118.
B.1 Studies
Bakker, Kees de, ‘Faëton speelt met vuur’, Harlekijn, 9 (1979), 4–5.
Grootes, Eddy K., ‘Waarom in ‘s hemels naam al die mythologie’, J.B. den Besten et al.
(eds.), Vragende wijs: Vragen over tekst, taal en taalgeschiedenis: Bundel aangeboden
aan Leopold Peeters bij zijn afscheid als Hoogleraar Historische Taalkunde van het
Nederlands aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam (Amsterdam etc.: Rodopi, 1990)
Amsterdamer Publikationen zur Sprache und Literatur, 86, pp. 3–11.
Kazemier, G., ‘Vondels Faëton, een psychologisch drama’, Nieuw letterkundig magazijn,
5 (1987), 35–39.
Konst, Fortuna, Fatum en Providentia Dei, pp. 231–38.
Konst, Jan, ‘ “Geen kinderhaet verruckt u tot dees daet”: De schuldconceptie in Vondels
“Jeptha”, “Koning David herstelt” en “Faëton” ’, SpL, 39 (1997), 263–84.
Korsten, Frans-Willem, ‘De waarde van hypocrisie: Vondels spel met politiek en religie
in Lucifer, Salmoneus, en Faëton’, TNTL, 122 (2006), 97–116.
Korsten, ‘Toetsen’, Vondel belicht, pp. 192–214; ‘Hypocrisy and being judged’,
Sovereignty as Inviolability, pp. 172–92.
Leeuwe, H.H.J. de, ‘Vondel, Bidloo, Faëton en de Amsterdamse decorprenten’, Ntg, 82
(1989), 441–50.
Notermans, Jef, ‘Joost van den Vondel’s Faëton of Reuckeloze stoutheit’, De vacature, 80
(1968), 3.
R., ‘Het voorbericht van Faëton’, Vondel-kroniek, 3 (1932), 180–81.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 3, pp. 282–345.
Stern, Jill D., ‘A playwright in his time: Vondel’s drama “Faeton” of 1663’, Dutch
Crossing, 23 (1999), 22–57.
Zijderveld, A., ‘Faëton’, TNTL, 58 (1939), 185–97 [repr. A.G. Zijderveld-Menalda et al.
(eds.), Keur uit het werk van Dr A. Zijderveld (Amsterdam: s.n., 1953), pp. 176–84].
B.2 Performances
Amir, Ton, and Marisa Groen, ‘De opvoeringsgeschiedenis van Vondels treurspel
“Faëton” ’, Spektator, 17 (1987–1988), 431–46.
Heijer, Jac, ‘Faëtons val met de zonnewagen als een ecologische ramp: De goden uit
Vondels treurspel bij De Appel voorgesteld als burgermensen die al jaren geen zon
meer hebben gezien’, Judith Herzberg et al. (eds.), Jac Heijer: Een keuze uit zijn
artikelen (Amsterdam: International heatre & Film Books, 1994), pp. 659–60 [irst
publ. NRC Handelsblad 19 Oct. 1987].
Kalshoven, Petra, ‘Appel’, Frons, 8 (1987–1988), 38–41.
Leeuwe, H.H.J. de, ‘Vondel, Bidloo, Faëton en de Amsterdamse decorprenten’, Ntg, 82
(1989), 441–50.
Marion, Olga van, ‘Van moeder tot burgerjuf, ofwel Hoe Vondels Klymene van de
Appel een permanentje kreeg: Vondels treurspel Faëton’, Meta, 22 (1987–1988), 3,
58–61.
Pijper, Willem, Faëton, of Reuckeloze Stoutheid, muzikaal bewerkt (Rotterdam, Doorn:
s.n., 1937).
Rasch, Rudolf, ‘19 februari 1685: Onder regie van Govard Bidloo wordt Vondels
“Faëton” opgevoerd als een muziekdramatische show: Toneel en muziek aan het
eind van de zeventiende eeuw’, Erenstein, Een theatergeschiedenis der Nederlanden,
pp. 272–77.
P.F.S., Herdenkingsvoorstelling onder auspiciën van de Wagnervereeniging: Faeton, treurspel van Vondel ([Amsterdam]: Amsterdamsch Vondelcomité, [1937]).
bibliography of vondel’s dramas
545
7 Feniciaensche (1668)
A.1 Editions
WB, 10, pp. 458–544.
B.1 Studies
Geerts, A., ‘Vondels rehabilitatie als vertaler: “De Feniciaensche” ’, Vondel-kroniek, 2
(1931), 72–78.
Kamphuis, G., ‘Hoeveel Grieksche treurspelen heet Grotius vertaald?’, Ntg, 36 (1942),
189.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 3, pp. 571–79.
B.2 Performances
Molkenboer, B.H., ‘[N.a.v.: Euripides. De Phoinikische maagden (Phoinissai); uit het
Grieksch in Nederlandsche verzen overgebracht met inl. en toel. door K.H. de Raaf.
Zutphen, 1939]’, Vondel-kroniek, 11 (1940), 41–42.
8 Gebroeders (1640)
A.1 Editions
WB, 3, pp. 797–876.
Gebroeders: Treurspel, ed. by Karel Porteman and Kåre Langvik-Johannessen (Leuven,
Amersfoort: Acco, 19832 [Antwerpen: Standaardboekhandel, 19751]) Leuvense
studiën en tekstuitgaven, NR, 5 [rev. by Egil Kraggerud, Edda (1984), 4, 253–55;
Lieven Rens, SpL, 18 (1976–1977), 269–76; Werner Waterschoot, Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire, 59 (1981), 728–31; see also Korsten, ‘Legitimatie, allianties,
natievorming en mannenliefde’, and idem, Vondel belicht; Sovereignty as Inviolability].
Gebroeders, ed. by homas H. Le Roux, Johannes J. Groeneweg and Matthijs
S.B. Kritzinger (Pretoria: s.n., 19261 [Pretoria: De Bussy; Kaapstad: Dusseau, 19332])
Afrikaanse Vondeluitgawe.
A.2 Translations
Gebroeders, 1648, Joost van den Vondel; Die Gibeoniter, 1690, Andreas Gryphius; Die
Rache zu Gibeon, 1662, David Elias Heidenreich, ed. by Egbert Krispyn (Bern, etc.:
Lang, 1987) [rev. by W.G. Marigold, Germanic Notes, 19 (1988), 63–64].
B.1 Studies
Dekker, G., ‘Die vrouekarakters in Vondel se “Gebroeders” ’, Tydskrif vir wetenschap en
kuns, 6 (1945–1946), 10–16.
Duinkerken, Anton van, ‘Gebroeders’, idem, Verzamelde geschriten, 3: Historie en kritiek (Utrecht: Het Spectrum, 1931), pp. 336–43 [irst publ. Roeping, 7 (1929), 238–
43; Anton van Duinkerken, Achter de vuurlijn (Hilversum: Brand, 1930), pp. 85–93].
Kazemier, G., ‘De paradox van Vondels drama Gebroeders’, Nieuw Letterkundig
Magazijn, 4 (1986), 2–4. dbnl
Konst, Fortuna, Fatum en Providentia Dei, pp. 184–91.
Konst, Woedende wraakghierigheidt en vruchtelooze weeklachten, pp. 138–43.
Korsten, Frans-Willem, ‘Legitimatie, allianties, natievorming en mannenliefde: De
retorische werking van verhalen en argumenten in Joost van den Vondels Gebroeders’,
TNTL, 118 (2002), 73–92.
546
jan bloemendal
Korsten, ‘Traumatiseren’, Vondel belicht, pp. 89–112; ‘Trauma and nationhood’,
Sovereignty as Inviolability, pp. 90–109.
Krispyn, Egbert (ed, intr.), Joost van den Vondel, Gebroeders 1648, Andreas Gryphius,
Die Gibeoniter 1690, David Elias Heidenreich, Die Rache zu Gibeon 1662 (Bern, etc.:
Peter Lang, 1987).
Krispyn, Egbert, ‘David Elias Heidenreich: Zur Biographie einer literarischen
Randigur’, Daphnis, 13 (1994), 275–98.
Langvik-Johannessen, Het treurspel spant de kroon, pp. 91–127.
Langvik-Johannessen, Zwischen Himmel und Erde, pp. 114–32.
Leerintveld, Ad, ‘Een bijzonder exemplaar van Vondels Gebroeders’, Wouter
Abrahamse, Anneke C.G. Fleurkens and Marijke Meijer Drees (eds.), Kort tijtverdrijf: Opstellen over Nederlands toneel (vanaf ca. 1565) aangeboden aan Mieke
B. Smits-Veldt (Amsterdam: AD&L Uitgevers, 1996), pp. 157–64.
Plard, Henri, ‘Die sieben Brüder, oder Die Gibeoniter’, Gerhard Kaiser (ed.), Die
Dramen des Andreas Gryphius: Eine Sammlung von Einzelinterpretationen (Stuttgart:
Metzler, 1968), pp. 305–17.
Porteman, Karel, ‘18 april 1641: In de Amsterdamse schouwburg gaat Vondels
Gebroeders in première: Concept en opvoering van een ambitieus treurspel’,
Erenstein, Een theatergeschiedenis der Nederlanden, pp. 218–33.
R., ‘Een citaat uit Vossius’, Vondel-kroniek, 1 (1930), 45–46.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 1, pp. 265–302.
Smits-Veldt, Mieke B., ‘De aantekeningen bij Vondels “Gebroeders” (1644)’, Ton
Anbeek et al. (eds.), Terug naar de bron [= Literatuur, 8 (1991)], pp. 372–73.
Smits-Veldt, Mieke B., ‘Gebroeders’, eadem, Het Nederlandse Renaissancetoneel
(Utrecht: HES, 1991), pp. 91–92. dbnl
B.2 Performances
Alceste, ‘Gebroeders te Gent’, Faun, 1 (1944 [1945], 8.
9 Gysbreght van Aemstel (1637)
A.1 Editions
WB, 3, pp. 514–600.
Gysbreght van Aemstel: D’ondergang van zijn stad en zijn ballingschap (Amsterdam:
Abrahmason & Van Straaten, s.a.).
Gysbreght van Aemstel: D’ondergangh van sijn stad en sijn ballingschap: Treurspel in vijf
bedrijven (Amsterdam: s.n., [18831] [18872]).
Gysbreght van Aemstel: D’ondergang van zijn stad en zijn ballingschap (Naarden: In den
Toren, 1941) Toren reeks, 7.
Gysbreght van Aemstel: D’ondergang van sijn stad en sijn ballingschap: Treurspel in vijf
bedrijven (Amsterdam: De erven H. van Munster, 1903).
Gysbreght van Aemstel: D’ondergank van zijne stadt, en zijn ballingschap: Treurspel
([Erindale woodlands: Parquett Press], 1975).
Gysbreght van Aemstel: D’ondergang van zijn stad en zijn ballingschap, ed. by
H. Beckering-Vinckers (Zaltbommel: Van de Garde, [1902]) Nederlandsche
Klassieken; Gulden-editie, 1, 2.
Gysbreght van Aemstel, ed. by Hendrik C. Diferee (Zwolle: Tjeenk Willink, 19394
[19231]) Nederlandsche schrijvers, 6.
Gysbreght van Aemstel: Met het nastukje ‘De bruilot van Kloris en Roosje’, ed. by
Hendrik C. Diferee (Utrecht: De Torentrans, 1929).
Gysbreght van Aemstel, ed. by Nicolaas A. Donkersloot, Anton van Duinkerken
(Amsterdam: Uitgeversmaatschappij ‘Joost van den Vondel’, 1937).
Gijsbreght van Aemstel, ed. by J.J. Mak (’s-Hertogenbosch: Malmberg, 197512 [19551])
Malmbergs Nederlandse schoolbibliotheek.
bibliography of vondel’s dramas
547
Gysbregt van Aemstel: D’ondergang van zijn stad en zijn ballingschap, ed. by Carel H.Ph.
Meyer (Zutphen: hieme, 195617 [18951]) KLP, 40 [reaction by Inez van Eijk and
Rudi Wester, Honderd helden uit de Nederlandse literatuur ([Amsterdam]: De
Bijenkorf, 1985), p. 296–97].
Gysbreght van Aemstel: D’ondergang van zijn stad en zijn ballingschap, ed. by
W.A. Ornée (Zutphen: hieme, [1979] [19611]) (KLP, 40).
Gijsbrecht van Aemstel, ed. by Guus Rekers (Amsterdam: [Toneelmuseum, 1975]).
Gysbreght van Aemstel: Treurspel, ed. by Johannes M. Schrant (Leiden: Van der Hoek,
1851).
Gysbreght van Aemstel: D’ondergang van syn stad en syn ballingschap, ed. by Leo Simons,
Hendrik P. Berlage, Beranrd Zweers, Anton J. Derkinderen, 2 vols. (Haarlem: De
Erven Bohn, 1894–1901).
Gysbreght van Aemstel, ed. by Mieke B. Smits-Veldt (Amsterdam: Amsterdam
University Press, 1994) Alpha. dbnl [rev. by René van Stipriaan, Literatuur, 13
(1996), 243–45].
Gysbreght van Aemstel: D’ondergangh van syn stadt, en syn ballingschap: Urbs antiqua
ruit (1637), ed. by Tijs Terwey, Cornelis G.N. de Vooys and L.M. van Dis (Groningen:
Wolters-Noordhof, 198021) Van alle tijden.
De Gysbreght, ed. by Eva Mesker et al. (Amsterdam: Toneelgroep Amsterdam, [1991]).
Drie treurspelen: Lucifer, Gysbreght van Aemstel, Maria Stuart, ed. by Jacques F.J.
Heremans (Gent: Hoste, 1858).
Viertal treurspelen (’s-Gravenhage: Fuhrli, 1851) [contains Lucifer; Adam in ballingschap; Palamedes; Gijsbrecht van Aemstel].
Vier treurspelen van J. van Vondel, ed. by Jacques F.J. Heremans (Gent: Hoste, 1853).
[contains Lucifer; Gysbrecht van Aemstel; Palamedes: Maria Stuart].
Vondel’s Gijsbreght van Aemstel en Leeuwendalers in verkorten vorm, ed. by Ph.A.
Lansberg (Groningen, etc.: Wolters, 19355 [19231]) Lyceum-herdrukken, 2 [reaction
by G.E. Opstelten ‘Vandalisme’, Ntg, 18 (1924), 91–99. dbnl].
Vondel toneelschrijver: Vijf spelen voor studie en opvoering uitgegeven, voorzien van
inleidingen, illustraties, regie-aanwijzingen en annotaties, ed. by Ph. Lansberg and
J.E. Veugelers (Zwolle: Tjeenk Willink, 1952) [contains Gysbreght van Aemstel;
Joseph in Dothan; Lucifer; Leeuwendalers; Adam in ballingschap].
Heijden, M.C.A. van der, De wereld is een speeltoneel: Klassieke toneelspelen van
P.C. Hoot en Vondel (Utrecht, and Antwerpen: Het Spectrum, 19754 [19681])
Spectrum van de Nederlandse letterkunde, 13, pp. 299–397.
Duyse, Florimond van, ‘498: O kersnacht schooner dan de daegen’, idem, Het oude
Nederlandsche lied: Wereldlijke en geestelijke liederen uit vroeger tijd: Teksten en melodieën, vol. 3 (Den Haag: Martinus Nijhof; Antwerpen: De Nederlandsche
Boekhandel, 1907), pp. 1931–40. dbnl
A.2 Translations
Gijsbreght van Aemstel, transl. by Kristiaan P.G. Aercke (Ottawa: Dovehouse, 1991)
Carleton Renaissance plays in translation.
Gysbreght van Aemstel. La Detruo de lia Urbo kaj lia Ekzilo Tragedio, transl. by J.R.G.
Isbrücker (Zutphen: hieme, 1932).
Vondel, Joost van den, Cinq tragédies, transl. by Jean Stals (Paris: Didier, 1969) [contains: Gisbert d’Amstel; Joseph à Dothan; Lucifer; Jephté; Adam exilé].
B.1 Studies
Albach, Ben, ‘ “De kerstnacht lagh in stucken”: Gijsbrecht van Aemstel, vs. 1175’,
Spektator, 21 (1992), 304–07.
Albach, Ben et al. (eds.), Gijsbreght van Aemstel (Amsterdam: Toneelmuseum, [1974]).
Catalogue.
Albach, Ben, ‘Tooneelontwerp voor den Gijsbreght’, Vondel-kroniek, 8 (1937), 4, 24–30.
548
jan bloemendal
Albach, Ben, ‘De vertoningen van de kloostermoorden in “Gijsbrecht van Aemstel” ’,
Spektator, 21 (1992), 328–35.
Asselbergs, W.J.M.A., ‘De priesteriguren in Gysbreght van Aemstel’, idem, Nijmeegse
colleges (Zwolle: Tjeenk Willink, 1967), pp. 201–12 [irst publ. Dietsche Warande en
Belfort, 111 (1966), 519–28; reaction by Lieven Rens, Dietsche Warande en Belfort,
112 (1967), 362–74].
Blom, Niek van der, ‘Rachel en een klassieke verwante: Over een oud Herodes-spel’,
Hermeneus, 45 (1973–1974), 269–74.
Boer, Dick E.H. den, ‘Holland in Pruisen, of Het gelijk van Vondel’, Mario Damen,
Marika Keblusek and Ingrid van der Vlis (eds.), Duizend jaar Holland [= Holland, 31
(1999)], pp. 219–33.
Boer, Dick E.H. den, ‘Hatte Vondel doch recht? Ein Versuch zur Erklärung der historischen Rätsel hinsichtlich der Gründung der Stadt “Holland” in Ostpreußen im
Jahre 1297’, Dick E.H. den Boer, Gudrun Gleba, and Rudolf Holbach (eds.), ‘…in
guete freuntlichen nachbarlichen verwantnus und hantierung…’ (Oldenburg:
Bibliotheks- und Informationssystem der Universität (BIS), 2001), pp. 205–39.
Braak, Menno ter, ‘Vondel’, idem, Verzameld werk, 4 (Amsterdam: Van Oorschot,
1951), pp. 725–33. dbnl
Braak, Menno ter, ‘Interpretaties van de Gijsbreght’, idem, Verzameld werk, 4
(Amsterdam: Van Oorschot, 1951), pp. 725–28. dbnl
Bruch, Hettel, ‘Bronnen van Vondel’s Gijsbrecht’, Amstelodamum, 29 (1932), 45–80.
Bruch, Hettel, ‘Vondels Gysbreght en Goudhoevens kroniek’, Vondel-kroniek, 8 (1937),
4, 31–33.
Carasso, Dedalo, ‘Aeneis, Divisiekroniek en Gysbreght’, Spektator, 17 (1987–1988),
397–400.
Dekker, G., ‘Vondel se vrouekarakters: Badeloch’, Tydskrif vir wetenskap en kuns, NR, 3
(1942–1943), 7–14.
Diepenbrock, Alphons, ‘1914 De reyen van den Gysbrecht’, Eduard Reeser and hea
Diepenbrock (eds.), Verzamelde geschriten van Alphons Diepenbrock (Utrecht and
Brussel: Het Spectrum, 1950), pp. 278–82. dbnl
Dudok van Heel, S.A.C., ‘Willem Bartel(omeu)sz Ruyters (1587–1639). Rembrandt’s
bisschop Gosewijn’, Amstelodamum, 66 (1979), 83–86.
Duinkerken, Anton van, ‘De priesteriguren in Gysbreght van Aemstel’, Dietsche
Warande en Belfort, 111 (1966), 519–27.
Duinkerken, Anton van, ‘Gysbreght van Aemstel’, idem, Verzamelde geschriten,
3: Historie en kritiek (Utrecht: Het Spectrum, 1962), 323–36.
Eemeren, G. van, ‘Nogmaals over schuld in Gysbreght’, Witstein and Grootes, Visies op
Vondel na 300 jaar, pp. 88–103.
Friezen, Lauren, ‘Vondel, Sudermann and Kliewer: Stretching the Invisible Canon of
Mennonite Dramatic Writing’, Mennonite Quarterly Review, 74 (2000), 403–22.
Gemert, Lia van, ‘3 januari 1638: De opening van de Amsterdamse Schouwburg:
Vondel en de Gysbreght-traditie’, M.A. Schenkeveld-van der Dussen (ed.),
Nederlandse literatuur: Een geschiedenis (Groningen: Martinus Nijhof, 1993),
pp. 230–36.
Grootes, Eddy K., ‘Toekomstbeelden in Nederlandse historiespelen uit de zeventiende
eeuw’, De zeventiende eeuw, 17 (2001), 18–28.
Hall, J.N. van, ‘De rei van Klarissen uit den “Gijsbreght” ’, De Gids, 59 (1895),
540–41.
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N.N., ‘De “Gijsbreght’ drie eeuwen geleden’, Amateurtoneel, 2 (1942), 11–12, 135–36.
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(1941), 29–30.
[Redaction], ‘Wordt “Gijsbreght” d’ondergangh van Vondel?’, Wikor, 15 (1967), 254.
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Aemstel’, Vondel-kroniek, 2 (1931), 49–56.
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Stroman, Ben, ‘Een andere, geen nieuwe “Gysbrecht” ’, Toneel, 83 (1962), 1, 22–25.
Stroman, Ben, ‘ “Gijsbreght van Aemstel” voor de huiskamer, “Jozef in Dothan” (in
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Verhoeven, Bernard, ‘De Gijsbrecht vernieuwd’, Kunst en opvoeding, 8 (1962),1, 20–21.
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Wolters, M., ‘Bittere nasmaeck verzoet’, Waag, 7 (1943), 1, 11–12.
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Wolters, M., ‘Roomsch of Europeesch?’, Waag, 8 (1944), 1, 12–13.
Worp, J.A., ‘De Nieuwe Schouwburg II. (1708–1738)’, idem, Geschiedenis van den
Amsterdamschen schouwburg 1496–1772, with additions by J.F.M. Sterck
(Amsterdam: S.L. van Looy, 1920), pp. 173–88. dbnl
10 Herkules in Trachin (1668)
A.1 Editions
WB, 10, pp. 545–607.
B.1 Studies
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 3, pp. 580–87.
11 Hierusalem verwoest (1620)
A.1 Editions
WB, 2, pp. 74–215.
A.2 Translations
Bunte, Wolfgang, Joost van den Vondel und das Judentum: ‘Hierusalem Verwoest’ (1620)
und seine antiken Quellen (Frankfurt am Main etc.: Peter Lang, 1984) Judentum und
Umwelt, 12.
B.1 Studies
Asselbergs, W.J.M.A., Hierusalem verwoest, Regnerus R. Post (ed.), Vriendengave:
Bernardus Kardinaal Alfrink aangeboden bij gelegenheid van de veertigste verjaardag
van zijn priesterwijding (Utrecht: Het Spectrum, 1964), pp. 11–18 [repr. in Asselbergs,
Nijmeegse colleges (Zwolle: Tjeenk Willink, 1967), pp. 159–67].
Bunte, Wolfgang, Joost van den Vondel und das Judentum: ‘Hierusalem Verwoest’ (1620)
und seine antiken Quellen (Frankfurt am Main etc.: Peter Lang, 1984) Judentum und
Umwelt, 12.
Gemert, Tussen de bedrijven door?, pp. 235–36.
Kamphuis, G., ‘De reien in Vondels “Hierusalem verwoest” ’, Ntg, 37 (1943), 49–61.
Konst, Fortuna, Fatum en Providentia Dei, pp. 127–35.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 1, pp. 61–96.
B.2 Performances
Dresden, Sem, Chorus tragicus: vrij naar ‘Hierusalem verwoest’ (J. van den Vondel) voor
gemengd koor, trompetten, bugels en slaginstrumenten (Amsterdam: Alsbach,
[1938]).
12 Hippolytus (1628)
A.1 Editions
WB, 3, pp. 197–254.
bibliography of vondel’s dramas
555
B.1 Studies
Freudmann, Felix R., ‘Vondel’s “Hippolytus of Rampsalige Kuyscheyd” (1629) and
Racine’s “Phèdre” (1677)’, Jules Brody (ed.), From Humanism to Classicism: Essays by
his former students in memory of Nathal Edelman. [= L’esprit créateur, 15 (1975)],
pp. 228–40.
Konst, Fortuna, Fatum en Providentia Dei, pp. 214–23.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 1, pp. 144–53.
13 Iphigenie in Tauren (1666)
A.1 Editions
WB, 10, pp. 227–306.
B.1 Studies
Notermans, Jef, ‘Joost van den Vondel’s Iigenie in Tauren uit Euripides’, De vacature,
80 (1968), 14, p. 6.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 3, pp. 432–48.
14 Jeptha (1659)
A.1 Editions
WB, 8, pp. 769–850.
Jeptha of oferbelote: Treurspel (’s-Hertogenbosch: Mariënburg, [1931]) Geert Groote
Genootschap, 351.
Jeptha of Oferbelote: Treurspel, ed. by H. Beckering Vinckers (Zaltbommel: Van de
Garde, [1904]) Nederlandsche klassieken; Gulden-editie, 1, 4.
Jeptha of Oferbelote, ed. by A.J. de Jong (Zutphen: hieme, 1941) KLP, [115].
Jeptha of Oferbelote, treurspel, ed. by Cornelis G. Kaakebeen (Zutphen: hieme,
18951[19203]) KLP, 115.
Jeptha, of oferbelote, Koning David hersteld, Faëton, of roekeloze stoutheid, ed. by Jan
W.H. Konst (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2004) Delta [rev. by A. Agnes Sneller,
Nederlandse letterkunde, 10 (2005), 70–72; Frans-Willem Korsten, TNTL, 121
(2005), 349–55].
Jeptha of oferbelote: Treurspel, ed. by Tijs Terwey, Cornelis Honigh (Groningen:
Wolters, 18952 [18901]) Bibliotheek van Nederlandsche letterkunde, 1.
Jeptha of Oferbelote: Treurspel, ed. by Tijs Terwey, Jan Koopmans, Cornelis G.N. de
Vooys, and Leendert M. van Dis (Groningen: Wolters, 195911 [18901]) Van alle
tijden.
Jeptha of Oferbelote, ed. by N.C.H. Wijngaards (Zutphen: hieme, 19762). KLP, 115
[rev. by Lieven Rens, SpL, 10 (1967–1968), 230–31].
A.2 Translations
Jephthah, transl. by Peter King, Dutch Crossing, 26 (2002), 248–302.
Vondel, Joost van den, Cinq tragédies, transl. by Jean Stals (Paris: Didier, 1969) [contains: Gisbert d’Amstel; Joseph à Dothan; Lucifer; Jephté; Adam exilé].
B.1 Studies
Akkerman, F., ‘Jeta bij Buchanan en Vondel: Van vroeg-klassiek naar laat-barok’, Joost
van den Vondel 1587–1987 (Leiden: Brill, 1987) [= TNTL 103 (1987)],
pp. [36]–[55] ].
Brom, Gerard, ‘Vondel’s Jephta’, Ntg, 2 (1908), 84. dbnl
Boshof, S.P.E., ‘Vondel: Jeta: 17de-eeuse Nederlands ongeskik op skool?’, Ons eie erf,
6 (1940), 51–53.
556
jan bloemendal
Claes, Paul, De gulden tak: Antieke mythe en moderne literatuur (Amsterdam: De
Bezige Bij, 2000), pp. 53–60.
Dael, Hans van, ‘Een toonbeeld van gehoorzaamheid: Ripa en Vondels Jeptha of oferbelote’, Leo Noordegraaf et al. (eds.), Ripa en de zeventiende-eeuwse beeldspraak
(Hilversum: Verloren, 1995) [= De zeventiende eeuw, 11 (1995)], pp. 89–96.
Duits, Henk, ‘Is Jeptha een fundamentalist?’, Willem van den Berg en Herman Pleij
(eds.), Mooi meegenomen? Over de genietbaarheid van oudere teksten uit de
Nederlandse letterkunde (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1997),
pp. 31–35.
Gérard, Albert S., ‘Structural Hierarchies: Corneille’s “Le Cid” and Vondel’s “Jephta” ’,
idem, Baroque Tragedies: Comparative Essays on Seventeenth-Century Drama (Liège:
L3 – Liège Language and Literature, 1993), pp. 125–57 [cf. ‘Baroque and the Order
of Love: Structural Parallels in Corneille’s “Le Cid” and Vondel’s “Jeptha” ’,
Neophilologus, 49 (1965), 118–31; 210–20].
Ginneken SJ, Jacq. van, ‘Vondels dramatische invoeling en de krote verzen der
Maagdenklacht in het vierde bedrijf van Jeptha’, Vondel-kroniek, 5 (1934),
166–68.
Grootes, Eddy K., ‘Het Berecht voor Jeptha en de prolegomena van Grotius’ Phoenissaevertaling’, Witstein and Grootes, Visies op Vondel na 300 jaar, pp. 236–46 [repr. in
Marijke Spies and Jeroen Jansen (eds.), Visie in veelvoud: Opstellen van prof. dr. E.K.
Grootes (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1996), pp. 141–51]. dbnl
Hattum, Jaques F. van, ‘Hofpriester of hofmeester?’, Ntg, 42 (1949), 248–49.
Jansen, Jeroen, ‘De drie deugden des toneelstijls in Vondels “Berecht” bij “Jeptha” ’,
TNTL, 114 (1998), 226–33.
Kalf, G., ‘Bronnen van Vondel’s werken: Vondel en Buchanan’, Oud Holland, 12 (1894),
26–56.
Kazemier, G. ‘Over de psychologie van Vondels Jeta’, Ntg, 33 (1939), 18–29.
Konst, Fortuna, Fatum en Providentia Dei, pp. 208–14.
Konst, Jan, ‘ “Geen kinderhaet verruckt u tot dees daet”: De schuldconceptie in Vondels
“Jeptha”, “Koning David herstelt” en “Faëton” ’, SpL, 39 (1997), 263–84.
Konst, Woedende wraakghierigheidt en vruchtelooze weeklachten, pp. 146–49.
Korsten, ‘Beschikken’, Vondel belicht, pp. 67–88; ‘Sovereign and property’, Sovereignty
as Inviolability, pp. 69–89.
Korsten, Frans-Willem, ‘Waartoe hij zijn dochter slachtte: Enargeia in een modern
retorische benadering van Vondels Jeptha’, TNTL, 114 (1999), 315–33 [reaction by
Jan W.H. Konst, ‘De motivatie van het ofer van Iis: Een reactie op de Jepthainterpretatie van F.-W. Korsten’, TNTL, 116 (2000), 153–67; Frans-Willem Korsten,
‘Een reactie op “De motivatie van het ofer van Iis” van Jan Konst’, TNTL, 116
(2000), 168–71].
Langvik-Johannessen, Zwischen Himmel und Erde, pp. 165–87.
Leeuwe, H.H.J. de, ‘Vondels “Jephtha” in Köln: Holländisch-deutscher Kulturaustausch
im 19. Jahrhundert’, Maske und Kothurn, 7 (1961), 343–57.
Leuvensteijn, Arjan van, ‘Een man, een man, een woord een moord? De Jeta uit
“Richteren” bij De Koning en Vondel’, Voortgang, 23 (2005), 107–28.
Leuvensteijn, Arjan van, and E. Wattel, Statistisch stijlonderzoek van de clausen in
Vondels Jeptha (Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit, 2001) Rapport Faculteit der Exacte
Wetenschappen, Divisie Wiskunde en Informatica, WS-562. www.neerlandistiek
.nl/02/05/
Leuvensteijn, Arjan van, ‘Woede, wanhoop en waanzin in Vondels “Jeptha” ’, Zdenka
Hrnčiřová (ed.), En niemand zo aardig als zij … (Praag: Univerzita Karlova v Praze,
Filozoická fakulta, 2001), pp. 43–51.
Molkenboer, B.H., ‘Vondels vreemde spelling “Jeptha” ’, Vondel-kroniek, 12 (1941),
115–16.
Notermans, Jef, ‘Jeptha of Oferbelote’, De Vacature, 79 (1967), 7, 4.
bibliography of vondel’s dramas
557
Pheifer, R.H., ‘Die “staet” en gesteltenis van die Hofmeester in Vondel se “Jeptha” ’,
Skanse teen die tyd: Bundel aangebied aan W.E.G. Louw by geleentheid van sy vyfen-sestigste verjaardag op 31 Mei 1978 (Kaapstad: Tafelberg, 1978), pp. 63–71.
Schenkeveld-van der Dussen, Riet, Vondel en ’t vrouwelijke dier: Vondels visie op vrouwen en enkele aspecten van de receptie daarvan (Utrecht: Universiteit Utrecht,
Faculteit der Letteren, 2002).
Simons, Leo, Studies en Lezingen: Vondel’s Jeptha (Amsterdam: Maatschappij voor
goede en goedkoope lectuur, [1912]).
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 2, pp. 240–379.
Sneller, A. Agnes, ‘De marges centraal: Vondels Jeptha in genderperspectief ’, Tydskrif
vir Nederlands en Afrikaans, 5 (1998), 48–60. http://academic.sun.ac.za/afrndl/tna/
sneller98.html.
B.2 Performances
Barnard, Benno, Jeptha of Semitische liefdes (Amsterdam: International heatre & Film
Books, 1999).
Stronks, Els, ‘Jephta als eigentijdse vader van een eigentijdse dochter: Benno Barnards
bewerking van Vondels “Jeptha of oferbelote” ’, Nederlandse letterkunde, 4 (1999),
67–77.
15 Joseph in Dothan (1640)
A.1 Editions
WB, 4, pp. 71–147.
Jozef in Dothan, ed. by Stefanie Meijer (Amsterdam: Het Toneel Speelt, 1996).
Joseph in Dothan: Treurspel, ed. by C.J.M. Nienaber (Pretoria: Van Schaik, 1969) Vondel
vir Suid-Afrika, 4.
Joseph in Dothan: Treurspel, ed. by Leendert Strengholt (Zwolle: Tjeenk Willink, 19785
[19621]) Klassieken uit de Nederlandse letterkunde, 15.
Joseph in Dothan: Treurspel, ed. by C.G.N. de Vooys, L.J.J. Olivier (Amsterdam:
Meulenhof, 1949) Meulenhof ’s bibliotheek van Nederlandsche schrijvers, 27.
Joseph in Dothan: Treurspel, ed. by J.D.P. Warners and F.L. Zwaan (Zutphen: hieme,
[1968]) KLP, 33 [rev. by Lieven Rens, SpL, 12 (1969–1970), 309–10].
Jozetrilogie, ed. by Laurens Spoor and heater van het Oosten (Arnhem: heater van
het Oosten, 1996).
Vondel toneelschrijver: Vijf spelen voor studie en opvoering uitgegeven, voorzien van
inleidingen, illustraties, regie-aanwijzingen en annotaties, ed. by Ph. Lansberg and
J.E. Veugelers (Zwolle: Tjeenk Willink, 1952) [contains Gysbreght van Aemstel;
Joseph in Dothan; Lucifer; Leeuwendalers; Adam in ballingschap].
Heijden, M.C.A. van der, De wereld is een speeltoneel: Klassieke toneelspelen van P.C.
Hoot en Vondel (Utrecht and Antwerpen: Het Spectrum, 19754 [19681]) Spectrum
van de Nederlandse letterkunde, 13, pp. 299–397.
Riet, Rob van, C.G.L. Apeldoorn et al. (eds.), Klassiek toneel uit de 17e eeuw (Utrecht
and Antwerpen: Het Spectrum, 1985) De Nederlandse letterkunde, 6.
A.2 Translations
Vondel, Joost van den, Cinq tragédies, transl. Jean Stals (Paris: Didier, 1969) [contains:
Gisbert d’Amstel; Joseph à Dothan; Lucifer; Jephté; Adam exilé].
B.1 Studies
Antonissen, Rob, ‘Over Vondels “Joseph in Dothan” ’, Peter K. King and P.F. Vincent
(eds.), European Context: Studies in the History and Literature of the Netherlands
558
jan bloemendal
presented to heodoor Weevers (Cambridge: he Modern Humanities Research
Association, 1971) Publications of the MHRA, pp. 132–50 [repr. in Antonissen,
Verkenning en kritiek: Studies en referate, ingeleî deur W.F. Jonckheere (Pretoria:
Hollandsche Afrikaanse Uitgeversmaatschappij, 1979), pp. 48–60; 187–89].
Braakhuis, A.P, ‘Vijjambische versregels in Joseph in Dothan’, Ntg, 58 (1965), 170.
Brachin, Pierre, ‘Vondel in het Franse pak: Twee moderne Franse interpretaties
van “Jozef in Dothan” ’, Witstein and Grootes, Visies op Vondel na 300 jaar, pp.
319–26.
Eerenbeemt, Ben van den, ‘Joseph in Dothan’, Vondel-kroniek, 10 (1939), 211–21.
Haeringen, C.B. van, ‘Het verhaal van een drukfout’, Ntg, 75 (1982), 34–35.
Heeroma, K., ‘De spotkoning bij Vondel’, Ntg, 30 (1936), 10–14 [reactions by Marie
Ramondt, ‘Josephs bespotting door de broeders bij Vondel’, Ntg, 37 (1943), 164–68;
J.J. Mak, ‘Het thema van de spotkoning’, Ntg, 40 (1947), 208–10; Molkenboer, Vondelkroniek, 7 (1936), 92].
Korpershoek, A.M., ‘De betekenis van de rei in Joseph in Dothan’, Vondel-kroniek, 8
(1937), 2, 7–12 [reaction by Maximilianus, Vondel-kroniek, 8 (1937), 3, 42].
Langvik-Johannessen, Zwischen Himmel und Erde, pp. 133–50.
Meijer, Stefanie, ‘ “O pest, o huisverdriet!” Jozef en zijn broers in Dothan’, Vooys, 15
(1997), 42–44.
Michels, L.C., ‘Mijn wespen’, Ntg, 41 (1948), 77–80.
Ornée, W.A., ‘Ruben in Dothan’, G.R.W. Dibbets and P.W.M. Wackers (eds.), Wat
duikers vent is dit! Opstellen voor W.M.H. Hummelen (Wijhe: Quarto, 1989),
pp. 236–53.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, vol. 1, pp. 303–54.
Smit, Wisse A.P., ‘Judas en Ruben in Vondels “Joseph in Dothan” ’, Ntg, 41 (1948),
97–107.
Vooys, C.G.N. de, ‘Wespen = gespen?’, Ntg, 24 (1930), 85–86. dbnl
B.2 Performances
Broer, Andries L., ‘Bijbels toneel’, Waagschaal, 15 (1959–1960), 275.
Gomperts, H.A., ‘[Over de toneelopvoering van Joost van den Vondels “Joseph in
Dothan” (25.1.’60)]’, idem, De eend op zolder: Toneelkritieken uit de jaren 1952–1965
(Klassiek en romantisch repertoire) (Amsterdam: Van Oorschot, 1970), pp. 145–50.
Kunz, Trudy, ‘Aangeraakt door Vondel: heaterman Hans Croiset’, Humanist, 51
(1996), 5, 10–14.
Molkenboer, B.H., ‘Tooneel – Joseph in Dothan’, Vondel-kroniek, 1 (1930), 139.
Molkenboer, B.H., ‘Opvoering van Joseph in Dothan’, Vondel-kroniek, 7 (1936),
141–42.
Nijhof, Jos, ‘heater: Een “Vondel-revival” met een somber perspectief ’, Ons Erfdeel, 40
(1997), 131–33. dbnl
N.N., ‘Joseph in Dothan’, Vondel-kroniek, 4 (1933), 188–89.
Puymbrouck, H. van, ‘Tooneel’, Tijdschrit van de Vlaams-Duitse Arbeidsgemeenschap,
(1943–1944), 517–18.
Stroman, Ben, ‘ ”Gijsbreght van Aemstel” voor de huiskamer, “Jozef in Dothan” (in
twee versies) op het toneel’, Toneel, 81 (1960, 15–17.
16 Joseph in Egypten (1640)
A.1 Editions
WB, 4, pp. 148–208.
Joseph in Egypten: Treurspel (Schiedam: Roelants, 1857).
Joseph in Egypten, ed. by G.Ch. Dupuis and D. F. Kouwenhoven (Gorinchem:
Noorduijn, 1962).
bibliography of vondel’s dramas
559
Jozetrilogie, ed. by Laurens Spoor and heater van het Oosten (Arnhem: heater van
het Oosten, 1996).
B.1 Studies
Alphenaar, Carel, ‘Vondel, zot, geil en geestig: Een bewerking van Jozef in Egypte’,
Bzzletin, 31, no. 281 (March, 2002), 60–70.
Duinkerken, Anton van, ‘Joseph in Egypten’, idem, Verzamelde geschriten, 3: Historie
en kritiek (Utrecht etc.: Het Spectrum, 1962), pp. 343–49 [irst publ. De Gids, 124
(1961), 114–20].
Langvik-Johannessen, Zwischen Himmel und Erde, pp. 133–50.
N.N., ‘[Over: Vondel, Joost van den. Jozeph in Egypten. Treurspel]’, Scène, 32 (1990–
1991), 23.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 1, pp. 355–85.
Steen, J. van der, ‘Vondels Jempsar en de slang’, Ntg, 52 (1959), 326–32.
B.2 Performances
Arian, Max, ‘T’neel’, Forum Academicum, 15 (1961–1962), 6, 7.
Gomperts, H.A., ‘[Over de toneelopvoering van Joost van den Vondels “Joseph in
Egypten” (25.1.’60)]’, idem, De eend op zolder: Toneelkritieken uit de jaren 1952–1965
(Klassiek en romantisch repertoire) (Amsterdam: Van Oorschot, 1970), pp. 150–53.
Voogd, G.J. de, ‘Joost van den Vondels “Joseph in Egypten” ’, Toneel, 82 (1961), 69–70.
17 Koning David herstelt (1660)
A.1 Editions
WB, 9, pp. 102–72.
Jeptha, of oferbelote, Koning David hersteld, Faëton, of roekeloze stoutheid, ed. by Jan
W.H. Konst (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2004) Delta [rev. by A. Agnes Sneller,
Nederlandse letterkunde, 10 (2005), 70–72; Frans-Willem Korsten, TNTL, 121
(2005), 349–55].
B.1 Studies
Konst, Fortuna, Fatum en Providentia Dei, pp. 223–31.
Konst, Jan, ‘ “Geen kinderhaet verruckt u tot dees daet”: De schuldconceptie in Vondels
“Jeptha”, “Koning David herstelt” en “Faëton” ’, SpL, 39 (1997), 263–84.
Korsten, ‘Weerstreven’, Vondel belicht, pp. 169–91; ‘Sovereignty as resistance’,
Soevereignty as Inviolability, pp. 151–71.
Langvik-Johannessen, Het treurspel spant de kroon, pp. 169–223.
Langvik-Johannessen, Zwischen Himmel und Erde, pp. 209–26.
Michels, L.C., ‘Twee gevallen van “dus lang” ’, Ntg, 42 (1949), 212.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 3, pp. 59–111.
18 Koning David in ballingschap (1660)
A.1 Editions
WB, 9, pp. 23–101.
Koning David in Ballingschap, ed. by J. van Vloten (Schiedam: Roelants, 18822 [18.1]
KLP, 114.
David in ballingschap: Treurspel in vijf bedrijven, ed. (‘for Hageveld’s Tooneel’) by
G. Kuijs ([Noordwijk: Flora, ca. 1920]).
560
jan bloemendal
B.1 Studies
Langvik-Johannessen, Het treurspel spant de kroon, pp. 169–223.
Langvik-Johannessen, Zwischen Himmel und Erde, pp. 209–226.
Notermans, Jef, ‘Koning David in Ballingschap: Treurspel’, De Vacature 79 (1967), 15,
4.
Michels, L.C., ‘O poëzie, hoe lielijk is uw tred!’, idem, Filologische opstellen, vol. 3:
Stofen uit Vondels werk (Zwolle: Tjeenk Willink, 1961), pp. 317–19; 383–84 [=
Vondel-kroniek, 10 (1939), 186–88].
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 3, pp. 9–58.
19 Koning Edipus (1660)
A.1 Editions
WB, 8, pp. 851–940.
B.1 Studies
Konst, Fortuna, Fatum en Providentia Dei, pp. 214–23.
Notermans, Jef, ‘Koning Edipus: Uit Sofokles Treurspel’, De Vacature 79 (1967),
11, 4.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 2, pp. 380–93.
20 Leeuwendalers (1647)
A.1 Editions
WB, 5, pp. 261–353.
Leeuwendalers: Lantspel: Gedrukt voor de Amsterdamsche rederijkerskamer Achilles
(Amsterdam: Noordendorp, 1853).
Leeuwendalers, ed. by Carel Alphenaar and Camiel Hamans (Hilversum: KRO,
1987).
Leeuwendalers, ed. by H. Beckering Vinckers (Zaltbommel: Van de Garde, [1903])
Nederlandsche Klassieken; Gulden-editie, 1, 3.
Leeuwendalers, ed. by Foeke Buitenrust Hettema and Johannes B. Schepers (Zwolle:
Tjeenk Willink, 19242 [18891]) Zwolsche herdrukken, 2, 5.
Leeuwendalers. Lantspel, ed. by Anton van Duinkerken (Utrecht, Brussel: Het
Spectrum, 1948) [rev. by C.G.N. de Vooys, Ntg, 41 (1948), 229–30; Dingeman van
der Stoep, Ontmoeting, 3 (1948–1949), 381].
Leeuwendalers. Een Vondelcommentaar, Marcel Otten (Amsterdam: Het Toneel Speelt,
1998) Het Toneel Speelt, 5.
De Leewendalers, ed. by Jacob Prinsen, J.Lzn (Amsterdam: Meulenhof, 1919)
Meulenhof ’s bibliotheek van Nederlandsche schrijvers, 4.
De Leeuwendalers, ed. by homas H. Le Roux et al. (Pretoria: De Bussy; Kaapstad:
Dusseau, 1934) Afrikaanse Vondel-uitgawe.
Leeuwendalers, ed. by Frederik A. Stoett (Zutphen: hieme, 1922/19515 [18921]) KLP,
106.
Leeuwendalers: Lantspel, ed. by Eelco Verwijs, Jacob Verdam, Gerrit A. Nauta
(Leeuwarden: Suringar, 18853 [18641; Amsterdam: Versluys, 19164]) Nederlandsche
klassieken, 1.
Leeuwendalers: Lantspel, 1648, ed. by J. van Vloten (Schiedam: Roelants, 18771 [ca.
18802])
Vondel’s Gijsbreght van Aemstel en Leeuwendalers in verkorten vorm, ed. by Ph.A.
Lansberg (Groningen, etc.: Wolters, 19396 [19231]) Lyceum-herdrukken, 2 [reaction
by G.E. Opstelten, ‘Vandalisme’, Ntg, 18 (1924), 91–99. dbnl].
bibliography of vondel’s dramas
561
Vondels ‘Leeuwendalers’: Nadere wijziging, ter verduidelijking en bekorting, bij de
hedendaagsche uitvoering door Rederijkkamers of andere gezelschappen, benevens een
volledig overzicht van de tooneelschikking, de kostumeering enz., gelijk een en ander bij
de voorstellingen op den Stadsschouwburg te Amsterdam in-acht-genomen is, ed. by
J.A. Alberdingk hijm (Amsterdam: Van Langenhuysen, 1879).
Vondel toneelschrijver: Vijf spelen voor studie en opvoering uitgegeven, voorzien van
inleidingen, illustraties, regie-aanwijzingen en annotaties, ed. by Ph. Lansberg and
J.E. Veugelers (Zwolle: Tjeenk Willink, 1952) [contains Gysbreght van Aemstel;
Joseph in Dothan; Lucifer; Leeuwendalers; Adam in ballingschap].
B.1 Studies
A.G., ‘Vondel en het motto van de Leeuwendalers’, Vondel-kroniek, 3 (1932), 126.
Alberdingk hijm, J.A., ‘Over Vondel als dramatiesch dichter, en meer bizonder over
zijn “Leeuwendalers” ’, De Gids, 43 (1879), 311–44. dbnl
Algra, A. and H. Algra, ‘7. De wegh tot rust en pais en vrede’, idem, Dispereert niet:
Twintig eeuwen historie van de Nederlanden, vol. 2 (Franeker: T. Weever, 19788),
pp. 120–27. dbnl
Bont, A.P. de, ‘Voort, voortmeer, rechtevoort’, TNTL, 67 (1950), 223–25.
Brink, Jan ten, ‘Het Lantspel van Joost van den Vondel’, De Gids, 28 (1864), 102–36.
dbnl
Duinkerken, Anton van, ‘Leeuwendalers’, idem, Verzamelde geschriten, 3: Historie en
kritiek (Utrecht: Het Spectrum, 1962), pp. 356–407.
Duinkerken, Anton van, ‘Vondel en Michiel le Blon: (de opdracht van Leeuwendalers)’,
De Gids, 111 (1948), 55–60.
Geerts, A., ‘Het motto van de Leeuwendalers: PAX OPTIMA RERUM’, Vondel-kroniek,
5 (1934), 181–84.
Hinck, Walter, ‘Gryphius und die italienische Komödie: Untersuchung zum
“Horribilicribrifax” ’, Germanisch-romanische Monatsschrit, 13 [= 44] (1963), 120–
46 (pp. 125–26).
King, Peter, Concordances of the Works of J. van den Vondel, vol. 2: Leeuwendalers
(Lantspel) (Göppingen: Kümmerle Verlag, 1982) Göpinger Arbeiten zur
Germanistik, 349, 2.
King, Peter, ‘Vondel en de Emblematiek’, H. Vekeman and H. Van Ufelen (eds.), Jetzt
kehr ich and den Rhein: Een opstellenbundel bij Vondels 400ste geboortedag / Eine
Aufsatzsammlung zu Vondels 400stem Geburtstag (Köln: Runge, 1987), pp. 174–93.
Knippenberg, H.H., ‘Blinde Wouter en de wildeman in Vondel’s Leeuwendalers’, Ntg,
42 (1949), 218 [reaction by Marie Ramondt, ‘Vondel, Mucedorus en Pieter Breughel’,
Ntg, 43 (1950), 10–12].
Korsten, ‘Belichamen’, Vondel belicht, pp. 113–43; ‘Mixed cultural bodies and sovereign
possibilities’, Sovereignty as Inviolability, pp. 110–31.
Korsten, Frans-Willem, ‘Geen paniek! Het klassieke als redelijk alternatief in Joost van
den Vondels Leeuwendalers uit 1647’, Mirjam de Baar, Jan Bloemendal and A. Agnes
Sneller (eds.), Bronnen van inpiratie: Receptie van de klassieken in de Nederlandse
literatuur en kunst van de Renaissance (Hilversum: Verloren, 2007) [= De zeventiende eeuw, 23 (2007)], pp. 119–32.
Kripsyn, Egbert, ‘Vondel’s “Leeuwendalers” as a source of Gryphius’ “Horribilicribrifax”
and “Gelibte Dornrose” ’, Neophilologus, 45 (1961), 134–44.
Lunding, Erik, ‘Assimilierung und Eigenschöpfung in den Lustspielen des Andreas
Gryphius’, Albert Fuchs and Helmut Motekat (eds.), Stofe, Formen, Strukturen:
Studien zur deutschen Literatur; von [für] Hans Heinrich Borcherdt zum 75.
Geburtstag 14. August 1962 (München: Hüber, 1962), pp. 80–96.
Meeus, Hubert, ‘Vondel viert vrede met polderpastorale’, Jaarboek Provinciale
Commissie Geschiedenis en Volkskunde, 9 (1996–1998 [1999]), 302–08.
562
jan bloemendal
Michels, L.C., ‘Getemde Mars’, idem, Filologische opstellen, vol. 4: Stofen van verscheiden aard, registers (Zwolle: Tjeenk Willink, 1964), pp. 161–73.
Molkenboer, B.H, ‘Tooneel – De Leeuwendalers’, Vondel-kroniek, 1 (1930), 138–39.
N.N., ‘De Leeuwendalers te Antwerpen’, Vondel-kroniek, 7 (1936), 142–43.
Peeters, Leopold, ‘Mogelijke achtergronden van Vondels Wildeman’, Ntg, 53 (1960),
152–58.
Porteman, Karel, ‘Vondels vermakelijke Leeuwendalers (1648–1998)’, Verslagen en
mededelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde,
110 (2000), 95–105.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 1, pp. 446–95.
Strengholt, Leendert, ‘Leeuwendalers, r. 1191–94’, Ntg, 73 (1980), 18–20.
Verkuyl, P.E.L., ‘De staertstar boven Leeuwendael’, Ntg, 66 (1973), 374–76.
Vonhof, Henk J.L., ‘Vondel, de beroemde niet-gekende’, idem, Vind ik wat ik vond?
(Amsterdam: Prometheus, 1997), pp. 162–68.
Warners, J.D.P., ‘Aantekeningen bij Vondels Wildeman’, Ntg, 48 (1955), 129–38.
B.2 Performances
Alberdingk hijm, J.A., Vondels ‘Leeuwendalers’: Nadere wijziging, ter verduidelijking
en bekorting, bij de hedendaagsche uitvoering door rederijkerskamers […]
(Amsterdam: Van Langenhuysen, 1879).
Van Vondels Leeuwendalers: Lantspel (s.l.: s.n.: [1930]).
Jonckers-Tiggers, Bertha, Rei uit Vondel’s ‘Leeuwendalers’ (s.l.: s.n, s.a.).
N.N., ‘Leeuwendalers’, Vondel-kroniek, 6 (1935), 186.
N.N. ‘Facelit voor Vondel’, Nl, 1 (1998), 2, 8.
Pollmann, Jop, ‘Muziek bij Vondel’s “De Leeuwendalers” ’, Vondel-kroniek, 1 (1930),
184–85.
Roosbroeck, R. van, ‘Vondel tusschen Noord en Zuid’, Westland (Oude God), 1 (1942–
1943), 44–54; 112–19.
21 Lucifer (1654)
A.1 Editions
WB, 5, pp. 601–96.
Lucifer: Treurspel (Amsterdam: L.J. Veen, s.a.).
Lucifer (Antwerpen: De Nederlandsche Boekhandel, [1975]7) [19778, ed. by C. de
Baere] Nederlandse keurboeken voor het secundair onderwijs, 20.
Lucifer: Treurspel (Brugge: Gaillard, 1869).
Lucifer (Doetinchem: Misset, 1885) Bibliotheek van Nederlandsche klassieken, 4.
Lucifer (Haarlem: St. Jacobs-Godshuis, 1897).
Lucifer: Treurspel (’s-Hertogenbosch: Mariënburg, [ca. 1927]) Geert Groote
Genootschap, 207.
Vondels meesterstuk Lucifer: Treurspel in vijf bedrijven (Kerkrade: Alberts, [ca. 1910]).
Lucifer: Reien ([Maastricht: Kweekschool St. Vincentius], s.a.).
Lucifer: Treurspel in vijf bedrijven (1653) (Zonhoven: Joosten, [1923]) Uitgaven voor
schoolgebruik, 1.
Lucifer: Treurspel, ed. by W.J.M.A. Asselbergs (Zwolle: Tjeenk Willink, 19734 [19541])
Klassieken Nederlandse letterkunde, 1 [rev. by C.A. Zaalberg, Levende talen, (1954),
449; Mieke B. Smits-Veldt, Spektator, 4 (1974–1975), 157–58].
Lucifer: Treurspel, ed. by J. Bergsma (Zutphen: hieme, [ca. 19609] [ca. 19171])
KLP, 8.
Lucifer, ed. by N.A. Cramer and B.H. Molkenboer (Zwolle: Tjeenk Willink, 19225
[18911]) Zwolse drukken en herdrukken, 3–4.
Lucifer, ed. by Eduardus F. van de Bilt (’s-Hertogenbosch: Malmberg, [1928])
Malmberg’s Nederlandse schoolbibliotheek, 4.
bibliography of vondel’s dramas
563
Lucifer, ed. by Marcel Brauns (Brugge etc.: De Kinkhoren etc., 1945) Opbouwen A,
Tekstuitgaven: Reeks 6, 43 [reaction by Em. Janssen, ‘Vondel redivivus’, Streven, 12
(1945), 267–72].
Lucifer: Treurspel. 1654: Schooluitgave, ed. by P. Busschaert (Brugge: Verbeke-Loys,
1879).
Lucifer: praecipitemque immani turbine adegit, with prints ater paintings by H.F. de
Grijs (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1916).
Lucifer: Treurspel, ed. by A.P. Grové (Pretoria: Van Schaik, 1968) Vondel vir SuidAfrika, 3.
Lucifer, ed. by H.W.E. Moller (Tilburg: De Kempen, 19445 [Amsterdam: Van der Vecht,
[1910]1]) Uit Nederlands woordkunst, 1.
Lucifer, ed. by C. Neutjens (Deurne, Antwerpen: Plantyn, [1982]9 [19641]).
Lucifer, ed. by Guus Rekers (Amsterdam: Publiekstheater, [1979]) Toneelserie
Publiekstheater, 29.
Lucifer: Treurspel, ed. by Lieven Rens (Den Haag: Martinus Nijhof; Culemborg: Tjeenk
Willink/Noorduijn, 1979) Klassieken Nederlandse letterkunde [rev. by Peter King,
Spektator, 9 (1979–1980), 472–73].
Lucifer, ed. by homas H. Le Roux and Johannes J. Groeneweg (Pretoria: De Bussy,
19322 [19251]) Afrikaanse Vondel-uitgawe.
Lucifer: Treurspel, ed. by Johannes M. Schrant (Dordrecht: Lagerwey, 1856).
Lucifer: Treurspel in vijf bedrijven, ed. by Gustaaf Segers (Ninove: Jacobs, 1889) Onze
nationale letterkunde, 6.
Lucifer, ed. by Eduard A. Serrarens (’s-Hertogenbosch: Malmberg, 19706) Malmbergs
Nederlandse schoolbibliotheek.
Lucifer, ed. by Leo Simons (Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek, 19366 [19101]).
Lucifer: J. van Vondel’s treurspel, ed. by Garmt Stuiveling (Utrecht: De Roos, 1954)
Stichting ‘De Roos’, 29.
Lucifer, ed. by G. Velderman (Deventer: Van Sigtenhorst, [1969]).
Vondels meesterstuk Lucifer: treurspel in vijf bedrijven, ed. by Achilles M. Verstraeten,
Jozef Salsmans S.J., Joris C.M.C. Noë (Antwerpen etc.: Standaard-Boekhandel,
197628 [Gent: Leliaert, 18841]).
Lucifer: Treurspel, en Toneelschilt, of Pleitrede voor het toneelrecht, ed. by W.F. van Vliet,
Jr (Beverwijk: Slotboom, 1883).
Lucifer, ed. by J. van Vloten (Schiedam: Roelants, 1875) KLP, 8.
Lucifer: Treurspel, ed. by Nicolaas C.H. Wijngaards (Zutphen: hieme, [1975]) KLP, 8
[rev. by Lieven R.F. Rens, SpL, 17 (1975), 217–20; Gustaaf van Eemeren, Leuvense
bijdragen, 65 (1976), 548–51].
Lucifer, Adam in ballingschap, of Aller treurspelen treurspel, Noah, of Ondergang der
eerste wereld, ed. by Riet Schenkeveld-van der Dussen (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker,
2004) Delta [rev. by A. Agnes Sneller, Nederlandse letterkunde, 10 (2005), 70–72;
Frans-Willem Korsten, TNTL, 121 (2005), 349–55].
Drie treurspelen: Lucifer, Gysbreght van Aemstel, Maria Stuart, ed. by by Jacques
F.J. Heremans (Gent: Hoste, 1858).
Viertal treurspelen (’s-Gravenhage: Fuhrli, 1851) [contains Lucifer; Adam in ballingschap; Palamedes; Gijsbrecht van Aemstel].
Vier treurspelen van J. van Vondel, ed. by Jacques F.J. Heremans (Amsterdam: Van
Kesteren, 18552 [Gent: Hoste, 18531]) [contains Lucifer; Gysbrecht van Aemstel;
Palamedes: Maria Stuart].
Vondels Lucifer: Bewerkt ter opvoering in het Seminarie de St. Michiels-Gestel ([Tilburg:
Bergmans], s.a.).
Vondel’s Lucifer en Adam in ballingschap, in verkorten vorm, ed. by Ph.A. Lansberg
(Groningen, etc.: Wolters, 19312 [19231]) Lyceum-herdrukken, Reeks A, 3 [reaction
by G.E. Opstelten ‘Vandalisme’, Ntg, 18 (1924), 91–99. dbnl].
Vondel toneelschrijver: Vijf spelen voor studie en opvoering uitgegeven, voorzien van
inleidingen, illustraties, regie-aanwijzingen en annotaties, ed. by Ph. Lansberg and
564
jan bloemendal
J.E. Veugelers (Zwolle: Tjeenk Willink, 1952) [contains Gysbreght van Aemstel;
Joseph in Dothan; Lucifer; Leeuwendalers; Adam in ballingschap].
Vondels trilogie: Lucifer, Adam in ballingschap, Noah, ed. by Cyriel Verschaeve (Brugge:
Zeemeeuw, 1941).
A.2 Translations
Lucifer, transl. by Noel Clark. (Bath: Absolute Press, 1990) Absolute Classics [rev.
by Beert C. Verstraete, Canadian Journal of Netherlandic Studies, 12 (1991),
2, 50].
Lucifer, transl. by Jehangir P.R. Mody, New Review (Calcutta), 3 (1936), 40–45, 139–52,
244–56, 353–61, 455–63, 539–53 (repr. Mody, Vondel and Milton (Bombay: J&R
Cooper, 1942) [rev. Vondel-kroniek, 7 (1936), 133–35].
Lucifer; transl. by W. Kirkconnell, he Celestial Cycle: he heme of Paradise Lost in
World Literature, with Translations of the Major Analogues (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1954), pp. 361–421.
Lucifer, transl. by Leonard Charles van Noppen, ill. John Aerts (London and New York:
Continental Publishing Company, 1898) (repr. New York: s.n., 1909) (Holland
Society Art Edition, 443; New York: Greensboro, 1917) [rev. by Gerard Kalf, De
Gids, 62 (1898), 512–14].
Vondel, Joost van den, Cinq tragédies, transl. by Jean Stals (Paris: Didier, 1969) [contains: Gisbert d’Amstel; Joseph à Dothan; Lucifer; Jephté; Adam exilé].
Lucifer: Tragédie en cinque actes, transl. by Charles Simond (= Paul-Adolph van
Cleemputte) (Paris: Gautier, [1889]) Nouvelle bibliothèque populaire, 126.
Lucifer: Trauerspiel in fünf Akten, transl. by Ferdinand Grimmelt (Münster: Russell,
1868) Joost van den Vondel’s Werke, 1.
Lucifer: Ein Trauerspiel, transl. by Max Werner Quadt (Aachen: Jacobi, 1868).
Luzifer: Trauerspiel, transl. by Marie von Seidewitz, postscript by Albert Verwey
(Leipzig: Insel-Verlag, [1912]).
Lucifer: Trauerspiel aus dem Jahre 1654. trans by G.H. de Wilde (Leipzig: Brockhaus,
1869).
Lucifer (1654). En tragedie, transl. by Albert Lange Flilet (Oslo: Aschehoug, 1987).
Lucifero. Tragedia in cinque atti, transl. by L. Calvo and P. Antonini (Catania: Edizioni
Paoline, 1961).
Lucifero, transl. by Jean Robaey (Milano: Ariele, 1996) Letterature Nederlandese.
Lucyfer, transl. by Piotr Oczko [opracowanie redakcyjne Izabella Sariusz-Skapska]
(Kraków: Taiwpn Universitas, 2002).
Lucifer: szomorújáték ẗ felvonásban, transl. by Nagy Zsigmond (Budapest: FranklinTársulat, 1913).
A.3 Reactions
Vos, Jan, ‘Titelplaat voor J. v. Vondels Treurspel van Lucifer’, idem, Alle de gedichten
(Amsterdam: Jacob Lescailje, 1662), pp. 283–84. dbnl
B.1 Studies
Alphen, Ernst J. van, ‘Eendracht maakt macht: Het geval van Vondels Lucifer’,
idem, Bang voor schennis? Inleiding in de ideologiekritiek (Utrecht: HES Uitgevers,
1987), pp. 77–95 [rev. by J. Schaap, Tijdschrit voor vrouwenstudies, 8 (1987), 506].
Arian, Max, ‘Een ongelovige Lucifer’, Roodkoper, 6 (2001), 34–35.
Bax, Marce, ‘De engel van de wanhoop: De argumentatie rond het opstandsmotief in
Vondels “Lucifer” ’, Ntg, 84 (1991), 97–117.
Bekker, Hugo, ‘he Religio-Philosophical Orientations of Vondel’s “Lucifer”, Milton’s
“Paradise lost” and Grotius’ “Adamus exul” ’, Neophilologus, 44 (1960), 234–44.
bibliography of vondel’s dramas
565
Bekker, Hugo, ‘Vondel’s “Lucifer”: An Inquiry into its Structure’, Modern Language
Review, 59 (1964), 425–34.
Bemmel, H.Chr. van, ‘ “De redelycke ziel komt uit zyn troni zwieren”: De beschrijving
van het eerste mensenpaar in Vondels “Lucifer” ’, Willem van den Berg and Herman
Pleij (eds.), Mooi meegenomen? Over de genietbaarheid van oudere teksten uit de
Nederlandse letterkunde (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1997),
pp. 15–19.
Biessen, Leon, ‘Vondels Lucifer en René Girard’, Streven, 57 (1989–1990), 423–32.
Braak, Menno ter, ‘Vondel’, idem, Verzameld werk, 4 (1951), pp. 725–33. dbnl
Brom, Gerard, ‘X: Toneeldichter’, idem, Vondels geloof, pp. 282–301. dbnl
Brom, Gerard, ‘Vondel en bijbel’, Ntg, 48 (1955), 289.
Brouwers, Jan Willem, and Achilles M. Verstraeten, SJ, ‘Vondels Meesterstuk: Lucifer’,
Het Belfort, 1 (1886), 218–29. dbnl
Buning, Tjaarda, ‘Vondel: Lucifer’, Ons eie boek, 9 (1943), 87–90.
Dirks, J., ‘David Ruarus’ Ondergang’, Vondel-kroniek, 1 (1930), 125–37.
Donker, Anthonie, Het schip dat gij bouwen zult: Verbeeldingen van zondvloed en ark
(Amsterdam: Querido, 1959) [pp. 97–109 irst publ. Nieuwe stem, 14 (1959),
447–56].
Gillet, Jos. E., ’De groei van Vondels stukken’, TNTL, 33 (1914), 163–90. dbnl
Haze, Tine, ‘Lucifer in 2001’, Bzzletin, 31, no. 281 (March, 2002), 56–59.
Hughes, Meritt Y., ‘Satan and the “Myth” of the Tyrant’, Millar MacLure and F.W. Watt
(eds.), Essays in English Literature from the Renaissance to the Victorian Age presented
to A.S.P. Woodhouse (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1964), pp. 125–48.
Jonckbloet, W.J.A., ‘Vondel’s Lucifer eene politieke allegorie’, Overijsselschen Almanak,
15 (1850), 295–343.
Kannemeyer, J.C., ‘Kort begrip van Vondel se “Lucifer” ’, idem, Die bevestigende vlam:
Opstelle en lesings oor die Nederlandse letterkunde (Kaapstad etc.: Human &
Rousseau, 1989), pp. 69–80.
Kannemeyer, J.C., ‘Die tragiese held in die dramas van Vondel’, idem, Die bevestigende
vlam: Opstelle en lesings oor die Nederlandse letterkunde (Kaapstad etc.: Human &
Rousseau, 1989), pp. 81–94 [reactions by Etienne C. Britz, Verrigtinge van die vyfde
driejaarlikse neerlandistiekkongres, aangebied deur die Departement Afrikaans en
Nederlands van die Universiteit van Stellenbosch op 25–27 Januarie 1989, pp. 1–14
(repr. Op die wyse van die taal: Huldigingsbundel ter geleentheid van prof. Merwe
Scholz se 65ste verjaardag, 8 Julie 1989)].
Kazemier, G., ‘Vondel’s Lucifer en Luther’, Vondel-kroniek, 7 (1936), 49–65.
Kazemier, G., ‘Oedipus, Lucifer, Keesje met zijn regenten’, TNTL, 90 (1974), 1–21.
Kazemier, G., ‘Vondels Lucifer in opstand tegen Gods almacht’, G.J. ten Veldhuis,
G. Kazemier, M.D.E. de Leve et al., Mens en wereld in het drama (Den Haag: Servire,
1949) Lezingen gehouden voor de School voor Taal- en Letterkunde te ’s-Gravenhage, 1947/48, pp. 19–36.
Kazemier, G., ‘Vondels Lucifer en de leer van de praedestinatie’, Ntg, 30 (1936), 184–87
[repr. H.A. Wage et al. (eds.), Keuze uit het werk van Dr. G. Kazemier (Wassenaar:
s.n., 1972), pp. 23–26].
Kempen, Yves van, ‘ “Laat vallen, als ik vall’ met deze krone op ’t hoofd”: Vondel en zijn
Lucifer’, Bzzletin, 31, no. 281 (March, 2002), 31–39.
King, Peter K., ‘Vondel’s Lucifer: Een mislukt theologisch toneelstuk’, Witstein and
Grootes, Visies op Vondel na 300 jaar, pp. 218–35. dbnl
King, Peter, K., Complete word-indexes to J. van den Vondel’s “Bespiegelingen van Godt
en Godtsdienst” and “Lucifer” with ranking lists of frequencies, reverse indexes and
rhyming indexes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973) [rev. by Paul
Vincent, he Modern Language Review, 70 (1975), 715; Seymour I. Flaxman,
Computers and Humanities, 8 (1974), 337–38; Piet J. Verkruijsse, Spektator, 3 (1973–
1974), 63–65; Jan van Bakel, SpL, 15 (1973–1974), 258–88].
566
jan bloemendal
Konst, Fortuna, Fatum en Providentia Dei, pp. 192–97.
Konst, Jan, ‘ “Het goet of quaet te kiezen”: De rol van de vrije wil in Vondels Lucifer,
Adam in ballingschap en Noah’, Nederlandse letterkunde, 2 (1997), 319–35. dbnl
Koppenol, J., De schepping anno 1654: Oudere Letterkunde en de verbeelding
(Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit, 2001) (inaugural oration). dbnl
Korsten, Frans-Willem, ‘De waarde van hypocrisie: Vondels spel met politiek en religie
in Lucifer, Salmoneus, en Faëton’, TNTL, 122 (2006), 97–116.
Korsten, ‘Toetsen’, Vondel belicht, pp. 192–214; ‘Hypocrisy and being judged’,
Sovereignty as Inviolability, pp. 171–92.
Kramer, W., ‘Vondels Lucifer (een stilistische interpretatie)’, Ntg, 34 (1940), 145–56;
203–14 [repr. idem, Litterair-stilistische studiën (Groningen etc.: Wolters, 1950),
pp. 260–83].
Langeveld, M.J., ‘Vondel’s Lucifer, vs 113’, Ntg, 22 (1928), 204–05. dbnl
Langvik-Johannessen, Zwischen Himmel und Erde, pp. 249–88.
Langvik-Johannessen, Kåre, ‘Joost van den Vondel: Den store ukjente: Eterord’, Joost
van den Vondel, Lucifer (1654): En tragedie, transl. by Albert Lange Flilet (Oslo:
Aschehoug, 1987), pp. 109–40.
Leuvensteijn, Arjan van, and Evert Wattel, ‘Redelijkheid, emotie en betrokkenheid in
Vondels “Lucifer”: een statistisch-stilistische studie naar de functie van de claus, het
perceptief continuüm en het enjambement’, Voortgang, 21 (2002), 77–110.
Martens, Jos, ‘Lucifer en het wereldbeeld van Vondel’, Nova et vetera, 123 (1993–1994),
356–74.
Maximilianus O.F.M.Cap., ‘Vondel’s Lucifer en de franciscaanse school’, TNTL, 67
(1950), 81–102 (repr. Vondelstudies, pp. 385–407).
Maximilianus, O.F.M.Cap., ‘Wie is het, die zoo hoogh ghezeten?’, Neophilologus, 48
(1964), 194–209 (repr. Vondelstudies, pp. 211–40).
Michels, L.C., ‘Lucifer vs. 450’, Ntg, 62 (1969), 32.
Nichols, Fred J., ‘Language and Drama in Vondel’s “Lucifer” and “Adam in ballingschap” ’, Review of National Literatures, 8 (1979 [= 1978], 40.
N.N., ‘Vondel in New York’, Vondel-kroniek, 1 (1930), 190–92.
N.N., ‘Twee opmerkingen over Lucifer’, Vondel-kroniek, 7 (1936), 136–38.
Noë, J., ‘Een nieuwe visie op de Lucifer’, Nova et vetera, 37 (1959–1960), 319–21.
Notermans, Jef, ‘Joost van den Vondel 6–7: De dramaturg’, De Vacature, 78 (1966), 35,
4; 79 (1967), 1, 6.
Ohlhof, H., ‘Oor harpe, trompette en kettings: Beelde en beeldspraak in Lucifer van
Vondel’, Tydskrif vir letterkunde, 16 (1978), 4, 82–86.
Osterkamp, Ernst, ‘Joost van den Vondel Lucifer: Treurspel: Der Himmel als Staat’,
idem, Lucifer, Stationen eines Motivs (Berlin etc.: De Gruyter, 1979) Komparatistische
Studien, 9. Doctoral thesis Münster, 1977 [rev. by Peter King, Spektator, 9 (1979–
1980), 469–70; heodore Ziolkowski, Arcadia, 15 (1980), 324–27].
Peeters, Leopold, ‘De eerste rei van Vondels Lucifer’, Levende talen, (1957), 184–87;
(1958), 320–34 [reaction by Leendert Strengholt, ‘ “Zoo diep in ’t grondelooze licht” ’,
Levende talen, (1957), 442–47; B.H. Molkenboer, ‘Een omstreden Vondeltekst’,
Levende talen, (1959), 55–57; Leendert Strengholt, ‘Een drietal zeventiende-eeuwse
interpretaties van Vondels “Zoo diep in ’t grondelooze licht” ’, Levende talen, (1959),
285–89].
Peters, Herman J., ‘Het proza in Vondels Pascha en Lucifer’, Vondel-kroniek, 10 (1939),
300–17.
Pretorius, Réna, ‘Vondel: Tragikus?’, eadem, Oog en spel: Opstelle oor die drama
(Pretoria: Van Schaik, 1987), pp. 12–21 [rev. by E.C. Britz, ‘Lucifer as tragiese held’,
Verrigtinge van die vyfde driejaarlikse neerlandistiekkongres, aangebied deur die
Departement Afrikaans en Nederlands van die Universiteit van Stellenbosch op 25–27
Januarie 1989, pp. 1–17; repr. Op die wyse van die taal: Huldigingsbundel ter geleentheid van prof. Merwe Scholz se 65ste verjaardag, 8 Julie 1989].
bibliography of vondel’s dramas
567
Rens, Lieven, ‘Die paradoxale “Lucifer” ’, Dietsche Warande en Belfort, 123 (1978),
751–63.
Sabbe, M., ‘Frans Godin en de Keizerskroning van 1658: (Vondel’s “Lucifer” gebruikt
tegen Mazarin’, Verslagen en mededelingen der Koninklijke Vlaamsche Academie voor
Taal en Letterkunde, (1934), 513–29 [reaction by N.N., ‘Lucifer-plagiaat’, Vondelkroniek, 6 (1935), 140].
Sims, James H., ‘Christened Classicism in “Paradise Lost” and “he Lusiads” ’,
Comparative Literature, 24 (1972), 338–56.
Smit, Gabriel, ‘[Over: Vondel, Joost van den. Lucifer. Treurspel]’, Roeping, 32 (1956–
1957), 53; 54–55; 55–56.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 2, pp. 54–180.
Smits-Veldt, Mieke B. ‘Vondels Maria Stuart en Lucifer’, eadem, Het Nederlandse
Renaissancetoneel (Utrecht: HES, 1991), pp. 115–17. dbnl
Strengholt, Leendert, ‘Vondel, dichter van de natie’, Vlaanderen, 28 (1979), 290–93
[repr. Leendert Strengholt, Uit volle Schatkamers: Opstellen over literatuur
(Amsterdam: Buijten & Schipperheijn, 1990), pp. 100–209].
Vanherpe, Gab., Het Grieks-christelijk dualisme in Vondel’s Lucifer: Een studie over den
Lucifer uit het stuk zelf en in het licht van Vondel’s leer over de tragedie en van zijn
andere toneelstukken (Menen: Geo. Verraes-Pattijn, 1951).
Veevaete, E. ‘Verklaring en interpretatie van Vondels “Lucifer” in de eerste klasse’, Stem
uit Nieuwland, 39 (1969), 251–67.
Verdenius, A.A., ‘Vondels Lucifer en Vergilius’, Vondel-kroniek, 7 (1936), 1–7.
Verkuyl, P.E.L. ‘Vondel en de “loci astronomici” van Vergilius’, Witstein en Grootes,
Visies op Vondel na 300 jaar, pp. 119–54. dbnl
Vries, heun de, De duivel: Een essay (Amsterdam: De Beuk, 1992) [irst publ. NRC
Handelsblad, 27 Dec. 1991].
Zaalberg, C.A., ‘Uit blinde liefde tot zijn eige’, Bijdragen Prof. dr. A.A. Weijnen aangeboden bij zijn zestigste verjaardag. [= Taal en tongval, 21 (1969)], pp. 272–74.
B.2 Performances
Amelsvoort, Jos van, Reyen van Vondels Lucifer: Voor gemengd koor a capella: 1947
(Amsterdam: Donemus, 1996).
Arian, Max, ‘Eindelijk weer eens Vondel bij het Publiekstheater’, Toneel teatraal, 101
(1980), 1, 16.
Barnard, Benno, Lucifer: Een vrijmoedige Vondelbewerking (Wildert: De Carbolineum
Pers, 2001).
Beersum, Marloes van, and Lex van der Linden, ‘Zonder remmen de snelweg opgaan:
Een gesprek met Hans Croiset’, Vooys, 18 (2000), 64–67.
Bral, Jan, ‘Lucifer spreidt twee drakenvleugels uit: Het Zuidelijk Toneel en Cie. De Koe
maken een eigentijdse versie van Vondels “Lucifer” ’, Acc’enten, 1 (1996–1997), 3,
16–17.
[Brom, G.,], Lucifer, ten toneele gebracht door N.V. Het toneel, onder leiding van Willem
Royaards, muziek van Hubert Cuypers, ontwerpen van R.N. Roland Holst (Amsterdam:
s.n., [ca. 1911]).
Deering, Anton, ‘Lucifer: Een uitdaging’, Magazijn (1979), 84, p. 27.
Dozy, Martha, ‘Vondel’s Lucifer’, Elseviers geïllustreerd maandschrit, 50 (1940),
300–02.
Eyken, Johannes A. van, Ouverture: Inleidingen voor de bedrijven en reijen van het
treurspel Lucifer: Op. 40 (s.l.: s.n., s.a.).
Groot, Irene M. de, ‘Richard Nicolaüs Roland Holst: Amsterdam 1868–1938
Bloemendaal: Aiche voor het toneelstuk Lucifer, 1910’, idem et al. (eds.), Rond 1900
(Zwolle: Waanders, 2000), pp. 156–57 [English version: idem et al. (eds.), Van Gogh
to Mondrian: Dutch works on paper, transl. by Barbara Fasting et al., pp. 156–57].
568
jan bloemendal
Haar, Gerda van de, ‘In Croisets ‘Lucifer’ viel God’, Liter, 4 (2001), 17, 46–51 [reaction
by Remco Ekkers, Liter, 4 (2001), 20, 85–86].
Hadley, Henry Kimball, Lucifer (sketches): Words by Joost van den Vondel, music by
Henry Hadley (s.l.: s.n., 1913) (New York Public Library: JPB 83-2, 167).
Hoek, Jozef van, ‘Vandaag Vondel spelen’, K & C, 13 (1980), [6], 12.
Geeraerdts, Bart, ‘Een strijkje voor Lucifer’, Toneel theatraal, 112 (1991), 1, 37.
Gomperts, H.A., ‘[Over de toneelopvoering van Joost van den Vondels ‘Lucifer’
(30.4.’56)]’, idem, De eend op zolder: Toneelkritieken uit de jaren 1952–1965 (Klassiek
en romantisch repertoire) (Amsterdam: Van Oorschot, 1970), pp. 157–61.
Habbema, Cox, ‘Croiset maakt theater van Vondel: Lucifer in 1979 en 2001’, TM, 5
(2003), 3, 8–10.
Haepers, Frans, ‘ “Lucifer” in den Nederlandschen schouwburg te Antwerpen’,
Tooneelleven (Antwerpen), 4 (1937–1938), 144–64.
Haepers, Frans, ‘De tooneelgemeenschap “’t Nieuwe Getij” speelde Vondel’s “Lucifer” ’,
Volk en kultuur, 1 (1941–1942), 43, 17.
Keunen, Jozef, ‘De keurgroep “Het Masker” ’, Nieuw Vlaanderen, 9 (1943), 36, 5.
Kock, Petra de, ‘15 december 1979: Het Publiekstheater speelt een opmerkelijke
Lucifer van Joost van den Vondel: Traditie en vernieuwing bij de grote repertoiregezelschappen in Amsterdam’, Erenstein, Een theatergeschiedenis der Nederlanden,
pp. 806–13.
Lange, Samuel de, Lucifer: Treurspel van J. v.d. Vondel: Ouverture, entreacte en reyen
(s.l.: s.n., s.a.).
N.N., Lucifer, gespeeld door het Publiekstheater (Hilversum: NCRV, 1981) Beeld &
Geluid.
Molkenboer, B.H., ‘Lucifer in Den Haag’, Vondel-kroniek, 11 (1940), 158–60.
Molkenboer, B.H., ‘De Lucifer-opvoering van den V.C.S.B.’, Vondel-kroniek, 7 (1936),
38–41.
N.N., Beschrijving en reyen van Vondel’s Lucifer: Vertoond in het voorjaar 1904 door het
Utrechtsch Studenten-Tooneel ([Utrecht: Den Boer, 1904]).
N.N., ‘Lucifer’, Vondel-kroniek, 6 (1935), 185–86.
Nord, Max, ‘Tooneel in de Residentie: Lucifer van Joost van den Vondel’, Kroniek van
kunst en kultuur, 5 (1939–1940), 230–32.
Opsomer, Geert, ‘Het Parijse succesverhaal van het Vlaamsche Volkstooneel (VVT):
Opvoeringen van “Lucifer” en “Tijl” in de Comédie des Champs Elysées (mei–juni
1927)’, Luk Van den Dries and Frank Peeters (eds.), Bij open doek: Liber amoricum
Carlos Tindemans (Kapellen etc.: Pelckmans etc., 1995), pp. 96–114.
Opsomer, Geert, ‘Mei–juni 1927: Het Vlaamsche Volkstooneel (VVT) en de opvoeringen van Lucifer en Tijl in Parijs: Internationale faam em mythevormng rond het
VVT’, Erenstein, Een theatergeschiedenis der Nederlanden, pp. 626–31.
Poupeye, Camille, ‘héâtre: Lucifer’, Flandre littéraire, 5 (1926–1927), 2, 11–12.
Rekers, Guus, ‘Vondel in het perspectief van “L’homme révolté”, of Hoe kun je de
onspeelbare Lucifer laten werken?’, Scenarium, 5 (1981), 59–68.
Rens, Lieven, ‘Vondeltheater in het Vondeljaar’, Streven (Vlaamse editie), 47 (1979–
1980), 748–55 (also Streven (Nederlandse editie), 33 (1979–1980), 765–72).
Rijnders, Mieke, R. N. Roland Holst (Amsterdam: Stadsuitgeverij Amsterdam, 1992),
pp. 40–43; 48.
Schimmel, H.J., Lucifer: Vondels treurspel gevolgd (music by Johannes A. van Eyken)
(Amsterdam: J.C. Lomans Jr., [ca. 1880]).
Stam, Joop, ‘Afscheid van het concertgebouw: De laatste jaren: van “Lucifer” tot
“Requiem” ’, idem, Schitteren op de tweede rang (Stadskanaal: Stichting Cornelis
Dopper, 2002), pp. 391–457.
Stuiveling, Garmt, ‘Vondel en zijn publiek’, Boek nu, 9 (1955–1956), 161–63.
hielemans, John, ‘De dichter is een koe’, K & C, 30 (1997 (June), 30–31.
Ven, Jace van de, ‘Hoezo, een Vondel-revival? Zuidelijk Toneel en Cie. de Koe spelen
“Lucifer” ’, Brabant cultureel, 46 (1997), 4, 8–9.
bibliography of vondel’s dramas
569
E.J.W., ‘Twee opvoeringen waarover gesproken werd’, Tooneelleven (Antwerpen), 4
(1937–1938), 161–63.
Vondel’s Lucifer opgevoerd door de Vondelvereeniging op donderdag 25 Febr. 1909
([Amsterdam: Vondelvereeniging], 1909).
22 Maeghden (1639)
A.1 Editions
WB, 3, pp. 708–80.
Maeghden, ed. by C. Catharina van de Grat (Zutphen: hieme, [1907]) KLP, 110.
Maeghden: Treurspel, ed. by B.H. Molkenboer O.P. ([Den Bosch]: Geert Groote
Genootschap [1940]) Geert-Groote-Genootschap, 594.
B.1 Studies
Arens, J.C., ‘De teichoscopie uit Euripides’ “Phoenissae” in Vondels “Maeghden” ’, Ntg,
57 (1964), 161–64.
Blom, Niek van der, ‘Waardig vallen’, Hermeneus, 32 (1960–1961), 64–65.
Borgstedt, homas, ‘Angst, Irrtum und Reue in der Märtyrertragödie:
Andreas Gryphius’ “Catharina von Georgien” vor dem Hintergrund von Vondels
“Maeghden” und Corneilles “Polyeucte Martyr”, Text und Konfession: Neue Studien
zu Andreas Gryphius: Beiträge zur ersten Tagung der Internationalen Andreas
Gryphius-Gesellschat, Konrad Gajek zum Gedenken [= Daphnis, 28 (1999)],
pp. 563–94.
Doek, Alice, ‘Bloed, zweet en tranen: Vondel als sadomasochist?’, Vooys, 10 (1991–
1992), 219–24.
Gemert, Lia van, ‘Chinese hee uit gouden Koppen: Reien bij Vondel en Antonides’,
H. Vekeman and H. Van Ufelen (eds.), Jetzt kehr ich an den Rhein: Een opstellenbundel bij Vondels 400ste geboortedag / Eine Aufsatzsammlung zu Vondels 400stem
Geburtstag (Köln: Runge, 1987), pp. 128–41.
Konst, Fortuna, Fatum en Providentia Dei, pp. 153–59.
Konst, Jan W.H., ‘Wat de toeschouwers niet te zien krijgen: “Verborgen handeling” in
Vondels “Maeghden” (1639)’, Marc van Vaeck, Hugo Brems, Geert H.M. Claassens
(eds.), De steen van Alciato: Literatuur en visuele cultuur in de Nederlanden: Opstellen
voor prof.dr. Karel Porteman bij zijn emeritaat / he Stone of Alciato: Literature and
visual Culture in the Low Countries: Essays in Honour of Karel Porteman (Leuven:
Peeters, 2003), pp. 421–38.
Monnikendam, Marius, Reizangen uit ‘Maagden’ en ‘Noah’ van Vondel voor gelijke
stemmen (Den Haag: Muscio, 1937).
R., ‘Een drukfout in Maeghden?’, Vondel-kroniek, 3 (1932), 35.
Schömer, R., ‘Über die Quellen zu Vondels Maeghden’, Feschrit der Nationalbibliothek
in Wien: Herausgegeben zur Feier des 200-jährigen Bestehens des Gebäudes (Wien:
Nationalbibliothek, 1926), pp. 737–44.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 1, pp. 241–62.
Smit, Wisse A.P., ‘ “Imitatio” van Vondel bij Jan Vos’, Ntg, 52 (1959), 229.
Sneller, A. Agnes, ‘De theorie van René Girard: Vondels “Maeghden” opnieuw bezien’,
Korrie Korevaart (ed.), Vrouwen in taal en literatuur (Amersfoort, Leuven: Acco,
1988), pp. 112–21.
Szarota, Elida M., ‘Die Ursulagestalt in Vondels “Maeghden” ’, Ntg, 59 (1966),
73–89.
Szarota, Elida M., Künstler, Grübler und Rebellen: Studien zum europäischen
Märtyrerdrama des 17. Jahrhunderts (Bern etc.: Francke, 1967), pp. 147–61.
Vermeeren, P.J.H., Vondel und Köln: Die Rheinmetropole in seiner Dichtung (Bonn, Bad
Honnef am Rhein: Kulturabteilung der Kgl. Niederländischen Botschat and
Lehmacher, [1973]). Nachbarn, 18.
570
jan bloemendal
23 Maria Stuart (1646)
A.1 Editions
WB, 5, pp. 162–238.
Maria Stuart, ed. by ‘een RK priester’ (Roermond: Waterreus, 1889).
Maria Stuart, of gemartelde Majesteit (Schiedam: [Roelants], 1882) KLP, 112.
Maria Stuart, of gemartelde majesteit, ed. by J.A. de Rijk (Amsterdam: Van
Langenhuysen, 1872).
Drie treurspelen: Lucifer, Gysbreght van Aemstel, Maria Stuart, ed. by Jacques
F.J. Heremans (Gent: Hoste, 1858).
Vier treurspelen van J. van Vondel, ed. by Jacques F.J. Heremans (Gent: Hoste, 1853).
[contains Lucifer; Gysbrecht van Aemstel; Palamedes: Maria Stuart].
A.2 Translations
Mary Stuart, or Tortured Majesty, transl. by Kristiaan P. Aercke (Ottawa: Dovehouse,
1996) Carleton Renaissance plays in translation, 27.
A.3 Reactions
Weert, Goudina, ‘Vagevier voor Joost van Vondelen, over sijn Stuarst [sic] gemartelde
majesteyt’ (s.l.: s.n., 1647) (ed. by Annelies de Jeu, ‘Weg met Maria Stuart, leve
Elisabeth: Goudina van Weert (?–? – Amsterdam, begraven 13 oktober 1679)’, Riet
Schenkeveld-van der Dussen et al. (eds.), Met en zonder lauwerkrans: Schrijvende
vrouwen uit de vroegmoderne tijd 1550–1850 van Anna Bijns tot Elisa van Calcar
(Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1997, pp. 244–47) [reactions by
G. Koning, Beweering van ’t vagevier, Ghestoockt door Jofr. G.V.W. voor Joost van
Vondelen over sijn Stuarts ghemartelde Majesteyt (s.l.: s.n., 1657); Ooirspronk [sic]
van het Vagevier voor Joost vande Vondel Gestookt door Jofer G. van W., beweert door
G.K. en als kaks herstookt door M. (Amsterdam: Niclaes de Vrye, 1647); G. K[oning],
Aan Mejufr. G.v.W. op haar Vagevier, gestookt voor Joost van Vondelen, Over zijn
Stuarts Gemartelde Majesteyt, bloemkrans van Vrscheide Gedichten (1659), p. 252;
P[irck] P[ietersz] B[oeterman], Dancksegginghe Aen Me Iufr. Me Iufr. G.V.W. Over
’t Aerdigh en waerdigh Gedicht by haer E.E. ghestelt, tegen de Schantvelck ende grouwel aller Christelijcke herten, Joost van Vondelen: Aengaende sijn Stuarts gemartelde
Majesteit (s.l.: s.n., s.a.); Jan Vos, ‘Aan d’algemeene Rymers of galbrakers, toen
J. v. Vondel het treurspel van Maria Stuart, &c.’, idem, Alle de gedichten vol. 1
(Amsterdam: Jacob Lescaille, 1662), pp. 285–86, dbnl].
B.1 Studies
Blom, Niek van der, ‘Twee anagrammen en een spreuk’, Hermeneus, 34 (1962–1963),
178–79.
Braak, Menno ter, ‘Vondel’, idem, Verzameld werk, vol. 4 (Amsterdam: Van Oorschot,
1951 [19802]), pp. 725–33 [pp. 731–33 irst publ. Het Vaderland 2 Oct. 1937: ‘Vondels
Maria Stuart. Het spel van de gemartelde majesteit bij het Hofstadtoneel’]. dbnl
Duinkerken, Anton van, ‘Maria Stuart’, idem, Verzamelde geschriten, 3: Historie en kritiek (Utrecht etc.: Het Spectrum, 1962), pp. 350–56 [cf. Achter de vuurlijn (Hilversum:
Brand, 1930), pp. 95–103].
Duits, Henk, ‘Karel Stuart: Martelaar en miles christianus’, Wouter Abrahamse, Anneke
C.G. Fleurkens and Marijke Meijer Drees (eds.), Kort tijt-verdrijf: Opstellen over
Nederlands toneel (vanaf ca. 1565) aangeboden aan Mieke B. Smits-Veldt (Amsterdam:
AD&L Uitgevers, 1996), pp. 193–99.
Fockens, Pieter, ‘Vondel. Maria Stuart of Gemartelde Majesteit, 1646’, idem, Maria
Stuart: Eine literarhistorische Studie (Genève: Slatkine Reprints, 1971) [irst publ.
Berlin: Gustav Schade, 1887; doctoral thesis Leipzig], pp. 87–104.
bibliography of vondel’s dramas
571
Grat, C. Catharina van de, ‘De bronnen van Vondels treurspel Maria Stuart’, Vondelkroniek, 3 (1932), 23–28.
Haugwitz, August Adolf von, Schuldige Unschuld oder Maria Stuarda: Faksimiledruck
nach der Ausgabe von 1683, ed. by Robert R. Heitner (Bern etc.: Herbert Lang, 1974).
King, Peter, Concordances of the Works of J. van den Vondel, 1: Maria Stuart of
Gemartelde Majesteit (Treurspel) (Göppingen: Kümmerle Verlag, 1982) Göpinger
Arbeiten zur Germanistik, 349, 1.
Plard, Henri, ‘Le sang sacré du roi dans le “Carolus Stuardus” d’Andreas Gryphius’,
Pierre Béhar (ed.), Image et spectacle: Actes du XXXIIe Colloque International
d’Etudes Humanistes du Centre d’Etudes supérieures de la Renaissance (Tours, 29
juin–8 juillet 1989) (Amsterdam etc.: Rodopi, 1993) [= Chloë 15 (1993)], pp. 89–116.
Schönle, Gustav, ‘Tooneel: Friedrich von Schiller: Maria Stuart’, Nederland, 95 (1943),
34–35.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 1, pp. 412–45.
Smits-Veldt, Mieke B. ‘Vondels Maria Stuart en Lucifer’, eadem, Het Nederlandse
Renaissancetoneel (Utrecht: HES, 1991), pp. 115–17. dbnl
Sterck, J.F.M., ‘VII: Drukproef van ‘Maria Stuart’ – Gedicht op Virgilius – Mr. Henrick
Ebbius – Het Stockske van Oldenbarneveld – De Bank van Leening’, idem,
Oorkonden, pp. 220–34. dbnl
Szarota, Elida M., Geschichte, Politik und Gesellschat im Drama des 17. Jahrhunderts
(Bern etc.: Francke, 1976) [rev. by Pierre Béhar, Argenis, 2 (1978), 355–60; Lieven
Rens, Leuvensche bijdragen op het gebied van de Germaansche philologie en in ’t bijzonder van de Nederlandsche dialectkunde, 68 (1979), 111–17; Gerald Gillespie,
Germanic Review, 50 (1977), 505–10; Janifer Gerl Stackhouse, Journal of English and
Germanic Philology, 77 (1978), 406–09].
Szarota, Elida M., Künstler, Grübler und Rebellen: Studien zum europäischen
Märtyrerdrama des 17. Jahrhunderts (Bern etc.: Francke, 1967), pp. 216–33.
Veldhuis, Louise, ‘Maria Stuart bij Vondel en bij Schiller’, Vondel-kroniek, 10 (1939),
317–23.
Verwey, Albert, ‘De bronnen van Vondels Maria Stuart’, TNTL, 46 (1927), 302–04
[repr. idem, Keuze uit het proza van zijn hoogleraarstijd (1925–1935), ed. by Dr. M.
Nijland-Verwey (Zwolle: Tjeenk Willink, 1956), pp. 126–28].
Worp, J.A., ‘Vondel’s Maria Stuart en G. Camdeni Annales’, TNTL, 21 (1902), 241–49.
dbnl
B.2 Performances
Gomperts, H.A., ‘[Over de toneelopvoering van Joost van den Vondels “Maria Stuart”
(8.5.’52)]’, idem, De eend op zolder: Toneelkritieken uit de jaren 1952–1965 (Klassiek
en romantisch repertoire) (Amsterdam: Van Oorschot, 1970), pp. 153–55.
24 Messalina (unpubl.)
B.1 Studies
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 1, pp. 220–29.
25 Noah (1667)
A.1 Editions
WB, 10, pp. 391–454.
Noah of Ondergang der eerste weerelt (Haarlem: Sneldrukkerij van het St. JacobsGodshuis, 19163 [18921]).
Noah of Ondergang der eerste weerelt (Tilburg: Bergmans, 1911).
572
jan bloemendal
Noah, of Ondergang der eerste weerelt: Treurspel (Schiedam: Roelants, 1853) KLP, 12.
Noah, of ondergang der eerste weerelt, ed. by Crito (Dokkum: Kromsigt, [1882]) De
mannen onzer vaderlandsche letterkunde: Ten behoeve van onderwijzers naar de
beste bronnen bewerkt.
Noah, ed. by M.E. Kronenberg (Zutphen: hieme, 19482 [19101]) KLP, 150 [rev. by B.H.
Molkenboer O.P., Ntg, 6 (1912), 51–54. dbnl].
Noah, of ondergang der eerste wereld: Treurspel (Nijmegen: Busser, 1937) (performed by
students of the R.K. University, directed by Eduard R. Verkade).
Lucifer, Adam in ballingschap, of Aller treurspelen treurspel, Noah, of Ondergang der
eerste wereld, ed. by Riet Schenkeveld-van der Dussen (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker,
2004) Delta [rev. by A. Agnes Sneller, Nederlandse letterkunde, 10 (2005), 70–72;
Frans-Willem Korsten, TNTL, 121 (2005), 349–55].
Vondels trilogie: Lucifer, Adam in ballingschap, Noah, ed. by Cyriel Verschaeve (Brugge:
Zeemeeuw, 1941).
B.1 Studies
Donker, Anthonie, Het schip dat gij bouwen zult: Verbeeldingen van zondvloed en
ark (Amsterdam: Querido, 1959) [pp. 97–109 irst publ. Nieuwe stem, 14 (1959),
447–56].
Konst, Fortuna, Fatum en Providentia Dei, pp. 201–03.
Konst, Jan, ‘ “Het goet of quaet te kiezen”: De rol van de vrije wil in Vondels Lucifer,
Adam in ballingschap en Noah’, Nederlandse letterkunde, 2 (1997), 319–35. dbnl
Korsten, Frans-Willem, ‘De bereidheid tot risico: Joost van den Vondel over soevereiniteit en tolerantie’, Stephan van Erp (ed.), Vrijheid in verdeeldheid: Geschiedenis en
actualiteit van religieuze tolerantie ([Nijmegen]: Valkhof pers, 2008), pp. 83–103.
Korsten, ‘Ordenen’, Vondel belicht, pp. 38–66; ‘Ordering life’, Sovereignty as Inviolability,
pp. 45–68.
Langvik-Johannessen, Zwischen Himmel und Erde, pp. 249–88.
Notermans, Jef, ‘Vondel’s Noah’, De Vacature, 80 (1968), 23, 4.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 3, pp. 507–68.
B.2 Performances
Croiset, Hans, ‘Via “verstaanbaarheid” naar “het vrouwelijke dier” ’, Nederlandse letterkunde, 8 (2003), 1–9.
Weersma, Wouter, ‘Een treurspel in Amsterdam’, Waag, 7 (1943), 683.
26 Palamedes (1625)
A.1 Editions
WB, 2, pp. 612–753.
Palamedes, of vermoorde onnozelheit: treurspel; Hekeldigten: Met aantekeningen uit ’s
digters mond opgeschreven (Amersfoort: Pieter Brakman, 17373 [17051]).
Palamedes ot vermoorde onnooselheyd, ed. by C. van Baaren and H. Elsinga
(Purmerend: Muusses, [1952]) Nederlandse letterkunde in de Gouden Eeuw.
Palamedes of vermoorde onnozelheit, ed. by Sjoerd S. Hoogstra (Zwolle: Tjeenk Willink,
[1903]) Zwolsche herdrukken, 16–17.
Palamedes, ed. by G. Velderman (Zutphen: hieme, 19122 [18921]) KLP, 49.
Palamedes, ed. by N.C.H. Wijngaards (Zutphen: hieme, [ca. 1977]) KLP, 49.
Palamedes of vermoorde onnozelheit: Treurspel: Nunc cassum lumine lugent, abridged
ed. by Hageveld (s.l.: s.n., s.a.).
Viertal treurspelen (’s-Gravenhage: Fuhrli, 1851) [contains Lucifer; Adam in ballingschap; Palamedes; Gijsbrecht van Aemstel].
Vier treurspelen van J. van Vondel, ed. by Jacques F.J. Heremans (Gent: Hoste, 1853).
[contains Lucifer; Gysbrecht van Aemstel; Palamedes: Maria Stuart].
bibliography of vondel’s dramas
573
A.3 Reactions
‘Momus’, Aan I. V. Vondelen op zijnen Palamedes: Men singhet op de Voyse van Bereyt u
huys terstond, of, Ick weet een reyn Casteel & c. (s.l.: s.n., 1625).
Q.D.C.V., Aen den E: E: Welgeleerden Ioost van Vondelen, beroerende sijn Palamedes
(s.l.: s.n., s.a.).
B.1 Studies
Beekman, Klaus D., and Ralf Grüttemeier, ‘Censuur en literatuur: Joost van den
Vondels “Palamedes” en Hendrik Smeeks’ “Krinke Kesmes” ’, idem, De wet van de
letter (Amsterdam: Athenaeum-Polak & Van Gennep, 2005), pp. 11–27.
Damsté, Willem Sinninghe, ‘Van Oldenbarnevelt en Palamedes’, Arent van der Feltz
et al., (eds.), Literatuur en recht [= Ars aequi, 33 (1984), 12], pp. 705–15.
Van Gemert, Tussen de bedrijven door?, pp. 236–38.
Gerritsen, Johan, ‘De eerste druk van de “Palamedes” ’, Henry F. Hofman, Koert van
der Horst, August H.H.M. Mathijsen (eds.), Uit bibliotheektuin en informatieveld:
Opstellen aangeboden aan Dr. D. Grosheide bij zijn afscheid als bibliothecaris van de
Rijksuniversiteit te Utrecht (Utrecht: Universiteitsbibliotheek, 1978) Bibliotheek en
documentatie, 3, pp. 219–30.
Gerritsen, Johan, ‘Vondels “Palamedes, Hekeldigten” 1705’, Ton (A.R.A.) Croiset van
Uchelen and Hannie van Coinga (eds.), Van Pen tot Laser: 31 opstellen over boek en
schrit aangeboden aan Ernst Braches bij zijn afscheid als hoogleraar aan de Universiteit
van Amsterdam in oktober van het jaar 1995 (Amsterdam: De Buitenkant, 1996),
pp. 95–99 [reaction by Ernst Braches, Van lezer tot schrijver (s.l.: s.n., 1996); rev. by
Nop Maes, Boekenwereld, 14 (1997–1998), 27–29].
Hendriks, A., ‘Palamedes 796’, TNTL, 17 (1898), 190–91. dbnl
Jorissen, T. heodoor H., Palamedes en Gysbreght van Aemstel: Kritische studiën
(Amsterdam: Loman, 1879).
Kalf, Gerard, ‘Vondels zelfcritiek’, TNTL, 15 (1898), 34–51; 108–21.
Kemperink, R.M., ‘Een bijzonder exemplaar van Vondels Palamedes’, Flehite, 6 (1974),
33–42.
Konst, Fortuna, Fatum en Providentia Dei, pp. 178–84.
Korsten, Frans-Willem, ‘Making History (In-)Cohere: An African and Africanism in
Joost van den Vondel’s Palamedes’, Isabel Hoving, E. van Alphen and F.W.A. Korsten
(eds.), hamyris/Intersecting: Africa and Its Signiicant Others: Forty Years of Cultural
Entanglement (Amsterdam, etc.: Rodopi, 2004), pp. 107–20.
Korsten, ‘Belichamen’, Vondel belicht, pp. 113–43; ‘Mixed cultural bodies and sovereign
possibilities’, Sovereignty and Inviolability, pp. 110–31.
Leene, Willemijn, ‘Joan van Broekhuizen als literair criticus’, Secrete penitentie, (1992),
10, 1–10. http://membres.lycos.fr/secpen/SP1001.htm
Limborg, Frans van, Aantekeningen op Joost van den Vondels Palamedes […] (s.l.: s.n.:
[ca. 1700]).
Meijer Drees, Marijke, ‘Hoe Vondels Palamedes (1625) geschiedenis heet gemaakt’, Jan
Bos and Erik Geleijns (eds.), Boekenwijsheid: Drie eeuwen kennis en cultuur in 30
bijzondere boeken (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2009), pp. 80–88.
Meulen, P. v.d., ‘Vondels varianten in het proza van de Palamedes’, Ntg, 41 (1948), 107–10.
Muller, J.W., ‘Dateering van Palamedes, Geusevesper en Transformatie’, Vondel-kroniek,
3 (1932), 91–95.
Muller, J.W., ‘Wanneer zijn Vondel’s Palamedes, Geusevesper en Transformatie
geschreven?’, TNTL, 50 (1931), 285–311.
Raupp, H.-J., ‘ “Trucidata Innocentia”: Die Verurteilung des Oldenbarnevelt bei Joost
van den Vondel und Cornelis Satleven’, Herman Vekeman, Justus Müller Hofstede
(eds.), Wort und Bild in der niederländischen Kunst und Literatur des 16. und 17.
Jahrhunderts (Ertstadt: Lukassen, 1984), pp. 209–16.
Rehorst, A.J., De eerste opvoering van Vondel’s treurspel herdacht met een zinnebeeld:
Een schepping van Rembrandt (Utrecht: De Banier, 1979).
574
jan bloemendal
Salemans, Ben J.P., ‘Comparing Text Editions with the Aid of the Computer’, Computers
and the Humanities, 28 (1994–1995), 133–39.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, vol. 1, pp. 99–131.
Stipriaan, René van, ‘Het “theatrum mundi” als ludiek labyrint: De vele gedaanten
van het rollenspel in de zeventiende eeuw’, De zeventiende eeuw, 15 (1999),
12–23.
Unger, J.H.W., ‘Vondeliana IV: Palamedes’, Oud Holland, 6 (1888), 51–67.
Walch, Johannes L., De varianten van Vondel’s Palamedes: Eene bijdrage tot de ontwikkelingsgeschiedenis van den dichter (‘s-Gravenhage: Nijhof, 1908) Doctoral thesis
Leiden.
B.2 Performances
Palamedes, of vermoorde onnozelheit: Treurspel: Met de beschryving en uitlegging der
vertooningen, zo als het tegenwoordig op den schouwburg word vertoont (Amsterdam:
Izaak Duim, 1734).
27 Het Pascha (1612)
A.1 Editions
WB, 1, pp. 159–264.
Het Pascha ote De verlossinghe der kind’ren Israëls uit Egypten, ed. by H. Beckering
Vinckers (Zaltbommel: van de Garde, [1902]) Nederlandsche klassieken; Gulden
editie, 1, 1.
Het Pascha, ed. by homas H. Le Roux, Johannes J. Groeneweg and M.S.B. Kritzinger
(Pretoria: De Bussy; Kaapstad: Dusseau, 1937) Afrikaanse Vondel-uitgawe.
A.2 Translations
Het Pascha de Vondel: La Pâque ou la délivrance des enfants d’Israel de l’Égypte, ed. by
abbé Dostert (Leuven: Peeters, 1887).
B.1 Studies
Asselbergs, W.J.M.A., Pascha-problemen (Hilversum 1940) (inaugural oration Leiden)
(repr. idem, Verzamelde geschriten, vol. 3: Historie en kritiek (Utrecht etc.: Het
Spectrum, 1962, pp. 278–92).
Gemert, Lia van, ‘Het choor in “Het Pascha” ’, TNTL, 103 (1987), 290–302.
Van Gemert, Tussen de bedrijven door?, pp. 232–34.
Konst, Fortuna, Fatum en Providentia Dei, pp. 165–67.
Leuvensteijn, Arjan van, ‘Stylistic boundaries and linguistic boundaries in Breughel
and Vondel’, Pieter van Reenen and Karin van Reenen (eds.), Distributions spatiales
et temporelles, constellations des manuscrits: études de variation linguistique ofertes à
Anthonij Dees à l’occasion de son 60me anniversaire = Spatial and Temporal
Distributions, Manuscript Constellations: Studies in Language Variation ofered to
Anthonij Dees on the Occasion of his 60th Birthday (Amsterdam etc.: Benjamins,
1988), pp. 123–37.
Leuvensteijn, J.A. van, ‘Enjambment and emotion: End-stopped lines and run-on lines
in Huygens and Vondel’, Dutch Crossing, (1989), 39, 53–60.
Peters, Herman J., ‘Het Proza in Vondels Pascha en Lucifer’, Vondel-kroniek, 10 (1939),
300–17.
Schapelhouman, Marijn, ‘Tekeningen van Pieter Jansz., “Konstig glasschrijver” ’,
Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum, 33 (1985), 71–92.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, vol. 1, pp. 31–60.
bibliography of vondel’s dramas
575
Verwey, Albert, ‘Vondel en Ronsard’, Vondel-kroniek, 5 (1934), 152–53 [repr. idem,
Keuze uit het proza van zijn hoogleraarstijd (1925–1935), ed. by Dr. M. NijlandVerwey (Zwolle: Tjeenk Willink, 1956), pp. 148–49].
Visser, A.J.J., ‘Het Pascha van Vondel: Verwantskap met die misteriespel’, Tydskrif vir
letterkunde, 3 (1965), 53–59.
28 Peter en Pauwels (1641)
A.1 Editions
WB, 4, pp. 219–94.
Treurspel Peter en Pauwels (Haarlem: St. Jacobs-Godshuis, 19043 [18891]).
Peter en Pauwels: Treurspel (Schiedam: Roelants, 1882) KLP, 112.
Peter en Pauwels, ed. by Henricus M.H. Bartels (Roermond: Van der Marck, 1888).
Peter en Pauwels, ed. by Gerlacus van den Elsen (‘ten dienste van het hedendaagsch
tooneel omgewerkt’) (Oosterhout: Van der Aa, 1893).
Peter en Pauwels: Treurspel, ed. by Hageveld ([Heemstede: Heemsteedsche Boek- en
Handelsdrukkerij,] 1933).
Peter en Pauwels: Treurspel, ed. by Piet G. Oomes (Bussum: Ons leekenspel, 1950).
B.1 Studies
Alberdink hijm, J.A., ‘IV: “Peter en Pauwels”, idem, Portretten van Joost van den
Vondel, pp. 91–102. dbnl
Duinkerken, Anton van, ‘Peter en Pauwels’, idem, Festoenen voor een kerkportaal
(Leuven: Davidsfonds, 1966), pp. 95–103.
Maximilianus O.F.M.Cap., ‘Vondel en Vergilius’, Ntg, 45 (1952), 115.
Michels, L.C., ‘Petronel in Vondel’s Peter en Pauwels’, TNTL, 66 (1949), 112–18 (repr.
idem Filologische opstellen, vol. 3: Stofen uit Vondels werk (Zwolle: Tjeenk Willink,
1961), pp. 201–07).
Notermans, N., ‘Vondel’s Peter en Pauwels’, Leuvense bijdragen, 30 (1938), 1–36.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 1, pp. 386–411.
Stuiveling, Garmt, ‘Het ritme als dramatische factor in Vondels Peter en Pauwels’, idem,
Vakwerk: Twaalf studies in literatuur (Zwolle: Tjeenk Willink, 1967), pp. 128–51
[irst publ. Onze Taaltuin 1 (1932–1933), 198–217].
B.2 Performances
Molkenboer O.P., B.H., ‘Peter en Pauwels’, Vondel-kroniek, 11 (1940), 240–43.
N.N., ‘[Over de opvoering onder regie van August Defresne door het Nederlandsch
tooneel van: Vondel, Joost van den]: J.v. Vondels Peter en Pauwels: Treurspel’,
Tooneelrevue, 7 (1940–1941), 4, [4].
Poel, D.C. van der, ‘Toneelpremières in Amsterdam’, Kroniek van kunst en kultuur, 5
(1939–1940), 297–98.
Winkel, Jan W. te, ‘Vondel’s “Peter en Pauwels” ’, Tooneelrevue, 7 (1940–1941), 3, [2].
29 Rozemont (1644)
A.1 Editions
WB, 3, pp. 781–83.
B.1 Studies
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 1, pp. 220–29.
576
jan bloemendal
30 Salmoneus (1657)
A.1 Editions
WB, 5, pp. 708–90.
Salmoneus, en Adonias, ed. by J. van Vloten (Schiedam: Roelants, 1882; Zutphen:
hieme, 18832) KLP, 113.
B.1 Studies
Korsten, Frans-Willem, ‘De waarde van hypocrisie: Vondels spel met politiek en religie
in Lucifer, Salmoneus, en Faëton’, TNTL, 122 (2006), 97–116.
Korsten, ‘Toetsen’, Vondel belicht, pp. 192–214; ‘Hypocrisy and being judged’,
Sovereignty as Inviolability, pp. 172–92.
Langvik-Johannessen, Kåre, ‘Vondels Salmoneus: Ein politisches Drama’, TNA
(Tijdschrit voor Nederlands en Afrikaans), 1 (1983), 1, 8–33 [cf. Het treurspel spant
de kroon, pp. 129–68].
Michels, L.C., ‘Enige plaatsen uit Salmoneus’, idem, Filologische opstellen, vol. 3: Stofen
uit Vondels werk (Zwolle: Tjeenk Willink, 1961), pp. 287–316 [irst publ. Vondelkroniek, 10 (1939), 37; Bijdrage tot het onderzoek van Vondel’s werken (Nijmegen etc.:
Dekker & Van de Vegt, 1941), pp. 120–44].
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 2, pp. 181–239.
31 Salomon (1648)
A.1 Editions
WB, 5, pp. 373–449.
Salomon (Breda: Jansen, [2002]) De nieuw Agrippynse zwaan, 1.
Salomon: Treurspel (s.l.: s.n., 1934) (Lustrumspel door het Nijmeegsch Studententooneel
25 mei 1934).
Salomon: Treurspel, ed. by Piet G. Oomes (Bussum: Ons Leekenspel, s.a.).
B.1 Studies
Dael, Hans van, ‘De dwaze Salomon en de wijze Vondel: Een interpretatie van Vondels
“Salomon” ’, TNTL, 112 (1996), 201–26.
Golahny, Amy, ‘Pieter Lastman in the Literature: From Immortality to Oblivion’, Dutch
Crossing, 20 (1996), 87–116.
Langvik-Johannessen, Zwischen Himmel und Erde, pp. 151–64.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 2, pp. 11–53.
Spies, Marijke, ‘Vondels actualiteit’, Marja Geesink and Anton Bossers (eds.), Vondel!
Het epos van een ambachtelijk dichterschap (’s-Gravenhage: Koninklijke Bibliotheek,
1987), pp. 44–47.
Tümpel, Christian, ‘Die Ikonographie der Amsterdamer Historienmalerei in der ersten
Hälte des 17. Jahrhunderts und die Reformation’, Vestigia Bibliae, 2 (1980),
127–58.
B.3 Performances
Molkenboer, B.H., ‘De Salomon-opvoering’, Vondel-kroniek, 5 (1934), 71–73.
Molkenboer, B.H., ‘De Salomon-opvoering’, Vondel-kroniek, 5 (1934), 121–22.
N.N., ‘Vondels Salomon, of De triomf van het goede toneel’, Rolduc’s Jaarboek, (1960),
39–42.
Sterck, J.F.M., ‘De Nijmeegsche opvoering van Salomon’, Vondel-kroniek, 5 (1934),
120–21.
bibliography of vondel’s dramas
577
32 Samson (1660)
A.1 Editions
WB, 9, pp. 173–238.
Samson, of Heilige wraeck (Haarlem: St. Jacobs-Godshuis, 1913).
A.2 Translations
Samson, or Holy Revenge, tr. by Watson Kirkconnell (in: hat invincible Samson: he
theme of ‘Samson Agonistes’ in world literature with translations of the major analogues (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, [1964]) ) [reaction by Ants Oras,
Modern Philology, 64 (1966–1967), 77–79; John M. Steadman, Modern Language
Review, 64 (1969), 143–44; Wisse A.P. Smit, Ntg, 58 (1965), 337–40].
B.1 Studies
Arens, J.C., ‘Noëma = Wellust. (Vondel, Samson vs. 853)’, Ntg, 58 (1965), 18
Boer, J.J., ‘Het tragische in “Samson” ’, Vondel-kroniek, 7 (1936), 166–69.
Dael, Hans van, ‘Kennis is macht: Over “Samson of heilige wraeck” van Vondel’,
Nederlandse letterkunde, 3 (1998), 151–78.
Gemert, Lia van, ‘De krachtpatser en de hoer: Liefde en wraak op het zeventiendeeeuwse toneel’, Hans Bots, Lia van Gemert et al. (eds.), Schelmen en prekers: Genres en
de transmissie van cultuur in vroegmodern Europa (Nijmegen: Vantilt, 1999), pp. 14–37.
Langvik-Johannessen, Zwischen Himmel und Erde, pp. 188–207.
Notermans, Jef, ‘Samson of Heilige Wraeck’, De Vacature, 79 (1967), 21, 4.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 3, pp. 112–68.
Warners, J.D.P., ‘Kleine Filistijnse poëtica’, SpL, 18 (1976), 132–36.
33 Sofompaneas (1635)
A.1 Editions
WB, 3, pp. 431–82.
Jozetrilogie, ed. by Laurens Spoor and heater van het Oosten (Arnhem: heater van
het Oosten, 1996).
B.1 Studies
Eyinger, Arthur and Pim Rietbroek (eds.), De dichtwerken van Hugo Grotius I:
Oorspronkelijke dichtwerken Sophompaneas 1635 (Assen etc.: Van Gorcum, 1992),
pp. 100–23.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 1, pp. 154–73.
Sterck, J.F.M., ‘Twee vertalingen van Sophompaneas’, Vondel-kroniek, 8 (1937), 1, 11–24.
34 Zungchin (1667)
A.1 Editions
WB, 10, pp. 323–90.
Batavische gebroeders, Faeton en Zungchin: Treurspelen, ed. by J. v[an] Vl[oten]
(Zutphen: hieme, 1884 KLP, 117–118.
B.1 Studies
Bloem, Rein, ‘Zungchin: Aenleidinge ter Nederlandse ilmkunste’, Bzzletin, 31, no. 281
(March 2002), 71–79.
578
jan bloemendal
Brandt Corstius, J.C., ‘Zungchin en Trazil’, Ntg, 39 (1946), 65–70.
Dietrich, Margret, ‘he Far-East: Its Relection in and Inluences on the European
heatre’, transl. by Bindon Russell, heatre Research, 4 (1962), 170–94.
Duyvendak, J.J.L, ‘Voordracht over China in de Nederlandsche Letterkunde’, Jaarboek
van de Maatschappij der Nederlandsche Letterkunde (1937–1938), 3–14. dbnl
Gemert, Lia van, ‘Chinese hee uit gouden Koppen: Reien bij Vondel en Antonides’,
H. Vekeman and H. Van Ufelen (eds.), Jetzt kehr ich an den Rhein: Een opstellenbundel bij Vondels 400ste geboortedag / Eine Aufsatzsammlung zu Vondels 400stem
Geburtstag (Köln: Runge, 1987), pp. 128–41.
Jans, R., ‘ “Zungchin of Ondergang der Sinese Heerschappije” ’, Vondel-kroniek, 10
(1939), 249–55.
Kalf, S., ‘Vondel’s “Sineesch treurspel” ’, Vondel-kroniek, 2 (1931), 180–89.
Langvik-Johannessen, Kåre, ‘Vondels Zungchin: Ein Drama der Angst’, H. Vekeman
and H. Van Ufelen (eds.), Jetzt kehr ich an den Rhein: Een opstellenbundel bij Vondels
400ste geboortedag / Eine Aufsatzsammlung zu Vondels 400stem Geburtstag (Köln:
Runge, 1987), pp. 194–208.
Langvik-Johannessen, Het treurspel spant de kroon, pp. 251–82.
Michels, L.C., ‘Vondels Zungchin’, Vondel-kroniek, 10 (1939), 19–24 (repr. idem,
Filologische opstellen, vol. 3: Stofen uit Vondels werk (Zwolle: Tjeenk Willink, 1961),
pp. 350–56).
Minderaa, P., ‘Het treurspel Zungchin belicht vanuit zijn vermoedelijke groei’, TNTL,
79 (1963), 115–34.
Notermans, Jef, ‘Zungchin’, De Vacature, 80 (1968), 20, 6.
Smit, Van Pascha tot Noah, 3, pp. 449–506.
Sterck, J.F.M., ‘Bij het missie-toneelspel Zungchin’, idem, Oud en nieuw over Joost van
den Vondel, pp. 77–81. dbnl
Verseput, J., ‘Niets nieuws onder de rijzende zon’, Amstelodamum, 67 (1980), 108–10
[reaction by J.F. Heijbroek, Amstelodamum, 67 (1980), 123–24].
Vondel on the Internet
All texts and many studies:
www.dbnl.org (the texts and studies found here are marked with dbnl in the bibliography; website still developing).
Some texts:
http://cf.hum.uva.nl/dsp/ljc/vondel/
http://www.hum.uva.nl/dsp/ljc/vondel/
Proile of Vondel as a poet:
http://www.kb.nl/dichters/vondel/vondel-01.html
Some facsimiles:
http://www.kb.nl/galerie/100hoogtepunten/055.html
http://www.kb.nl/galerie/100hoogtepunten/078.html
Texts and facsimiles, including many plays by Vondel, Brandt’s Leven, ‘Vertooningen
in J. v. Vondelens Palamedes; by Pieter Langendijk (1721), the reprint of Palamedes
(1736), the reprint of Gysbreght (ca. 1740):
http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/Dutch/Ceneton/index.html#cnttekst
Biography:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joost_van_den_Vondel
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joost_van_den_Vondel
Music:
http://www.camerata-trajectina.nl/display.php?l=nl&i=mp3
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Mieke G. Bal (1946), a cultural theorist and critic, was Royal
Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Professor. Her interests
range from biblical and classical antiquity to seventeenth-century and
contemporary art and modern literature, feminism, and migratory culture. When writing on art, she favours dialogue over the application of
theory, and anachronism as a magnifying glass over historical reconstruction. Her many books include Of What One Cannot Speak: Doris
Salcedo’s Political Art (2011), Loving Yusuf (2008), A Mieke Bal Reader
(2006), Travelling Concepts in the Humanities (2002) and Narratology
(3d edition 2009). She is also a video-artist, making experimental documentaries on migration. Her irst iction feature, A Long History of
Madness, with Michelle Williams Gamaker, was shown publicly in
2011. Occasionally she acts as an independent curator.
http://www.miekebal.org/
Mieke.G.Bal@gmail.com
http://www.crazymothermovie.com
Maaike A. Bleeker is Professor of heatre Studies at Utrecht
University. She also worked as a dramaturge for various theatre directors, choreographers and visual artists. She performed in several lecture performances, ran her own theatre company (Het Oranjehotel)
and translated ive plays that were performed by major Dutch theatre
companies. She is also President of Performance Studies International.
http://www.theatrestudies.nl/s_bleeker.html
m.a.bleeker@uu.nl
Jan Bloemendal (1961) is Senior Researcher at the Huygens Institute
for the History of the Netherlands, of the Royal Netherlands Academy
of Arts and Sciences in the Hague and Professor of Neo-Latin Studies
at the University of Amsterdam. His ields of interest include Dutch
early modern drama, reception studies, literature and society, poetry,
and Erasmus as a humanist and theologian.
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/j.bloemendal/
jan.bloemendal@huygens.knaw.nl
612
about the authors
Wiep van Bunge (1960) is Professor of the History of Philosophy and
Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
He is mainly interested in the history of philosophy in the Dutch
Republic and in the rise of the Enlightenment.
http://www.eur.nl/fw/contact/medewerkers/vanbunge/
vanbunge@fwb.eur.nl
Bennett Carpenter received a master’s in Literature at Leiden
University. His recent research has focussed on the concept of natural
history in the work of heodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin. Other
areas of interest include literature and politics, philosophical aesthetics,
Italian autonomist theory and, following Adorno and Benjamin, the
recovery of a philosophy of spiritual (geistige) experience.
http://bennettabroad.wordpress.com/
Jan Frans van Dijkhuizen is Lecturer in English Literature at Leiden
University. He is the author of Devil heatre: Demonic Possession and
Exorcism in English Renaissance Drama, 1558-1642 (Cambridge:
D.S. Brewer, 2007) and has co-edited he Reformation Unsettled: British
Literature and the Question of Religious Identity, 1560-1660 (Turnhout:
Brepols, 2008) and he Sense of Sufering: Constructions of Physical
Pain in Early Modern Culture (Leiden: Brill, 2009). He has recently
completed a monograph on the meanings of physical pain in early
modern English literature and culture.
http://www.hum.leiden.edu/icd/organisation/members/dijkhuizenjfvan.html
j.f.van.dijkhuizen@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Peter G.F. Eversmann (1955) is Associate Professor at the Department
of heatre Studies of the University of Amsterdam and Editor-in-Chief
of the FIRT/IFTR series hemes in heatre - Collective Approaches to
heatre and Performance. His research topics include theatrical space,
theatrical events and empirical audience and reception research.
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/p.g.f.eversmann/
p.g.f.eversmann@uva.nl
Jeanne Gaakeer (1956) is Professor of Legal heory specializing in
literary jurisprudence, i.e. the bond between law, language and literature, at the Erasmus School of Law (Erasmus University Rotterdam)
and she serves as a justice in the criminal law section of the Appellate
about the authors
613
Court of he Hague. She holds degrees in English Literature, Dutch
Law and Philosophy. he focus of her writing is on interdisciplinary
movements in law, and on legal methodology. She is co-founder of the
European Network for Law and Literature.
http:// www.eurnll.org
http://esl.sin-online.nl/staf/index.html?lia=492
gaakeer@law.eur.nl
Nina Geerdink (1983) is Lecturer in Early Modern Dutch Literature
at Radboud University Nijmegen and is currently inishing her dissertation at VU University. Her research concerns the authorship of Jan
Vos (1610–1667) as represented in his social poetry. Other ields of
interest include early modern drama, literature and politics, reading
culture, women writers and visual culture.
http://www.ru.nl/nederlands/wie_wat_waar/medewerkers/nina
-geerdink/
n.geerdink@let.ru.nl
Guillaume van Gemert (1948) is Professor of German Literature at
Radboud University Nijmegen. He has published on Early Modern
German literature in a European context, on German-Dutch cultural
exchange, on national and cultural identity, on the interrelations of
Latin and vernacular as well as on contemporary German literature.
g.v.gemert@let.ru.nl
Louis Peter Grijp (1954) is head of the Documentation and Research
Centre of Dutch Songs at the Meertens Institute, Amsterdam, and
Professor of Dutch songs in past and present at Utrecht University.
He is artistic director and lutanist of Camerata Trajectina, an ensemble
for early Dutch music.
http://www.meertens.knaw.nl/cms/nl/medewerkers/142464-louisg
louis.grijp@meertens.knaw.nl
Eddy K. Grootes (1936) is Emeritus Professor of Dutch Historical
Literature at the University of Amsterdam. He published books and
articles on Dutch 17th-century poetry, drama and prose, and editions
of, e.g. Bredero and Hoot. A recent publication, together with Riet
Schenkeveld-van der Dussen, is: ‘he Dutch Revolt and the Golden
Age’, heo Hermans (ed.), A Literary History of the Low Countries
(Rochester, New York: Boydell & Brewer Ltd, 2009)
614
about the authors
Helmer Helmers (1977) is Lecturer in Early Modern Dutch Literature
at the University of Groningen and is currently inishing his dissertation, he Royalist Republic, at the University of Leiden. He has published on Anglo-Dutch relations and cultural exchange, including
articles on Dutch seventeenth-century adaptations of Shakespeare and
Kyd, the Dutch Git of 1660, and Anglo-Dutch political discourse.
h.j.helmers@rug.nl
Yasco Horsman (1970) is Lecturer in Literary Studies at Leiden
University and author of heaters of Justice: Judging, Staging and
Working hrough in Arendt, Brecht and Delbo (Stanford University
Press, 2010). His research interests include: literature and psychoanalysis, law and literature, deconstruction, gender studies, literary theory,
theatre studies.
http://www.hum.leiden.edu/icd/organisation/members/horsmany
.html
y.horsman@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Madeleine Kasten (1956), who took her PhD in 2001 at the University
of Amsterdam, is ailiated with Leiden University, where she has
lectured in the Literary Studies Department since 2004. Her publications include a study of medieval allegory entitled In Search of ‘Kynde
Knowynge’ (2007), articles on allegory ancient and modern, on
Shakespeare, and on the theory and practice of literary translation.
http://www.hum.leiden.edu/icd/organisation/members/kastenmja
.html
m.j.a.kasten@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Frans-Willem Korsten (1959) is Professor of Literature and Society
at the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication and at
the Leiden University Institute for Cultural Disciplines. His research
focuses on the relation in European history between literature, political
theory, economics and law, with special interests in the role of theatricality in these domains and the baroque nature of the seventeenthcentury Dutch Republic.
http://www.eshcc.eur.nl/korsten/
f.w.a.korsten@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Stefan van der Lecq (1983) was a Ph.D. candidate in Literary Studies
at Leiden University. Both his master’s thesis and his Ph.D. research
about the authors
615
focussed on the construction and deconstruction of sovereignty on the
early modern stage, particularly in the plays of Christopher Marlowe.
svdlecq@gmail.com
Bettina Noak (1968) is Scientiic Project Researcher at the Free
University of Berlin and member of the research group Topics and
Tradition (DFG – German Research Foundation). Her special interests
are the Dutch and German structures of knowledge between 1600 and
1700. Her recent publications include Jan Konst, Inger Leemans,
Bettina Noak (eds.), Niederländisch-Deutsche Kulturbeziehungen 1600–
1830 (Göttingen: V&R unipress, 2009).
http://www.geisteswissenschaften.fu-berlin.de/we04/Mitarbeiter/
bnoak/index.html
bnoak@zedat.fu-berlin.de
James A. Parente, Jr. is Professor of German, Scandinavian and
Dutch, and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of
Minnesota. He is specialized in medieval, Renaissance and baroque
literature. In 1987, he published Religious Drama and the Humanist
Tradition.
https://apps.cla.umn.edu/directory/proiles/paren001
paren001@umn.edu
Jürgen Pieters (1969) is Professor of Literary heory at Ghent
University. His ields of interest are the history of poetics and aesthetics, theoretical issues surrounding the discipline of literary history and
Dutch seventeenth-century literature and culture. His most recent
book is entitled Historische letterkunde vandaag en morgen (Amsterdam:
AUP, 2011). He is currently preparing, together with Lise Gosseye, a
Dutch introduction to the theory and the reading practice of New
Historicism.
http://www.nederlandseliteratuur.ugent.be/personeel/pieters
jurgen.pieters@ugent.be
Judith Pollmann (1964) is Professor of the History and Culture of
the Dutch Republic at Leiden University. She has published widely on
the religious and cultural history of the early modern Low Countries.
She is currently directing the NWO-VICI research project Tales of the
Revolt.
616
about the authors
Memory, Oblivion and Identity in the Low Countries, 1566–1700
(www.earlymodernmemory.org).
http://www.hum.leiden.edu/history/staf/pollmann.html
j.pollmann@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Marco Prandoni (1978) teaches Dutch Language and Literature at
the University of Padua and Dutch Language at the University of
Naples. His ields of interest include Dutch theatre of the Golden Age,
humanistic culture and contemporary Dutch literature. He is co-editor
of a new Literary History of the Low Countries in Italian.
marco.prandoni@unipd.it
Maria A. Schenkeveld-van der Dussen (1937) is Emeritus Professor of Dutch Literature of the 16th-19th Centuries at Utrecht
University. She has published books, articles and editions on (theatrical) poetics, poetry and literary history. Recent publications: together
with E.K. Grootes, ‘he Dutch Revolt and the Golden Age’, heo
Hermans (ed.), A Literary History of the Low Countries (Rochester,
New York: Boydell & Brewer Ltd, 2009). Co-editor of Women’s Writing
From the Low Countries 1200-1875 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University
Press, 2010).
m.a.schenkeveld@uu.nl
Mieke B. Smits-Veldt (1936) was Assistant Professor at the department of Historical Dutch Literature of the University of Amsterdam.
She published several studies and articles on the history of literature
and drama of the Dutch Renaissance. Among these publications is the
fourth part of the Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse literatuur 1560–
1700 (Een nieuw vaderland voor de muzen) (2008), together with Karel
Porteman.
smitsmb@xs4all.nl
Marijke Spies (1934) is Emeritus Professor of Dutch Literature at the
VU University Amsterdam and of the History of Rhetoric at the
University of Amsterdam. Her main ields of interest are late 16thcentury and 17th-century Dutch literature and the reception of
classical rhetoric in these periods.
mspies@xs4all.nl
about the authors
617
Kristine Steenbergh (1976) is Lecturer in English Literature at the
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her research project Moving Scenes:
heatre, Passion and the Public Sphere in Early Modern England, 1580–
1642 is funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientiic Research
(NWO). he project explores the role of the theatre in thinking about
the efect of emotions on an audience, in the context of the emerging
public sphere in early modern England.
http://www.let.vu.nl/nl/organisatie-van-de-faculteit/wetenschap
pelijk-personeel/medewerkers-alfabetisch/medewerkers-l-s/dr-k
-steenbergh/index.asp
k.steenbergh@let.vu.nl
INDEX OF NAMES, INCLUDING CHARACTERS
Aarssen, François van 245
Abel 402
Abiathar 128, 129, 132
Abishag 40–42
Abraham 348, 443
Absalom 5, 130, 132, 434–43
Achiman 511, 512, 517, 526, 527
Adam 5, 6, 8, 11, 152, 163, 168–69, 265,
388, 389, 390, 396, 399, 402, 489, 526
Adelaert 364–71, 373, 374
Adonijah 5, 40, 41
Aeneas 66, 218, 275, 277, 281, 356,
469, 510
Aeschylus 236
African 33–35
Agamemnon 132, 133, 134, 236, 237,
238, 241, 245
Ahinoam 435
Alexander the Great 149
Alexander Polyhistor 255n
Alphen, Hieronymus van 13, 14
Alva, Duke of 101, 468, 471
Ammon 131
Ammonites 130, 411
Amnon 435, 436, 437, 439
Amorites 179, 181
Amsterdam Maidens (chorus in
Gysbreght) 145, 290, 291n, 296, 305
Andromache 279, 280, 281–82, 283, 483
Angel (in Gysbrecht) 2, 4, 38, 68, 106,
159, 169, 275, 294, 300, 310
Angels (Guardian) (chorus in Adam
Exiled) 152, 153
Anslo, Reyer 112
Anslo, Cornelis 214
Antigone 482, 483
Apollion 388–90, 394, 516
Apollo 113
Aristotle 3, 4, 19, 74, 78, 79, 117, 118,
142, 249n, 258n, 261n, 267, 345, 351,
352, 354, 355, 356, 357n, 407–09, 411,
419, 420, 421, 422, 423, 426, 449, 478,
482, 483
Poetics 74, 117, 122, 142, 261n
Politics 258n
Arminius, Jacobus 58, 59, 88, 228
Artapanus 255n
Astyanax 279, 281, 283
Augustine, St. 38, 94, 95, 220, 355n, 509
De natura et gratia 355n
Augustus 249, 473n
Aurelius, Cornelius 467
Divisiekroniek 467
Badeloch 14, 38, 125, 159, 274, 275,
277–84, 286, 294–98, 300n, 303,
305–07
Badings, Hendrik 146n, 167
Baeck, Laurens 61
Baeck, daughters of 61, 62
Baerle, Caspar van see Barlaeus, Caspar
Balde, Jacob 196
Jephtias 196
Barlaeus, Caspar 65, 72, 99, 110, 114,
171, 494
Barnard, Benno 170
Bartas, Guillaume Du 55, 56, 81, 253
La Magniicence de Salomon 55, 253
Les semaines 56, 81
Bartjens, Willem 51, 103
Cijferinghe 51n
Batavian women (chorus in Batavische
gebroeders) 470, 473, 474, 482
Bathsheba 40, 41, 178, 179n, 438, 439,
440, 443, 444
Bato 383, 465n, 469, 472n
Beale 346n, 347
Becket, Andrew 173
Trip to Holland 173n
Beelthouwer, Jan Pietersz. 490,
522n, 523
Adams Antwoort tegen Joost van den
Vondel 522n
De Hoogste en Laetste bedenkcingen
over Godt 522n
Beelzebub 403
Benjamin 257, 258, 262, 264, 324,
326, 327
Beremond 127
Berlage, H.P. 165, 166
Bethulians (chorus Hebreeusche
heldinnen) 150
Beverland, Adriaan 525
Peccatum Originali 525
Beza, heodorus, see Bèze, heodore de
Bèze, heodore de 95
620
index
Bidloo, Govert 153, 160, 161, 162, 164
Bijl, heo van der 167
Bilderdijk, Willem 510
Ondergang der eerste wareld 510
Bilha 324
Blackwood, Adam 347, 353
Martyre de la royne d’Escosse 347
Blaeu, Willem Jansz. 44, 59, 62, 67, 70,
288n, 491
Atlas 44
Zeespiegel 59
Blijenbergh, Willem van 514, 515, 521
Bloem-Hof van de Nederlantsche
Ieught 176
Blon, Michiel le 74, 365, 372, 462
Boom, Dirk 492n
Botticelli 166
Primavera 166
Brahman 439
Brandt, Geeraardt 10, 57, 59, 61,
70n, 72, 78, 80, 83, 88, 91–94, 97, 98,
101n, 227n, 230, 231, 232, 233, 491,
494n, 499
Bredero, Gerbrand, 102, 140, 168
De Spaansche Brabander, 168
Broer Peter (Brother Peter) 290, 294,
295n, 300, 305, 307, 308, 310
Bruyn, Kornelis de 492
Buchanan, George 78, 117n, 196, 407n,
411, 422
Jephthes 78, 117n, 196, 407n, 422
Buckhurst 346n, 347
Burgerhart, Nikolaes 465–67, 471–73,
475, 478, 480–84
Burgh, Albert 230–31
Burgon 135
Busiris 34
Caesar, Julius 58, 473n
Cain 402, 511
daughters of Cain 510, 526
Calchas 133, 243, 244
Calderón de la Barca, Pedro 172
Calom, Jacob Aertsz. 61, 63, 491
Calvin, Johannes 424
Camden, William 343
Annales rerum Anglicarum et
Hibernicarum regnante
Elizabeth 343
Cammaert, Jan Frans 5, 163, 164, 490n
Campen, Jacob van 2, 68, 69, 76
Carrion, Louis 216n
Antiquarum lectionum commentarii
tres 216n
Casparius, Caspar 344
Cats, Jacob 177, 197
Catullus 60
Caussin S.J., Nicolas 343
L’Histoire de l’incomparable Reyne
Marie Stuart 343
Charles I Stuart 3, 9, 177, 197, 341, 355,
356, 357, 383, 394
Charles II Stuart 80, 474
Charles V 471
Cheng Ho see Zheng He
Chongzhen see Zungchin
Christ 12, 21, 25, 40–41, 52–53, 82, 90,
91, 135, 190, 210, 214–222, 259, 268,
296, 305, 353n, 354, 355, 357, 358,
401, 413, 415, 426, 441, 442, 443, 446,
448, 512, 521
Christina of Sweden 74
Christopherson, John 407n
Iεϕθαε 407n
Cicero 253, 485
Claudius Civilis 5, 111, 160, 464, 465,
466, 467, 468, 469
Coligny, Gaspard de 278
Coligny, Louise de 278, 279,
280, 281
Comines, Philip de 172n
Constantine the Great 67, 260, 261
Constantinus VII 349, 350
Corneille 172
Cornelison, Adriaen 491
Coste d’Arnobat, Pierre 313
Coster, Samuel 59, 105, 140, 145, 236.
240, 422n
Iphigenia 236, 422n
Court, Priest (Jeptha) 418–20
Craanen, Anna 93
Craanen, Clementia 93, 94
Craanen, Peter 92, 94
Craanen, Sara 92, 93
Creon 483
Creusa 66, 281, 283
Crocus, Cornelius 331
Ioseph 331
Croiset, Hans 21, 168, 170
Cromwell, Oliver 3, 72, 341, 353,
355, 356, 394, 395n
Cuypers, Hubert 167
Cuypers, Pierre 16
Dagon 188, 453, 454, 455
Dakkamude, Daniel 504
Damme, Andries van 492n
Darnley see Henry Stuart
index
David 3, 5, 40, 41, 70, 118, 128,
129–30, 132, 149, 154, 178, 179,
180, 182, 183, 348, 427–44, 463
Dedekind, Constantin Christian 177,
188, 190n, 191, 192, 193
Simson 177, 188, 190n,
191, 193n
Demetrius 255n
Democritus 524
Denizens (chorus in Gysbreght) 145,
290, 297, 306
Derkinderen, Antoon 165
Descartes, René 253, 514, 524
Diderot 337
Diedrick van Haerlem 290, 303,
305, 310
Diepenbrock, Alphons 145n, 167
Diomedes 163, 237, 245
Dousa, Janus 171
Downing 474
Dudley 347
Duncan 382
Dunton, John 172
Duym, Jacob 344
Edgar 382
Edward of Bavaria 341, 354
Edward 382
Ephraimites 411
Egmond (count) 290, 305
Egmond, widow of J. van 501
Elizabeth I 3, 71, 72, 135, 184, 185n,
341, 342, 343, 347, 348, 349–50,
354, 355, 356
Elizabeth 354, 355
Enoch 402
Epicurus 524
Erasmus, Desiderius 59
Ethiopian women (chorus in
Sofompaneas) 259, 260, 268
Euboeans and Ithacians (chorus in
Palamedes) 242
Euripides 5, 6, 9, 69, 117, 236, 240,
244, 249n, 251, 279
Hecabe 279
Iphigenia 5, 117, 249n
Phoenissae / Phoenician Women 6,
117, 251
Troades/ Trojan Women 279
Eusebius 216n, 255n
Chronica 216n
Preparation of the Gospel 255n
Eve 5, 8, 11, 15, 163, 166, 168, 170, 265,
396, 399, 490, 526
621
Felt, Symon 152n
Ferdinand III 4, 386, 387n
Filmer, Robert 389
Patriarchia 389
Filopaie 5, 407, 408, 409, 411,
414–21, 424
Fletcher, John 230
he Tragedy of Sir John van Olden
Barnavalt 230
Flinck, Govert 112
Floris V, Count 125–26, 274, 278n,
290, 345
Fonteius Kapito 466–67, 471, 472, 473,
474, 481, 482, 483, 484
Fonteyn, homas 504
Fornenberg, Jan Baptist van 162, 504
Fracastoro, Girolamo 331
Josephus 331
Francis II 342, 349
Francis Xavier 138
Francq van Berkhey, Le 13
Frederick Henry 62, 63, 65, 66, 66, 73,
109, 110, 250, 463, 481n
Fronto 466, 467, 473, 482
Furies 163, 471
Gabaonners see Gibeonites
Gabriel 5, 203, 214, 218, 219–22,
388, 390
Ganymede 134
Garnier, Robert 56
Gaza, King of 453
Geeraerdt van Velsen 125
Gibeah 149
Gibeonites 128, 129, 178, 181
Gijsbreght 14, 38, 125, 126, 137,
157, 159, 169, 274, 275, 277–83, 285,
286, 288, 291, 293, 294, 296–98, 300,
302–12, 314
Giraldus 60
De re nautica libellus 60
Gnapheus, Gulielmus 344
Goliath 463
Gomarus, Franciscus 58, 228
Gozewijn 9, 159, 275, 293, 299, 303,
306, 307, 311
Graef, Cornelis de 110, 465n
Graef, Jacob de 64
Groot, Gijsbert de 492n, 501
Grotius, Hugo or de Groot 2, 3, 4, 19,
34n, 55, 56, 58, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72,
73, 78, 98, 99, 158, 171, 172, 197, 204,
207, 211–13, 214n, 215, 222, 249–69,
288n, 289, 447, 461, 468, 469, 472,
622
index
477, 478, 480, 481, 484, 485, 486, 489,
490, 500, 513n
Adamus exul 251, 265, 489
De iure belli ac pacis 250, 480,
481, 485
De veritate religionis Christianae 212
Inleidinghe tot de Hollantsche
rechtsgeleertheyd 480
Liber de antiquitate reipublicae
Batavae 55, 468, 469n, 472, 478
Remonstrantie 34n, 204, 211–13,
214n, 215, 222
Sophompaneas 2, 67, 249–69, 484
Tractaet van de Oudtheyt vande
Batavische nu Hollandsche
Republique 468, 472
Grotius, Pieter 250
Gryphius, Andreas 177, 178–80, 181,
185, 193, 194, 195, 197
Carolus Stuardus 185, 194
Die Sieben Brüder Oder Die
Gibeoniter 177, 178–80
Gelibte Dornrose 194
Leo Armenius 194
Catharina von Georgien 194
Das Verlibte Gespenst 194
Guarini, Giovanni Battista 74, 364
Il pastor ido 74, 364
Hadley, Henry K. 167
Haechtanus, Laurentius 54
Microkosmos: Parvus mundus 54
Hageroos 74, 364–74
Ham 511, 515, 516, 517, 519, 520
Handel, George Frederick 143
Hans Mathysz. 52
Hector 279, 281, 283
Hecuba 237, 241, 280, 483
Heemskerck, Willem van 149, 150
Hebreeusche Heldinne 149
Heereman 371
Hegesippus 216n
Verwoesting van Jerusalem 216n
Heidenreich, David Elias 177, 180–83
Rache zu Gibeon 177, 180–83
Heinsius, Daniel 4, 19, 52, 53, 60, 69,
78, 171, 176, 197, 239–40, 249n, 276,
279n, 344, 349, 350–51
Auriacus 276n, 279n, 344n, 349,
350–51
Emblemata amatoria 52
Nederduytsche Poemata 176
Quaeris quid sit amor? 52
Henry VIII 347, 349
Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley 342
Hepburn, James 342
Hera see Juno
Hercules 246, 247, 417, 419
Herod 37
Herodias 135
Hobbes, homas 98, 392, 393, 405, 477
De cive 392
Leviathan 392
Hogendorp, Gijsbrecht van 276n, 278
Truerspel van de moordt 276n, 278
Homer 235, 244, 272, 279, 483
Iliad 235, 279, 483
Hoot, C.P. 109, 205–08
Hoot, Pieter Cornelisz. 13, 53, 57, 59,
60, 72, 108, 109, 114, 125, 139, 140,
141, 172, 175, 202, 239, 240, 276, 281,
344, 382, 468
Baeto 382, 383n, 468
Geeraerdt van Velsen 125, 141n, 276,
278n, 279n, 281, 283
Granida 141
‘Over de Waardigheidt der
Poëzy’ 175n
Hooren, Anna van 421
Hooren, Simon van 465
Hoorn, Barend van 148
Hoorne 471
Horace 59, 73, 79, 319, 321, 322,
348, 356n
Ars poetica 73, 319, 321, 356n
Huydecoper, Balthasar 12
Huygens, Constantijn 72, 99n, 171
Iëmpsar see Jempsar
Iphigenia 133, 245
Iphis (Iis) 4, 130n, 131–32, 137, 407,
409–15, 417, 418, 420, 421, 423,
424, 426
Isaac 413
Isabella of Austria 241
Isis 146
Israelites (chorus in Gebroeders) 105,
129
Israelites (chorus in Het Pascha) 147,
154
Jacob 37, 249, 257, 258, 259, 324, 326,
327, 334
James I 230
James V 342
James VI 342
Jan Pietersz. 141
Japheth 517
index
Jebb, Samuel 343
De vita et rebus gestis Mariae Scotorum
reginae 343
Jempsar 322, 325, 328–39
Jepththah 4, 77, 118, 128, 130–32, 137,
154, 407–26
Jeremiah 37n
Jerome, St. 256, 268
Vulgate 256, 268
Jesus see Christ
Jewish women (chorus in Samson) 188,
453, 455
Jewish women (chorus in Hierusalem
Verwoest) 202
Joab 440, 442, 444, 504
Jochebed 424
John 82
Jolles, André 165
Jonathan 129
Joseph (patriarch) 2, 37, 67, 158, 160,
194, 249, 250–52, 254, 255, 256
Joseph (husband of Mary) 93
Josephus 206, 208, 209, 214, 216, 217
Josephus, Flavius 206, 209, 216,
217, 255n
Antiquitates Judaicae 206, 255n
Bellum Iudaicum / he Wars of the
Jews 206, 216, 217
Joshua 128–30
Journal des Sçavans 509
Joyce, James 272
Judah 257, 258, 262, 263
Julius Paulus 465, 466, 468, 471–73,
480, 483
Juno (Hera) 417
Jupiter see Zeus
Justinus 255n
Keckermann, Bartholomäus 60
Klaeris 126, 275, 297, 306, 307, 314
Klaerissen (chorus in Gysbreght) 290,
296, 297, 306
Koer, Arent Arentsz. 140
Koläus 136
Koninck, Philips de 83
Koning, Abraham de 61, 147, 155, 407n,
411n, 412, 418
Achabs treurspel 147, 155
Jephthahs ende zijn Eenighe Dochters
treur-spel 407n, 411n, 412n, 418,
426
Kormart, Christoph 177, 183–87
Maria Stuart oder Gemarterte
Majestät 177, 183–87
623
Kranen see Craanen
Krul, Jan Harmensz. 140, 153
Laban 37
Ladies in waiting (chorus in
Salomon) 146
Lairesse, Gerard de 159
Lamveld, J. 492n
Lamveld, W. 492n
Langendijk, Pieter 162, 163, 164
Langius, Carolus 216n
Lastman, Pieter 317
Leah 324
Lantskroon 364, 366, 367, 371, 372, 375
Leeuwendalers 364
Leeuwenhoek, Anthonie 509
Lensvelt, Frits 166
Lescaille, Catharine 173
Lescaille, J 501n
Levites 437
Lieutenant-colonel (Maeghden) 127
Locke, John 253
Louis Napoleon 14
Louis XIV 474
Lucanus 58
Pharsalia 58
Lucifer 163, 168, 170, 194, 378, 380, 381,
387–90, 392–94, 404, 405, 477
Lucretius 524
Luther, Martin 95
Luyken, Jan 392
Jezus en de Ziel 392
Lycus 417
Lykungzus 136, 137
Macropedius, Georgius 143, 344
Machteld 274, 277, 279n, 281–83
Malcolm 382
Mander, Karel van 52, 53, 56n, 510
Noah 510
Olijberg, ote Poema van den laesten
dagh 56n
Schilderboek 52
Mann, homas 324, 331
Maria / Mary 93, 135, 354, 357
Maria Graeca 350
Marius, Leonard 71, 96
Mars 73
Martinius, Martinus 44
De bello Tartarico Historia 44
Historie van den Tartarischen
oorlog 44
Mary Stuart 3, 9, 71, 134, 135, 183–87,
341–58
624
index
Massinger, Philip 230
he Tragedy of Sir Johan van Olden
Barnavalt 230
Matenes, Van 245
Maurice, St. 35
Maurits of Nassau 9, 32, 35, 58, 59, 62,
90, 108, 109, 133, 162, 206, 207, 208,
228–32, 235, 237, 238, 239, 241, 463,
464, 470, 472, 474
McFedden, Claron 170
Medea 416, 417
Medici, Maria de 110
Meersch, Israel van der 96
Megaera 133, 240
Melville, Herman 482, 483
Billy Budd, Sailor 482, 483
Mengelberg, Willem 167
Menno Simonsz. 96
Merob 179, 181
Messenger (Gysbreght) 290, 293, 294n,
298, 303, 307–11, 314
Messenger (Samson) 446, 455
Meursius, Johannes 60
Michael 163, 164, 390, 400, 401,
402, 403
Michol 129, 178, 179n, 181, 348
Milton, John 19, 81, 173, 195, 359,
377–405, 476, 477, 489
Eikonoklastes 398
Paradise Lost 19, 81, 173, 195,
377–405, 489
he Tenure of Kings and
Magistrates 398, 399n
Moerman, Jan 54
Molière 509
L’amour médecin 509
Moor 264n
Moréri, Louis 171, 172n
Grand dictionaire historique 171,
172n
Morhof, Daniel Georg 171
Polyhistor literarius, philosophicus et
practicus 171
Unterricht von der Teutschen Sprache
und Poesie 171
Moses 11, 53, 154, 219–20, 221n, 249,
255n, 353n, 424, 463, 509, 525
Mostert, Daniel 251n
Muses 113, 486
Napoleon 14
Nassau see Maurits
Nathan 438, 440, 441
Nero 466n, 474, 484n
Den nieuwen verbeterden lust-hof 52, 60
Neptune 134, 237, 241
Newton, Isaac 509
Nieuhof, Johan 6
Nieuwelandt, Guilliam van 344
Nittert Obbesz. 90
Noah 509–12, 515–18, 520–21, 526, 527
Noblemen (chorus in Gysbreght) 145,
290, 295
Nooseman, Jan 148
Nooseman, Jelis 148
Nozeman, Ariana 322
Oeax 237, 241
Oldenbarnevelt, Johan van 2, 9, 32, 58,
59, 60, 61, 62, 90, 106, 108, 109, 133,
162, 204–10, 225, 227–32, 236–38,
240–42, 245–46, 461, 463, 464, 469,
470, 472–74
Oosterwyk, Johannes 13, 500
Op de Vereenigingh van Apelles en
Apollo 113
Opitz, Martin 176
Buch von der deutschen Poeterey 176
Teutsche Poemata 176n
Orange see Frederick Henry, Maurits,
William of Orange
Otten, Marcel 170
Outshoren, Cornelis van 446, 448, 457
Ovid 52, 59, 71, 80, 245
Heroides 71
Metamorphoses 52, 80, 245
Padbrué, Cornelis hymansz. 150, 152,
153, 154
De tranen Petri ende Pauli 150
Palamedes 2, 132, 133–34, 163, 225, 230,
231, 235–42, 244–46
Palmen, Conny 30
Lucifer 30
Pao (princess) 137
Paul, St. 3, 71, 95, 152, 213, 219, 221,
222, 227
Paulet 346n, 347, 348, 440
Paulus, Julius 465, 466, 468, 471, 472,
473n, 480, 483
Pauw, Adriaen 211
Pauw, Reynier 58, 63, 240, 241
Peyrère, Isaac La 510
Pels, Andries 10, 12
Gebruik én misbruik des tooneels 10n
Pers, Dirck Pietersz. 52, 54, 55, 61,
320, 491
Peter, St. 3, 71, 152
index
Petrarch 60
Pisones 73
Phaeton 161, 170
Pharaoh (Sofompaneas) 67, 256, 258,
259, 267
Philip II 101, 463, 467, 471
Philistines 193, 445, 453, 455
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal
Society 509
Philo 249, 255n
Life of Joseph 255n
Plato 428
Gorgias 428
Republic 428
Plautus 142
Pliny the Elder 55, 263
Naturalis historia 55
Pluimer, Jan 160
Pompeius Trogus 255n
Pontanus, Jacobus 60
Potiphar 160, 258, 259, 325, 327–30,
333–35, 337, 338
Priam 237, 241
Priests (chorus in Gebroeders) 138, 149,
150, 154
Propertius 60
Prynne, William 10
Histriomastix 10
Punt, Jan 159
Pynas, Jan Simonsz. 317
Jacob being shown the cloak of
Joseph 317
Q.D.C.V. 227, 232
Rachel 37, 249, 324
Racine 172, 509
Alexandre le Grand 509
Ramses 257
Raphael 2, 68, 106, 159, 167, 169, 275,
283, 290, 294, 299, 300–01, 303, 308,
500
Reael, Laurens 59, 60, 202n
Rekers, Guus 21, 168
Rembrandt ix, 23, 26, 46, 111, 112, 113,
214, 299, 322, 324, 325, 328, 330, 335,
336, 337n, 339, 465n, 493
Night Watch 112
he Oath of Claudius Civilis 465n
Remond, Florimond 343
Opgang, Voortgang, en Nedergang der
ketteryen dezer eeuwe 343
Reuchlin, Johannes 143
Riccoboni, Louis 312, 313n
625
Ries, Hans de 90
Ripa, Cesare 320
Iconologia 320
Rochussen, Charles 165
Roland Holst, R.N. 166
Romoaldus Scotus 343, 346, 354n
Mariae Stuartae […] supplicium et
mors pro ide catholica
constantissimae 346, 354
Summarium de morte Mariae
Stuartae 343
Roulerius, Adrianus 345–49, 350, 352,
353, 357
Stuarta tragoedia 345–49, 352, 353,
357
Rooyaards, Willem C. 166
Royer, Louis 16
Ruarus, David 501
Ruben 325, 326, 333
Rubens, Peter Paul 15, 112
Rulofs, Bartholomeus 167
Ruyter, Michiel de 493
Salius, Panagius 344
Salmoneus 4
Samson 5, 190, 445–58
Sandberg, Jacqueline 166
Sandrart, Joachim van 112
Satan 378n, 380, 396–99, 401–03, 441
Saul 3, 70, 123, 128, 129, 132, 180, 181,
182, 348, 463
Saverij, Salomon 236, 247, 248
Schagen 245
Schall, Adam 6, 138
Schonaeus, Cornelius 344
Schuurman, Adriaan C. 146n
Seneca 1, 2, 9, 19, 34, 56, 60, 69, 106,
122, 140n, 141, 142, 202n, 203, 240n,
242, 251, 265, 266, 279, 281, 283, 344,
347, 348, 408, 416, 417
Hercules furens 240, 417
Hippolytus 2, 19, 106, 117, 251, 265
Medea 417
Phaedra see Hippolytus
hyestes 348
Troades 1, 19, 56, 60, 117, 202n, 203,
239, 240, 279, 281, 283
Seth 510, 511
Shakespeare, William ix, 7–8, 46, 172,
173, 222, 359, 382, 399, 450, 490, 491,
492n
Hamlet 450
King Lear 382, 399
Macbeth 382, 399
626
index
he Merchant of Venice 222
Shem 512, 517
Simeon (Sofompaneas) 258, 264, 266
Simonides 321n, 331n
Simonides, Simon 331
Castus Joseph 331
Sisyphus 133, 240
Socrates 236, 240, 244, 256, 428
Solomon 3, 5, 40, 41, 75, 440, 444
Sophocles 2, 3, 5, 6, 19, 69, 70, 117, 146,
158, 236, 249, 482
Antigone 482
Elektra 2, 19, 69, 70, 117, 158
Oedipus Rex 5, 117, 146
Trachiniae 6, 117
Spiegel, Hendrik Laurensz. 103
Spinoza, Baruch de 384, 429, 490, 509,
513–15, 521, 522, 523, 525
Ethica 521
Korte Verhandeling 522
Letters 514n
Principia Philosophiae
Cartesianae 514
Tractatus de Intellectus
Emendatione 522
Tractatus heologico-Politicus 429,
509, 514, 521
Steendam, Jacob 145n, 490
Den Distelvink 145n
Steward (Jeptha) 411, 414–20, 424
Storgê 407
Storm, Hendrik 58
Stuart see Mary Stuart, Charles
Stuart, House of 464
Swaen, Michael de 196
Sylvester, Joshua 331
he Maidens Blush 331
Szymonowicz, Szymon, see Simonides,
Simon
Tacitus 5, 465–66, 467, 471, 472
Germania 467
Historiae 466, 467
Talmai 435
Tamar 435, 436, 437, 439
Tantalus 33, 34
Tasso, Torquato 67, 81, 82, 364
Aminta 364
Gerusalemme liberata 81
Tempesta, Antonio 464, 465, 473
Batavorum cum Romanis bellum 464
Terence 142, 344
Tesselschade Roemers Visscher,
Anna 57
Tesselschade Roemers Visscher,
Maria 57, 99
heocritus 60
heodora 350
homas Aquinas 523
homas Fransz. 140–41
hou, Jacques-Auguste du 343
Historiae sui temporis 343
hronus Cupidinis 176
Tigelinus 474
Titus 202, 216, 217
Trojan girls (chorus in Palamedes) 241
Tyndal, Robert 141
Ulysses 2, 133, 134, 163, 236, 237, 238,
239, 240, 241, 242, 245, 281
Urania 8, 511, 512, 515, 516, 517, 518,
519, 520, 521, 525, 526, 527
Uriah 438, 439, 440
Uriel 163, 393, 395, 403, 512
Ursula, St. 2, 70, 126,
Us (chancellor in Zungchin) 137
Vechter 466, 467
Veer, Pieter vande 491n, 500
Velsen, Geeraerdt van 125, 126, 281
Velsen, Klaeris van 126, 275
Velsen, Machtelt van 125, 274, 277, 278,
279n, 281, 282, 283
Verboom, Meynarda 11, 490
Pleyt voor onse eerste Moeder Eva 11
Vere, Captain 483
Verhoeven, Robbert 317
Verkade, Eduard 166, 167
Verlaine, Paul 166
Vermeer, Johannes 509
Girl With a Pearl Earring 509
Vernulaeus, Nicolaus 344
Vespasian 217, 474
Victorijn, Joan 251n
Virgil 56, 59, 60, 66, 67, 72, 80, 81, 110,
218n, 272, 275, 276, 302, 348, 356
Aeneid 66, 72, 81, 218, 275, 276, 277,
281, 283, 302, 356
Eclogues 72
Georgics 72
Virgins (chorus in Jephta) 146, 154,
413, 424
Visscher, Roemer 57, 59
Vitellius 466n, 474
Vlaming, Pieter de 64
Vondel, Anna (aunt) 93
Vondel, Anna (daughter) 80, 89, 96
Vondel, Constantijn 66
index
Vondel, Joost van den passim
Adam in ballingschap 5, 8, 11, 82,
116n, 119n, 152, 153n, 158, 163,
164, 166, 167, 168, 170, 175, 251,
265, 489–508, 510, 526
Adonias 5, 40, 41, 81, 472
Aenleidinge ter Nederduitsche
dichtkunste 73, 103n, 171,
255, 256n
Altaergeheimenissen 15, 94, 415
De Amsteldamsche Hecuba 2, 56n, 60,
61, 117, 202n, 239n, 265
Amsteldams wellekomst 63
Antidotum 61, 90
Batavische gebroeders 5, 81, 160, 162,
175, 233, 378, 459–87
Bespiegelingen van Godt en
Godtsdienst 15, 383, 384, 387, 391,
392, 522, 525, 526
Brieven der Heilige Maeghden 71
Constantinade 67, 82, 261
Decretum horrribele 91, 424
Dedicatie aan de jonkvrouwen 52
‘Door Een is ‘t nu voldaen’ 55, 56
Faëton 5, 13, 81, 119, 146, 153, 156,
161–62, 167, 170, 378
Gebroeders 3, 70, 74, 107, 112,
117, 119, 128, 132, 148, 149,
150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 158,
177, 178–83, 194, 351, 443, 499,
502–04, 507
De getemde Mars 73
Geuze-vesper 58, 461
Den gulden winckel 54, 319
Gysbreght van Aemstel ix, 2, 3, 9, 12,
13, 15, 16, 17, 36, 37, 38, 47, 68–69,
70, 75, 77, 106, 107, 108, 112, 113,
124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 137, 140n,
144, 145, 152, 154, 155, 157, 158,
159, 160, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168,
169, 170, 251, 271–315, 345, 444,
491, 499–501, 507, 513n
De Heerlyckheit der Kercke 82
De heerlyckheyd van Salomon 55,
222n, 253n
De helden Godes des Owden
Verbonds 55, 222n
Feniciaensche 6, 117, 491
Heldinnebrieven 71
Herkules in Trachin 6, 117, 491
Hierusalem verwoest 1, 55, 56, 177,
201–24, 491
Hippolytus 2, 19, 106, 117, 147, 155,
251, 265, 266, 491
627
Hymnus over de scheeps-vaert 54,
55, 60
Iigenie in Tauren 5, 117
Inwydinge van ‘t stadhuis t’
Amsterdam 75, 76, 110, 465
Inwying van den Christen tempel
t’Amsterdam 64
Inwying der doorluchtige schoole
t’Amsterdam 110
De jacht van Cupido 52
Jeptha 4, 5, 12, 77, 81, 117n, 118,
131n, 132, 137, 144, 145, 146, 154,
156, 158, 170, 196, 407–26
Joannes de Boetgezant 81, 82
Joseph in Dothan 3, 166, 167, 170,
269, 317–40, 345, 494
Joseph in Egypten 3, 146, 155, 269,
317–40
Jozef in ‘t hof 67, 269
Kinder-lyck 66
Koning David herstelt 5, 81, 119, 129,
130, 132, 434, 443
Koning David in ballingschap 5, 81,
119, 129, 130, 386, 434, 437, 438n,
440, 442
Koning Edipus 5, 117, 147, 156
De Kruisbergh 150
Leeuwendalers 3, 43, 74, 75, 146,
147n, 155, 164, 165, 170, 194,
359–76, 462n
‘Liefde verwinnet al’ 51, 55
Het lof der zee-vaert 57, 59, 60, 108
Lucifer 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 13, 15, 18, 19n,
21, 30, 76, 77, 78, 79, 113, 114, 119,
123, 146, 156, 158, 161, 163, 164,
166, 167, 168, 170, 172, 175, 195,
377–405, 491, 510
Lyckklaght aen het Vrouwekoor 67
Maeghden 2, 13, 70, 71, 126, 127n,
128, 137, 165, 345
Maria Stuart 3, 9, 10n, 71, 74,
111, 132, 134, 135n, 167, 177,
183–87, 194, 341–58, 378, 461,
502, 507
Nieuw-jaars lied 52
Noah 6, 8, 146, 156, 168, 509–27
Oorlof-lied 52
Op den burgher-krijgh der
Roomeren 58
Palamedes 2, 9, 13, 32, 33n, 34, 35, 60,
61, 62, 63, 106, 108, 132–34, 135,
146, 155, 162–63, 175, 177, 205,
209, 225–47, 264n, 461, 462, 464,
470, 473n, 491, 498, 499
628
index
Het Pascha 1, 7, 53, 54, 56, 103, 105,
120, 121n, 147, 154, 155, 177, 201,
202, 206, 463, 491
Peter en Pauwels 3, 71, 150, 152, 153
Poëzy of verscheide gedichten 73, 155
Roskam 62, 109, 207
Salmoneus 4, 77, 79, 122n, 161
Salomon 3–4, 12, 75, 107, 146, 155,
158, 163
Samson 5, 81, 163, 177, 188–93,
445–58
De slapende Venus 83
Stedekroon van Frederick Henrick 66
Stryd of Kamp Tusschen Kuyscheyd En
Gelheyd 61
Tooneelschilt ot Pleitrede voor het
toneelrecht 10, 79
Uitvaert van mijn Dochterken 66
Verghelijckinghe vande verlossinge der
kinderen Israels… 53
Verovering van Grol 63, 81, 82
Verscheide gedichten 72, 201
Vertroostinge aan Geeraerdt
Vossius 66n
Vorsteliicke warande der dieren 55
Zeemagazijn 113
Zegezang 463
Zungchin 6, 28, 82, 136–38
Vondel, Joost van den (father) 80, 92,
93, 101, 102
Vondel, Joost van den (son) 80, 96
Vondel, Maaike see Wolf, Maaike de 66,
67, 89, 90
Vondel, Sara van den (daughter) 66
Vondel, Sara van den (mother) 89, 93
Vondel (sister) 89, 102
Vooren, Lord 290, 294, 303, 307, 310
Vorstius, Coenraad 59
Vos, Jan 77, 140, 158, 423
Vossius, Cornelia 351
Vossius, Dionys 66, 69, 351
Vossius, Gerardus Johannes 4, 65, 66,
67, 70, 74, 75, 78, 79, 110, 112, 114,
117, 142, 172, 214, 249, 351–52, 356,
357, 384
De theologia gentili 384
Institutiones poeticae 74, 117n, 142,
351–52, 356, 357n
Vossius, Isaac 69, 510
Vredegunt 364
Vrerick 364
Waerandier (god of the wood) 364
Walcott, Derek 34, 42
Omeros 34, 42
Wallenstein 377
Wassenaar, Nicolaas van 59
Wees, Abraham de 69, 83, 148, 151, 341,
461, 491, 500, 502, 503, 504
Wees, Jan de 492n, 505
Westerbaen, Jacob 72, 97, 98n, 150
Kracht des geloofs van … Joost van
Vondelen 98n
Wild Man 365, 371
Willebrord 297, 304
Willem see William
Willem van Egmont 290
Willems, Jacob, 148
William of Orange 276, 277, 279, 281,
283, 344, 351, 462–63, 468
William II (stadtholder) 75, 383, 394,
463, 464, 471, 472
William III (stadtholder) 160, 162, 394,
474, 478
William III (king) 16
Willem Frederik 463
Willem Lodewijk 239, 245
Witt, Johan de 464, 473n
Witte van Haemstee 126, 290, 293n,
306, 314
Wittewrongel, Petrus 10, 79
Oeconomia Christiana 10
Wives of David (David Exiled) 439
Wolf, Maaike de see Vondel, Maaike van
de (wife)
Xuan Zong see Yongle
Yongle 27
Zeeusche Nachtegael 176
Zeus 4, 161
Zevecotius, Jacobus 349–51,
352, 357
Maria Stuarta / Maria Graeca
349–51, 352, 357
Zheng He 27, 28, 35
Zoet, Jan 72, 149, 150, 492
himoklea 149
Zuidam, Rob 170
Zungchin 6, 28,
136, 137
Zweers, Bernard 145n, 167
INDEX OF NAMES OF SCHOLARS
Abercrombie, Nigel 513n
Abicht, Ludo 211n
Adorno, heodor W. 431
Agamben, Giorgio 31, 362, 363
Aikin, John 173n
Akkerman, Fokke 521, 523
Albach, Ben 140n, 149n, 157n, 159n,
160n, 162n, 165n, 166n, 167n, 285,
286, 287n, 290, 293n, 298, 299, 309n,
312n, 313n, 500n, 501n, 502n, 504n
Alberdingk hijm, Jozef Albert 16,
145n, 165, 198
Allen, Don Cameron 509n, 510n
Allen, Graham 271n,
Alpers, Svetlana 465n
Alphen, Ernst van 21, 37n
Alt, Peter-André 124n
Amir, Ton 162n
Ankersmit, Frank R. 39, 40
Arendt, Hannah 38
Asperen, Bob van 150n
Asselbergs, Willem see Duinkerken,
Anton van
Assmann, Aleida 125n
Assmann, Jan 331n
Astell, Ann W. 226n
Auerbach, Erich 268n, 385
Austin, John L. 128n
Bakker, Boudewijn 110n, 384n
Bal, Mieke 25, 29n, 32n, 42–43, 318,
319n, 320n, 322n, 324, 325, 330–31,
334, 336n, 337n, 427n, 432, 438n,
478n
Balkin, Jack M., 479, 480n
Barnouw, A.J. 101n
Barthes, Roland 271, 498n
Bataille, George 445
Baumgartner, Alexander 198
Bax, M.M.H. 390n, 391
Beardsworth, Richard 362
Beckerman, Bernard 303n
Beekman, Klaus 109n, 231n
Beer, Taco H. de 198n
Bekker, Hugo 380n
Belsey, Catherine 24, 26
Benjamin, Walter 26, 226, 227, 235, 327,
332, 336, 337, 338, 339, 447, 455, 457
Benoy, Peter 168n
Berg, Willem van den 23n, 164n
Bertram, Paul 501n
Bhabha, Homi K. 259n
Blakely, Allison 34n
Bleeker, Maaike 67n, 322n, 323, 324n,
334n, 335n, 436, 437
Blijstra, Reinder 493
Bloemendal, Jan 71n, 74n, 82n, 117n,
279n, 331n, 342n, 344n, 349n, 351n
Blok, Marja 113n
Bloom, Harold 272
Blumenberg, Hans 26n
Bolter, J. David 506n
Bomhof, J.G. 18, 20, 233
Borch-Jacobson, Mikkel 357n
Bordoli, Roberto 523n
Bornemann, Ulrich 176n
Bostoen, Karel 120n
Bot, Jaap 109n
Böttiger, Carl Wilhelm 197n
Bouchard, Larry 30n
Bourdieu, Pierre 273
Bowring, John 173, 175, 469, 470
Braak, Menno ter 7, 8
Brachin, Pierre 326
Bradford, Richard 398
Brandt, George W. 107n, 108n
Brannigan, John 205
Brennan, Teresa 319
Brom, Gerard 17, 85n, 96n, 383n, 385n,
392n, 442n, 512n, 513n
Bruch, Hettel 493
Brugmans, H. 109n
Bruinsma, Henry A. 147n
Bunge, Wiep van 82n, 514n, 523n
Burke, Peter 207n
Busken Huet, Conrad 208, 309
Butler, Judith 128n
Calis, Piet 86, 89n, 98n, 101n, 114n,
208n, 461n, 462, 463n, 512n
Cardozo, Benjamin N. 460n
Carlson, M. 286
Carre, Meyrick H. 427n
Cerquiglini, Bernard 496
Certeau, Michel de 25
Cohen, Barbara 25n
630
index
Cohen, Stephen 234n
Cohen, Tom 25n
Cordes, Rudolf 149n
Cornelissen, J.D.M. 471, 472
Cover, Robert 475, 483n
Cowan, Bainard 336
Cox, Roger Lindsay 30n
Craik, Katherine 419, 420n
Culler, Jonathan 361n, 427n, 429n, 432
Flemming, Willi 178n, 194n
Fletcher, Angus 227n
Foucault, Michel 27n, 271, 359, 363
Fredriksen, Paula 94n
Freud, Sigmund 319n, 433, 448, 449–52,
453, 456
Führer, Heidrun 196n
Eagleton, Terry 362, 492n
Eco, Umberto 273, 328
Edmundson, George 195n
Eisenstein, Elizabeth 497n
Elias, Johan E. 207n
Elias, W. 525n
Erenstein, Rob L. 149n
Eversmann, Peter G.F. 68n, 293n
Eyinger, Arthur C. 478n, 485n
Gaakeer, Jeanne 233n, 460n, 499n
Gadamer, Hans-Georg 428n, 429
Garcia Martínez, Florentino 509n
Geerts, A.M.F.B. 34
Geertz, Cliford 479
Geesink, Marja S. 106n, 107n,
158n, 502n
Gelder, H.A. Enno van 207n, 208n
Gelderblom, Arie 126n, 359n
Gellrich, Jesse M. 385n
Gemert, Guillaume van 176n, 177n,
183n, 194n, 198n
Gemert, Lia (E.M.P.) van 11n, 20, 130n,
139n, 140n, 141n, 157n, 203n, 278n,
297n, 309n, 359n, 411n, 473, 474, 502
Gemmette, Elizabeth Villiers 460n
Genette, Gérard 272
Gerbrandy, Piet 410, 411n
Gerritsen, Johan 494n, 498n, 500n
Girard, René 132, 133
Goudriaan, Aza 512n
Grat, C. Catharina van de 342n
Graham, Joseph F. 254n
Grant, Michael 213, 219n
Green, André 449n
Greenblatt, Stephen 24, 115
Greg, W.W. 507n
Gregory, Brad 94n
Grijp, Louis Peter 139, 140n, 141n,
143n, 144, 145n, 149n, 152n, 153n,
297n
Groen, Marisa 162n
Grootes, Eddy K. x, 23, 113n, 117n,
118n, 235n, 317n, 344n
Grüttemeier, Ralf 109n, 231n
Gullan-Whurr, Margaret 522n
Fallon, Stephen M. 402
Ferguson, Robert A. 476
Ferris, David S. 26n
Filmer, Robert 389
Findlen, Paula 45
Fink, Josef 509n
Finke, Laurie 261n
Fischer-Lichte, Erika 115, 116n
Fish, Stanley 273, 395, 396n
Haas, Anna S. de 13n, 160n
Habbema, Cox 170n
Habermas, Jürgen 486
Haerten, Heinz 194n
Hasselbach, P.B. 301, 309
Haven, Korneel van der 159n, 501n
Hechtle, Martha 194n
Heidegger, Martin 428n, 441n
Heijer, Jac. 170n
Davies, Gwendolyn 195n
Davis, Robert Con 261n
Davis, Tracey 323, 334
Deleuze, Gilles 26, 40, 359, 360n, 514n
Derrida, Jacques 269, 359, 361, 362, 363,
375, 428n, 429, 457
Deursen, A.h. van 87n, 91n
Deuss, Bart 289n
Dietz, Feike 411n
Diferee, Hendrik C. 173, 174, 198n, 493
Dijk, Hans van 142n
Dijk, Harry S. van 175n
Dijkhuizen, Jan Frans van 195n, 422n
Dixhoorn, Arjan van 103n, 342n
Dongelmans, Berry P.M. 492n, 493n
Drabbe, G.F. 85n
Dubrow, Heather 234
Duinkerken, Anton van 15n, 364n,
366n, 372
Duits, Henk 154n, 233n, 377, 378n,
465n, 472, 473, 474, 478, 479
Dülmen, Richard van 132n
Duyse, Florimond van 145n
Dyk, Harry S. van 175n, 470n
index
Hell, Maarten 109n
Hellinga, Wytze Gs. 112, 113n, 494n,
495, 498n
Helmers, Helmer J. 172n, 195n, 225n,
232n, 424n
Hermans, heo ix, 1n
Hoekveld-Meijer, Gerda 474
Hogendoorn, Wiebe 107n, 108n, 313n
Holly, Michael Ann 323
Hoogers, Gerard 441n
Hoppenbrouwers, F.J. 15
Horst, Carl 336
Hsia, R. Po-Chia 87n, 211
Hummelen, Wim M.H. 105, 107n, 292n
Hunt, Barbara Joan 30n
Huussen, Aarend H. 210n, 211n,
222, 223n
Huyssen, Andreas 29n
IJsewijn, Jozef 349n, 350n
Ingen, Ferdinand van 178n, 181n,
183n, 188n
Iser, Wolfgang 273, 478n
Israel, Jonathan 206n, 211, 228n, 525n
Jackson, Ken 379
Jakobson, Roman 252n
Jansen, Jeroen 255n
Jardine, Lisa 24
Jay, Martin 319n
Jauss, Hans Robert 45
Johannes, Wilhelm 183n
Johnson, Barbara 362, 375
Jonckbloet, W.J.A. 377n
Jones, Ernest 449
Junkers, Herbert 194n
Kalf, Gerrit 202, 494n, 499n
Kamps, Ivo 230n
Kant, Immanuel 375
Kantorowicz, Ernst H. 119n
Kaplan, Benjamin J. 99n
Kastan, David Scott 403n, 491,
492n, 506n
Kemperink, R.M. 231n, 232n, 499n
Kiedroń, Stefan 177n, 178n, 194n
King, John 395n
King, Peter 18, 377n, 379, 389n, 412n,
415n, 418
Kipka, Karl 184n, 345n, 347n
Kirkconnell, Watson 191n
Klausnitzer, Ralf 120n
Klerk, Cornelis R. de 206, 207,
208n, 209
631
Kliman, Bernice W. 501n
Knapen, Ben 228n, 229n
Knuvelder, Gerard 202
Koch, Elke 127n
Kock, Petra de 170n
Kok, A.S. 526
Kollewijn, Roeland A. 194n
Konst, Jan W.H. 20, 112n, 116n, 120n,
127n, 128n, 129n, 130n, 202n, 277n,
377n, 408, 410, 414n, 419n, 421, 424n,
440, 495n, 525n, 526
Koppenol, Johan 225, 276n
Korsten, Frans-Willem 21, 22, 35n, 67n,
86, 115n, 117n, 128n, 130n, 134n,
179n, 264n, 277n, 324n, 356n, 358n,
359n, 360, 366n, 369, 373, 375, 376,
378, 379, 385n, 390n, 391, 393, 409,
411n, 414, 415n, 421, 435, 440n, 444n,
447, 458, 465n, 474, 475n, 477, 484,
494n, 495n, 504n, 515, 516, 521, 522n
Krispyn, Egbert 180n, 181n, 194n
Kristeva, Julia 30, 271
Kritzinger, M.S.B. 394n
Kuijpers, Erika 102n
Lachmann, Karl 496
Lacoue-Labarthe, Philippe 445, 452,456
Langvik-Johannessen, Kåre 18, 136n,
164n, 179n, 190n, 377n, 490n, 504n,
510n [+ -]
Leemans, E.A. 522n
Leemans, Inger 525n
Leendertz, P. 86n, 91n, 491n, 494n
Lennep, Jacob van 16–17, 161n, 162,
163n, 164, 201–02, 203, 377n, 490n,
492–93, 498n
Leuvensteijn, Arjan van 420n
Levinas, Emmanuel 375
Levinson, Marjorie 234n
Lieburg, Fred van 512n
Littau, Karin 430n, 444
Loewenstein, David 395n, 397, 401
Lommel, A. van 89n, 96n
Louvat-Molozay, Bénédicte 143n
Luhmann, Niklas 460n
Lulofs, B.H. 15, 470
Luria, Keith 95n
Lützelschwab, Ralf 127n
Lyotard, Jean-François 449, 451, 452
Maljaars, Abraham 276n, 277n
Man, Paul De 25, 360n, 362, 431
Marcus, Leah S. 498n
Markell, Pratchen 38n
632
index
Marnef, Guido 101n
Marotti, Arthur 115n, 379
Martin, Henri-Jean 497n
Mathijsen, Marita 495n, 496n
McGann, Jerome 23n, 24
Méchoulan, Henry 207n, 208n
Meijer Drees, Marijke 133n, 225n, 229n,
232n, 233n, 360
Meijer, Fik 216n, 217n
Meijer, Maaike 210n, 211, 272
Meinsma, K.O. 522n
Melles, J. 86n
Meulenbroek, B.L. 489n
Michelfelder, Diane P. 429n
Michels, L.C. 17
Mignini, Filippo 522
Miller, J. Hillis 362
Mitchell, William J.T. 323, 361
Mody, Jehangir R.P. 195n
Molkenboer O.P., B.H. 13n, 17,
85n, 202n, 209, 491n, 492n, 496,
509n, 512n
Moller, H.W.E. 17
Mooij, Jan J.A. 479n
Moolhuizen, Jan Jurrien 195
Moréri, Louis 171, 172n
Morrison, Toni 34
Müller, August 195n
Müller Hofstede, Justus 319n
Nadler, Steven 212, 213n, 214, 216n,
515, 522
Nellen Henk J.M. 98n, 211n
Nichols, Stephen G. 497
Nierop, Henk F.K. van 87n
Noak, Bettina 116n, 119n, 124n, 125n,
128n, 134n, 184n, 377, 378n
Noë, Joris 377, 383n
Noske, Frits R. 150n
Nyquist, Mary 489n
Oey-de Vita, Elise 106n, 107n, 158n
491n, 494n, 499n, 502n
Opsomer, Geert 168n
Orwell, George 23
Osterkamp, Ernst 379n, 390n
Otegem, Matthijs van 384n, 524n
Palmer, Richard E. 429n
Panofsky, Erwin 323
Parente, Jr., James A. 18, 71n, 275n,
341n, 343n, 348n, 353n, 355n,
377n, 421n
Parry, Graham 395n
Peeters, Frank 168n
Pelt, Joke M. van 167n
Pensky, Max 26n
Pether, Penelope J. 476n
Phillips, James E. 345n, 346n, 347n,
348n, 353n, 431n
Pieters, Jürgen 24, 26, 46, 55n, 115n,
205n, 359, 360n
Plard, Henri 178n
Plas, Michel van der 198n
Poelhekke, Jan J. 472n
Pollard, Tanya 420, 421n, 423
Pollmann, Judith S. 71n, 88n, 89n, 93n,
95n, 96n, 342n
Poole, William 380, 396n
Porteman, Karel 108n, 112n, 117n,
158n, 167n, 203, 344n, 461n, 463n,
465n, 504
Posner, Richard A. 429n
Postma, Hugo 113n
Pott, Clarence C. 194n
Potter, Lois 226n, 227n, 240
Poulssen, J. 20
Powell, John S. 143n
Prak, Maarten 102n
Prandoni, Marco 68n, 124n, 275n, 276n,
288, 309n, 312n, 314n
Pranger, M. Burcht 30n
Rademaker ss.cc., Cor S.M. 117n,
351n
Ramakers, Bart A.M. 142n
Rancière, Jacques 362, 363, 431, 432n
Rappaport, Herman 456n
Rasch, Rudolf A. 139n, 143n,
153n, 161n
Rasmussen, Mark David 234n
Raymond, Joad 395n
Rekers, Guus 21, 168, 170n
Rener, Frederick M. 252, 253n
Rens, Lieven 19, 194n, 471, 473
Riccoboni, Louis 312, 313n
Richards, I.A. 430
Roegiers, Jan 513n
Romein, Jan 86
Romein-Verschoor, Annie 86
Rooden, Peter van 211n
Rose, Mary Beth 413
Rowe, Katherine 410n
Rowen, Herbert H. 206n
Sabbe, Maurits 196n
Savile, Anthony 23n
Schaefer, Jean-Mary 29, 226n, 432
index
Schenkeveld-van der Dussen, Riet x,
10n, 11n, 21n, 31n, 344n, 360, 375,
376n, 409, 490n, 491n, 494n, 495n,
510n, 516, 526
Schings, Hans-Jürgen 138n
Schleiermacher, Friedrich 253, 254
Schmitt, Carl 441n
Schoenfeldt, Michael 420n
Schöfer, Ivo 465n, 467n, 469n
Scholz-Heerspink, Myra 280n, 386n
Schößler, Franziska 115n, 133n
Schrant, J.M. 15
Schravendeel, Rogier 164n
Schuytvlot, A.C. 10n, 490n, 492n, 496n,
500n, 501n, 502n, 504n, 505n
Scott, Joan Wallach 409–10
Sedgwick, Alexander 513n
Sellin, Paul R. 462n
Shapiro, James 222
Sharpe, K. 226n, 234n
Sierhuis, Freya 227n, 243n, 323n
Simoni, Anna E.C. 470n
Simons, L. 165, 422n
Skinner, Quentin 45
Smet, R. De 525n
Smit, Wisse A.P. passim
Smits-Veldt, Mieke B. x, 31n, 45n, 101n,
104n, 106n, 107n, 109n, 112n, 117n,
157n, 158n, 160n, 162n, 163n, 203,
232n, 235n, 236n, 240n, 274n, 276n,
278n, 292n, 293n, 299n, 312n, 344n,
394n, 461n, 463n, 465n, 495n,
500, 502n
Sneller, A. Agnes 408, 409, 410, 414,
494n, 495n
Spaans, Joke 87n, 96n
Spiertz, M.G. 513n
Spies, Marijke x, 13n, 18n, 57n, 60n,
76n, 85n, 101n, 104n, 108n, 109n,
117n, 235n, 325n, 359, 360, 463n,
467n, 482n, 493, 495n
Starobinski, Jean 449
Stein, Louise K. 143n
Steiner, George 428, 429n
Sterck, J.F.M. 17, 89n, 150n, 154n, 208,
209, 502n
Sterne, Jill 377
Sternfeld, Frederick W. 139n
Stevens, Wallace 459n
Stipriaan, René van 226n, 245, 277n
Strengholt, Leendert 278n
Stronks, Els 170n
Szarota, Elida M. 277n
Szyrocki, Marian 178n
633
Tal, Kali 37n
Tambling, Jeremy 226n, 227n
Tanner, Marie 510n
Tate, Jr, Charles Delmer 489n
Tex, Jan den 228n, 229n, 238n
homas, Brook 476, 485
hys, Walter 196n
Tilmans, Karin 469n
Todorov, Tzvetan 29n
Toulmin, Stephen 480n
Tracy, James D. 228n
Uit den Bogaard, Max h. 474n
Unger, J.H.W. 232, 490n, 492n, 493n,
496n, 499n, 501n, 502n, 504n, 505n
Vaeck, Marc Van 494n
Valk, J. de 92n
Valk, h. De 522n
Valkenburg, Jochem 167n
Vandervelden, Jos 480, 481
Väth, Alfons 138n
Veldhorst, Natascha 139, 140n, 141n,
142n, 143n, 148n, 152n, 153,
154n, 297n
Venuti, Lawrence 254, 256, 264
Verheul, J.P. 483n
Verhofstadt, Edward 194n
Verwey, Albert 17, 206, 209, 265,
422n, 493
Visconsi, Elliott 476, 477n
Vloten, Johannes van 16, 493
Vollenhoven, C. van 250n
Vries, T. de 195n
Waal, Henri van de 111n, 112n
Walch, Johannes L. 499n
Walcott, Derek 34
Wattel, Evert 420n
Weevers, heodoor 194n, 445n
West, Martin L. 496n
Weststeijn, hijs 110n
White, Hayden 39
Wigmore, John H. 460n
Wijnman, H.F. 97n
Winkel, Jan W. te 202, 377n
Winnicot, David W. 433
Wiskerke, Evert Matthijs 13n
Witsen Geysbeek, Pieter G. 14, 15, 461n,
464n, 470, 486, 499n
Witstein, Sonja F. 117n
Woerner, Roman 345n, 346, 347n,
353n
Wolfson, Susan 234n
634
Worden, Blair 395n, 477
Worp, Jacob A. 99n, 139n
Zalm, Rob van der 165n, 166n
Zijderveld, A. 522n
index
Zijlstra, S. 89n, 90n, 91n
Zilverberg, S.B.J. 522n
Žižek, Slavoj 433n
Zuckert, Catherine 428n
Zwicker, Steven N. 226, 234n
INDEX OF CONCEPTS, SUBJECTS, THEMES,
GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES
abbess 126, 275, 297, 312
absolutism 393, 395, 399
academy 23
‘Achilles’ (company) 164, 164n
act (agency) 45, 70, 118, 130–31, 137,
184, 186, 188, 328, 329, 335, 378, 403,
433, 438, 444, 482, 521
acting (styles of) 78, 140, 143, 159,
165–66, 183, 244–45, 287, 229, 298n,
335, 433, 436, 451n
action 441
actor 7, 10, 47, 78, 112, 140, 158–59,
161, 165–66, 286, 286n, 289–90,
298–99, 309, 312, 327, 357, 412, 436,
438, 454, 504
all male cast 140, 289
company of actors 105–06,
166–68, 183
dramatic 181, 298, 336, 337,
339, 484
aemulatio 78, 203, 203n, 251
aesthetics 13, 24, 203, 225–26, 226n,
227, 233, 234n, 248, 303, 308, 321,
338, 362n, 384, 430, 432, 432n, 470
afect, see emotion
Africa 27, 33–35, 33n, 264, 430
Africanism 34
agnitio 19, 118n, 249n, 483
‘Aktie Tomaat’ 164, 168
alienation 46, 66, 403, 431
allegory 9, 32–33, 42, 76–77, 160,
225–27, 226n, 227n, 230–47, 256,
280n, 337, 363, 372, 377, 381, 384–85,
395, 429, 448n, 461, 469, 471, 472n,
474–79
allegorical igures 104, 158, 161–62,
188
baroque 327, 337n, 338–39
decoding of 225, 235–46, 385
function of 32, 43, 204, 225, 226, 248,
336, 372
obscurity of 226n, 227
allegoresis 41
alliance 216n, 466–68, 483
ambassador 67, 243, 250, 388n, 474
ambiguity ix, 325, 329–30, 369, 372–73,
386, 388n, 395, 428, 516, 521
Amsterdam ix, 1, 7, 16, 17, 51–52, 58,
63, 75, 80, 101–03, 106, 114, 125, 132,
224, 230, 280, 280, 292, 504
artistic and scholarly milieu 8, 63,
65, 68–69, 73, 75–76, 104–06,
110–13, 118, 120, 123, 139,
162, 164, 166, 168, 170, 171n,
172n, 203, 274, 276, 279, 285,
491, 492n, 522
church 9, 64, 71, 87, 89–91, 96, 102,
126, 41, 358, 437, 499
citizens/people of 73, 87, 157, 203–06,
273, 276, 279, 292, 297, 276, 297
city hall 64, 75–76, 110, 145, 292, 290,
296, 305, 290, 296, 305, 365, 465
city virgin 64
cosmopolitan 102
downfall of (Gysbreght) 2, 124, 275,
277–78, 302, 304, 309, 315
elite 4, 9, 62, 110, 165
immigrants 33, 101–02
Jews 208–16, 522
magistrates 63, 65, 68, 71, 77, 109
mediaeval 106, 124, 157, 159, 274,
292, 299
mercantile 102, 103, 64, 65,
politics 62–63, 65–66, 75, 109–10,
160, 207–08, 210, 231, 240, 341,
446, 463, 465n, 472, 499n, 502, 504
prosperity 64, 76, 108, 208, 275, 308
heatre, see Schouwburg
tolerance 2–3, 250
university and schools 51, 56,
65, 103–04, 110, 117, 351, 394,
495, 502n
Anabaptism 90, 101, 147
anachronism 23, 25–26, 25n, 34, 42–45
anagnorosis 483
analogy 202n, 210, 230, 317, 379, 402
angel 4, 10–11, 15, 21, 38, 66, 76–77,
146n, 152–53, 163, 219, 286, 300
arch- 25, 68, 76, 106, 159n, 169, 203n,
218n, 275, 283, 294, 512
antagonism 367
anthology 15, 52–53, 172, 469–70
antinomy 18
antropophagy see cannibalism
636
index
Antwerp 1, 44, 51, 54, 65, 92–93,
101–04, 241, 319, 481n
apology 15, 79, 347, 352
aporia 362, 376
apostasy 311, 353
apostrophe 180
appropriation 42–45, 123, 252, 256
by Vondel 59, 237, 249, 266
architect 68, 76, 165–66, 384, 462n,
511, 610
argumentation
in text 3, 36, 129, 133, 158, 212, 227,
236, 242, 260, 282, 336, 390–92,
390n, 397, 435n, 440, 481
through text 98, 111, 116, 120, 330,
379, 381, 383, 384, 390, 395, 398,
404, 524
Arminian, see Remonstrant
art 5, 12, 23n, 24, 29, 31, 34–35, 42, 59,
69, 71, 78–79, 111, 113, 144, 166, 174,
236, 301, 317–19, 319n, 322–23, 330,
3337, 383, 386, 429–34, 431n, 433n,
442, 451n, 492
as skill 253–56, 265
artiiciality 433
atheism 523–24
audience 3, 11, 65, 69, 77, 107, 119, 122,
138, 140–41, 160, 166, 180, 188, 203,
216, 218, 222, 254, 256, 264, 273, 275,
279, 286, 300, 302–03, 309, 312, 314n,
326, 38–86, 408, 412, 414, 434, 446,
456, 462, 478, 501
experience of 118, 144, 157, 160,
166–68, 184, 284, 299, 302, 327,
357–58, 407, 409–10, 420, 422,
450–51
inluence on 122, 142, 265, 276–77,
280, 286n, 424
modern 17–18, 46–47, 287, 289, 295,
300, 309,
participation of 116, 334–35, 349,
408, 411–12, 421n, 436–38
on stage 5, 77–78, 114, 218, 434
taste of 108, 158, 162–64, 181,
auditorium 285, 451, 107
authority, -ies 4, 22, 71, 73, 75–76, 87,
88, 97, 99, 103, 109, 179n, 208, 211n,
227, 257, 283, 372–73, 379–83, 386,
388–89, 392–95, 399–404, 450, 463,
471, 473n, 478, 497, 527
as (municipal) magistrate 65, 76, 80,
101, 105–06, 108–10, 114, 465
author(ship) 22, 29, 69, 86, 102, 116,
154, 164, 171, 171n, 172n, 177, 194,
198, 205, 216, 226, 232, 235, 250, 255,
260, 266, 271–72, 331, 353, 355n,
366n, 440n, 460, 462, 492n, 496, 509,
509n, 522, 524, 580
anonymity of 64, 227, 514
death of the 271
authorial intent 21, 252, 262, 272,
291, 318, 336n, 343, 360, 360n,
361n, 375, 387, 421n, 430, 436, 459,
465, 473n, 478–79, 494–97, 499,
502, 507, 514
autonomy 124, 195, 399, 431, 431n,
459, 515
Babel (tower of) 272n, 243n, 269
ballet 140, 143, 161, 163–64
banning 4, 9, 79, 110, 214n, 522
baptism 52, 82, 91, 93, 96
adult 89–90
baroque 15, 18, 42, 46–47, 165, 176–78,
226, 226n, 324, 327, 337, 337n, 339,
353, 357
Batavian 5, 111, 160, 464–78, 466n,
480, 486
myth 463, 465n, 467–69, 467n, 469n,
475, 477
Republic 15, 468n, 470
Belgium 166
berecht see preface
Bible 11, 22, 26, 41, 388n, 394, 438, 442
dramatization of 1, 3, 5–8, 11, 13, 15,
56, 75, 77–79, 80, 82, 158, 160, 177,
182–88, 338, 377–78, 384, 386,
407–08, 407n, 412, 525
Hebrew, see Tanakh
interpretation of 53–54, 61, 90, 213,
216, 252, 386n, 429
as source of faith 61, 71
subject matter/theme 2, 10, 13n, 37,
53, 56, 77, 79, 107, 110, 116,
158–60, 194–96, 209–10, 212, 249,
249n, 251, 260, 266–67, 325, 383,
421, 434n, 435, 510
typology 385–87, 403, 462
binary opposition 359, 361, 362, 366,
369, 373, 410
biography 10, 61, 82, 85, 91, 101n, 207n,
232, 486, 514
body 57, 135, 137, 144, 193, 294,
298–99, 332, 348, 422–24, 435,
523–24
gendered 124, 124n, 418, 420, 444
inscripted/violated 124–25, 137,
369–74, 453
index
and language 115–31, 420–21, 420n,
452
representation of 33, 115–31, 327
political 133, 182
socio-cultural 28, 31, 44, 363, 431,
457, 481
brother 2, 5, 69, 89, 129, 149, 160,
221, 237, 249, 256n. 263, 267, 269n,
275, 294, 435–37, 466–67, 469n,
471–73, 482
half- 5, 41, 62, 109, 257–60,
324–26, 345
-in-law 134, 516
Brabant 1, 64, 65, 93, 103, 104, 105–06
Brazil 463
bucolic 365
burgomaster ix, 58, 64, 69, 73, 75, 77, 80,
106, 109–11, 154, 158, 206–07, 223,
240, 465
Calvinism 9–10, 58–59, 61, 64–65, 72,
79, 87, 91, 96, 108, 158, 206, 208,
210–11, 228, 230, 274, 358, 402,
421–25, 493, 512–14
cannibalism 33, 134–35
Catholicism, see also conversion 2–4, 6,
9–11, 12, 14–15, 16–18, 44, 65, 68,
70–72, 72–73, 74, 85, 87, 89, 92–97,
99, 100, 101, 111, 119, 134, 145, 145n,
150, 152, 153, 158–59, 165, 167, 184,
197–98, 275, 276n, 321, 341–43 341n,
342n, 344–45, 347, 347n, 349, 351n,
353, 356–57, 363, 363n, 378, 380n,
381, 407, 410, 421–23, 426, 493,
500, 513
censorship 227, 230n, 231, 451
Chamber of rhetoric, see rederijkers
chaos 392, 398, 517
chance, see fate
character 9, 10, 13, 40, 70, 112, 128, 138,
161, 192, 235, 242, 265, 277, 278, 286,
291, 293, 322, 326–28, 339, 353,
365, 436, 440, 444, 445, 450, 471,
481, 489, 504
attire, see also costume 26, 78, 107,
112, 162, 298–99
critical responses to 118n, 130n,
202, 277, 277n, 357n, 372, 408–09,
411n, 526
comparison between 134–35, 137
exemplary/symbolic 5, 22, 32–33,
41–42, 118, 121, 144, 240–41,
278–79, 280–83, 325, 334, 356–57,
378, 394, 414,
637
force ield between 116, 124–25,
133–35, 303, 310–11, 408, 410,
418–18, 426, 443, 525
group of 140–42, 202, 290, 297
and historical igure 206, 216, 235,
239, 245–46, 260, 350–51, 474
(inner) conlict of 18–19, 21, 75–76,
119, 122, 306, 310–11, 352, 357–58,
408, 450–51, 481–83
number of 181–88, 286, 288n,
289–90, 312
presence on/of stage 122, 293n, 298,
300–02, 304–08, 500
child(ren) 8
of Amsterdam 66, 157, 288
of Bethlehem 37
Christ child 52, 296, 305, 443
of God 389, 390, 463
grand- 416
in plays 37, 130, 137, 181–82, 257–58,
267, 275, 280–82, 294, 308, 326,
355, 364, 415, 417, 422n, 424–25,
518
in Vondel family 60, 89, 92, 96, 102,
107, 260
China 6, 27–28, 43–44, 44n, 136
choice 96, 118, 119, 137, 168, 349, 467,
482, 483
confessional 86–89, 89n, 96–99
of reading 21, 226, 234
scholarly 24, 40, 225–26, 334, 429,
459, 494–95, 499, 500, 506, 507
of subject 69, 116–17, 209,
342, 372,
Chorus 20–21, 33, 36–37, 138, 157, 159,
161, 167, 181, 188, 241–42, 247, 248,
259–60, 262, 264, 268, 280, 296, 297n,
305, 314, 348, 350–51, 353–55, 354n,
365–67, 371, 373–74, 389–91, 404,
413, 415, 416, 424, 426, 440, 453, 455,
470, 470n 473–74, 498, 512
function of 20, 44, 149, 296, 346
intervening in the action 424
and music 140–54, 348, 389
Christianity 31, 36, 38, 43, 44, 94, 98,
204, 223, 260, 267, 372, 373, 383
Christmas 2, 36–38, 124–26, 144, 145n,
157, 274, 295–98, 302, 305
chronicle 125, 404
church 33, 67, 82, 89, 90, 94, 96, 105,
220, 293, 295, 354, 422
-council 9, 10, 68, 77, 109, 236n
(Roman) Catholic 9, 36, 38, 41, 44,
71, 89, 92, 97, 99, 261, 343, 344, 348
638
index
(Dutch) Reformed 10, 51, 58, 87–88,
89, 145n, 154n, 207, 513, 228, 274,
514
intermediary role of 422, 512
New Church 120, 125, 126, 275, 280
public/state- 86–88, 207, 208
Remonstrant 64, 97
temple as allegory for 41
city-council 51, 62–64, 101, 109–10,
114, 207–08, 210, 274
classical antiquity 1, 2, 4, 43, 52, 56, 61,
69, 106, 107, 109, 110, 116, 146, 162,
172, 231, 236, 237, 239, 231, 242, 244,
249n, 254, 263, 264, 281, 373, 427,
485, 524
heritage 6, 14, 29, 31, 32, 33–34, 43,
44, 56, 59, 60, 63, 67, 69, 73, 117,
143, 164, 198, 237, 255, 260, 348,
373, 434, 466, 476
classicism (see also poetics) 12, 14, 68,
159, 250, 277
neo-classical 18, 501
close reading 11, 20, 325, 362, 427–44,
(427–37, 443–44)
hermeneutics of 429
semiotics of 432
code 21, 271, 273, 276, 346, 385, 433
decoding, see allegory
collective 132, 138, 179, 318, 323, 327,
328, 330, 340, 431, 432
memory, see memory
Cologne 1, 51, 70, 86, 92–93, 101, 103,
111, 126–27, 319, 341, 502
colonialism 32
comedy 30, 43, 142n, 351, 361, 363,
366, 455
tragicomedy 74
comic 344, 363, 374, 375
commentary 15, 16, 138, 278, 285, 495
community 38, 52, 55, 57, 61, 71, 87,
88–91, 100, 101, 104, 108, 132, 133,
134, 176, 211, 273, 439, 480, 522
confession 86, 87, 95, 258, 273,
culture of 88, 91, 100
multi-confessional 99, 197
conscience 91, 97, 100, 222, 257, 403,
422, 482–83
freedom of, see freedom
constitution 36, 183, 318, 452, 475,
494–96
context x, 2, 16, 24, 29, 30, 31, 35, 36, 38,
45, 82, 86, 142, 174, 179n, 180, 183,
197, 203, 205, 210, 223, 224, 253, 254,
256, 259n, 265, 273, 288, 318–19, 320,
323n, 359–60, 381, 393, 405, 407, 410,
421, 422, 424, 431, 436–37, 475, 483,
486, 494n, 495n, 496, 497,
contingency see history
contract(ual) 336, 378, 382, 397, 480,
481, 481n
convention 21, 105, 147n, 233, 234,
239–44, 271, 273, 276–77, 280, 284,
287, 289–300, 314, 360n, 405, 457, 475
conversation 67, 74, 92, 97, 98, 213, 217,
279, 281, 295, 297, 347
with the dead 24
conversion 2, 9, 15, 24, 67, 71–74, 71n,
85–99, 86n, 111, 119, 153, 197, 204,
211, 213–14, 217, 220, 223, 260, 264,
279, 281, 287, 295, 297, 320, 322,
341–42, 324n, 347, 349, 353, 363n,
369, 374, 380, 397, 461, 499, 500
-narrative 94–95
copyright 62, 460
costumes 165–66, 105, 107, 159, 253,
158, 298–99, 68, 78, 287, 290–91, 312,
314, 454
Covenant 510
Ark of 149, 504
Old 550
New 220–22, 268
Creation 81, 163, 389, 403, 463, 512, 514
story of 56, 195
culture 15, 46, 59, 60, 86, 87, 88, 264n,
273, 276, 278, 324, 327, 342n, 373,
384, 452, 479, 485
and nature 361
and politics 234, 486
of reading 103, 225, 226, 226n, 234,
248, 251, 254, 256
-text 272, 282, 283
cultural analysis 317–40, 317, 319n,
323–24, 339, 434
cultural studies 115, 462, 479
daughter 4, 57, 61, 66, 77, 80, 89, 92, 93,
96, 126, 130–31, 133, 137, 154, 170,
202, 202n, 245, 278, 349, 351, 364,
365, 407–08, 407n, 412, 414, 417,
418–19, 422–23, 426, 435, 510, 526
grand- 365, 374
in-law 511, 516
Vondel’s 66, 80, 89, 96
deacon 55, 57, 88, 90
debut 2, 68, 152, 158, 170, 274,
514, 514n
deconstruction 22, 23n, 359n, 361–63,
366, 375, 395, 431–32, 498, 508
index
décor 167n, 287, 292, 299
cost of 4, 68, 299
dedication 4, 70, 74, 76, 112, 137,
206, 208, 251, 289, 317, 325, 365,
365n, 372, 386, 386n, 387, 443n,
446–47, 457, 462n, 465, 466, 505, 510,
525–26
letter of 341n, 354, 489, 494, 500, 501
dénouement 12, 118, 158, 268
destruction 1, 56, 194, 202, 202n, 218,
241, 447, 455, 516, 526
self- 115, 124, 128
detail 5, 16, 20, 22, 53, 80, 85, 195, 196,
216, 216n, 228n, 237, 238, 322, 327,
346, 398, 431, 432, 434, 434n, 442,
446, 469, 478, 500
deus ex machine 275, 283, 286, 300
devil 82, 163, 378n, 380–81, 395–96,
398–405, 441, 453, 482
dialogism 31, 271, 360n
dialogue 14, 28, 31, 157, 183, 188, 190,
192, 202, 240, 241, 246, 277, 281,
311, 330, 346n, 347, 351, 375, 399,
453, 511,
dichotomy 124, 135, 225, 366, 515
didacticism 15, 19, 56, 79, 80, 82, 120,
182, 184, 193n, 197, 353, 372n, 408
diférance 361
diference 89, 454, 507
director, see performance
discipline 87, 123, 517
interdisciplinarity 459–60, 460, 475,
477–78, 478n, 479–80, 485
multidisciplinarity 460
scholarly x, 252, 359–60, 459–61,
478, 479
disharmony see harmony
distribution 40, 431, 493
doctrine 88–89, 91, 134, 380, 424, 513
dogma 18, 79, 86n, 347n, 426
dominion 133, 136, 137, 389, 396, 468
drama x, 1, 3, 4, 8, 10, 11, 19, 20, 68, 76,
78, 79, 86, 92, 107, 108, 110, 112, 113,
114, 115, 116, 119, 120, 122, 125,
125n, 126, 131, 132, 134, 136, 139,
142, 152, 153, 154, 157, 162, 165, 166,
171, 178, 188, 193n, 233, 238, 244,
260, 269, 273, 276, 279, 285, 286, 287,
289, 291, 292, 295, 300, 301, 309, 310,
312, 315, 335, 336, 342n, 344, 358,
382, 383, 384, 393, 396, 450, 451,
472, 491
biblical 5, 6, 11, 56, 75, 78, 158, 188n,
349, 377–78, 384, 407
639
Christian 2, 18, 30, 41, 70–71,
178, 421n
closet- 153–54, 187
historical 7, 9, 276, 281, 344, 472
Greek 1, 3, 106, 117, 142, 143, 144,
281, 357
Latin 56, 67, 78, 106, 140n, 142, 143,
260, 281, 346, 348, 351, 356, 357,
416, 423
lyrical 160, 164
liturgical 142
melo- 159, 160
psychopathic 450–51
satirical 243, 243n,
school (Neo-Latin) 10, 117n, 142,
344, 356, 357
theory of 4, 12, 21, 117, 118, 287,
301, 302, 302n, 303, 303n, 309,
335–36, 411
dramatisation 2, 70, 77, 79 205, 275,
276, 353, 407, 445, 448, 455, 461, 476
dramatist 6, 21, 70, 72, 118, 104, 105,
115, 116, 122, 141, 162, 168, 175, 177,
191n, 192, 240, 344, 352, 407n
dramaturgy 163, 285, 287, 445
dream 66, 74, 125, 190n, 257–58, 263,
274, 277–78, 300n, 305, 321, 324, 325,
328–30, 433
Dutch
Academy (Nederduitsche
Academie) 105–07, 110
East India Company 44, 58
history 15, 55, 85, 101, 106, 227, 241,
274, 275, 276, 282, 287, 319n, 352,
382, 469, 470, 471, 472, 477
language, 8, 12, 15, 18–19, 46, 55,
102–03, 116, 173, 173n, 176,
196–97, 202, 285–286, 301, 314,
345, 468
Provinces, 228, 344, 463, 467, 469, 484
Republic, see republic
Revolt 4, 54, 93–94, 104, 275, 377,
381, 471
ecumenical 343
edition 2, 4, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17–20, 31n,
52–55, 73, 78, 79, 103n, 106, 107, 139,
162, 165, 172, 178, 183, 196n, 198,
201, 201n, 206, 206n, 231, 236, 240,
247, 249n, 288n, 343, 346, 346n, 347n,
349n, 386, 396n, 407n, 426, 468n,
490–508, 510n
‘Eglentier’ 104–05
Eighty Years’ War see war
640
index
elect 215, 216n, 398
elocution 9, 344
emblem(atic) 52, 54, 202, 212, 226n,
261, 280, 319, 320n, 322–23, 325,
325n, 331, 333, 338, 340, 385, 385n,
386n, 468
emotion 81, 160, 182, 185, 238, 239, 240,
262, 327m 328, 340, 357, 407, 408,
411, 415, 416, 421, 426
control of 413, 417, 418, 419, 420,
efect on audience 70, 123, 312–13,
331, 407, 408, 410, 412
empathy of audience 118, 334, 408,
410, 412, 426, 477
excessiveness/moderateness of 278,
282, 283, 407, 408, 409, 410,
412, 413, 414, 416, 417, 418, 422,
423, 424
and gender 407, 410, 413, 416, 417,
418, 419, 420, 421, 422, 424
and language 13, 157, 420n, 499n
purgation of 118, 122, 408 409–10,
414, 418, 419, 422–23, 424
emperor 471
Chinese 6, 27–28, 44, 136–38
Holy Roman Emperor 4, 386, 386n
Roman 76, 202, 217, 249, 260–61, 349
empress 137–38
engagement 108, 461–62, 462n
engraving 54, 107
enemy 126–27, 133, 136–37, 150, 157,
160, 207, 217, 239, 245, 274–77,
280–81, 292, 294, 297–98, 305, 307,
312–13, 393, 417, 461, 490
England 9, 71, 74, 79, 81, 134–35, 143,
171–72, 174–76, 185n, 195, 226, 226n,
230, 342, 346, 347n, 349, 353, 377,
382–83, 394, 398, 405, 413, 461
Enlightenment 521–22
entr’act 141, 161
epic 63, 81–82, 276, 283, 352n, 356, 402,
475, 476
classical 66, 110, 235, 279, 280
Christian/biblical 67, 69, 80, 81,
82, 260
distancing 298
poem 55–56, 82, 220n, 278, 301,
352, 356
epigram ix, 110, 112
epistemology 430, 478
eroticism 52–53, 60, 369, 374, 525
ethic 53, 55, 104, 184, 240, 344, 385, 399,
401, 424
etymology 256, 258, 264, 456
eulogy 259, 365, 470
Europe 43, 64, 117, 173–74, 196–97,
210, 320n, 331, 344, 363, 381, 430, 510
European culture ix, x, 14, 19, 31, 44,
45, 60, 116, 143, 171, 250, 264n,
320, 366, 421, 444, 462, 484–86
and Other 27, 32, 34, 34n, 35
Unity 485
ater Westphalia 405
evangelism 53
evil 3, 8, 19, 52, 75, 79, 82–83, 119, 121,
123, 163, 220, 250, 257, 259, 261,
352–56, 379, 398–99, 416, 456, 482,
490, 510, 512–16
exchange see trade
execution 132–33, 145, 177, 181,
183–87, 197, 236–37, 244–45, 313,
342, 346, 348, 355, 371, 383, 394, 471,
473n, 520
exile 67–68, 88, 92, 94, 159, 193n, 250,
274–75, 284, 302, 308, 313n, 348n, 383
existentialism 18
experience 26, 85, 90, 94–95, 118, 124,
126, 132, 157, 175n, 213, 273, 278–80,
284, 286, 320, 362, 376, 380, 384–85,
496n, 402–03, 408–10, 422–23, 438,
450–52, 456, 469, 471, 476
expression 13, 29, 63, 64, 71, 76, 108,
120, 128, 149, 172n, 173, 285, 311,
476, 491
of emotion 11, 410–11, 414, 417, 420,
424, 499n
faith 1, 9, 52, 54–55, 61, 70–71, 80, 87,
89, 90, 93, 96–99, 120, 134, 145, 159,
166, 184, 211–13, 222, 244, 252, 283,
342n, 347, 348, 348n, 350–51, 402,
405, 421n, 422, 424, 428, 443, 454,
500, 518
fall 161, 216, 218, 344
of angels 4, 10, 27, 76, 163, 380, 397,
489, 490
of man 4–6, 11, 380–81, 389, 393,
395–96, 399–405, 489–90,
512–13, 516
pre-/postlapsarian 381, 389, 393,
395–404
of Troy 56, 137, 278–79, 305
fallacy
afective 432
intentional 430
fanaticism 63, 77, 110
family, see also Vondel 63, 126, 159, 166,
169, 216, 217, 237, 239, 259, 265, 281,
index
282, 283, 284, 302, 304, 333, 415–16,
419, 454, 511–12, 515–16
fate/fatum 8, 20, 30, 32–33, 52, 66–67,
79, 83, 125, 137, 146, 190, 198, 239,
261, 277–78, 280–83, 326, 348, 353,
364, 369, 371, 374, 411, 414, 416, 418,
461, 471–72, 521, 550
father 132–33, 137, 153, 161, 170, 173n,
193, 257, 258, 263, 264, 267, 278, 283,
314n, 317, 324–26, 342, 349, 390, 410,
411, 418, 434, 511, 516, 517, 520
allegorical 73, 372, 383, 388, 389,
476, 492,
caring 179n, 181n, 217, 221, 238
father/son paradigm 81, 272, 327,
439–43
fore- 56, 295n, 394, 469n
foster 361–70
grand- 415–16
Vondel’s 52, 80, 92–93
Vondel as 80, 81, 96, 102, 114
fatherland 1, 53, 73
feeling, see emotion
feminism 11, 21, 319n, 408–09, 431
feudalism 388
Flanders 6, 65, 103, 167, 490n
leeing 38, 47, 275, 283, 439, 441
Flood 509–12, 516, 520–21, 525
focalization 332
foreword (berecht), see preface
forgiveness, see mercy
formalism 233
historical 234, 234n
frame 29, 31, 39, 40, 41, 42, 95, 273, 278,
283, 289, 325, 327, 330, 340, 375, 391,
396, 432, 437, 442–43, 458
France 60, 67, 81, 143, 171–72, 175–76,
195–96, 342, 349, 355, 481n
freedom 59, 65, 79, 101, 110–11, 160,
163–64, 175n, 205, 208n, 320, 372,
395, 398, 400, 4512n, 464–67, 471–75,
481n
academic 65
of conscience/religion 65, 87, 88n,
89n, 259, 463
poetic 244
of the will 119, 124, 348, 514, 525
of worship 64, 87, 91
friendship 367, 368
Fronde 381
future 2, 29, 36, 38, 73, 101, 106, 109,
118, 124, 127, 134, 137, 138, 149, 162,
174, 178, 210, 235–36, 237, 258–59,
267–68, 275, 278, 280, 281, 303, 308,
641
372, 383, 389, 402–03, 440, 444, 453,
457, 515, 516
Galenic medicine 419, 420n
garden 65, 388, 516
Geist 428
gender, see also power 99, 124, 124n,
273, 278, 282–84, 289, 324, 359, 367,
407–10, 413, 416–18, 421, 424, 425,
434, 444, 490
Geneva 97, 172n
genre 54, 69, 71, 74, 81, 95, 104, 112,
113, 234, 242, 243, 247–48, 249,
276, 278, 319, 351–52, 356–57, 363,
383, 424
Germany 143, 197, 198
Ghent 15, 176, 349, 407n
God, see also nature 130, 131, 411, 437,
443, 500
all mighty 8, 22, 70, 513–14, 525–26
atemporal/ininite 402–04, 523–24
causa sui 523–24
design/plan/providence 8, 54, 137,
138, 218, 260–61, 268, 441, 500,
514, 520, 524
excessive/violent 132
Father 257, 348, 348n, 350, 397, 443
and mankind 8, 95, 131, 149, 216n,
221, 421–22, 424, 443, 489, 511
incomprehensible 70, 216, 259, 520,
526–27
judge, punishing 56, 91, 203, 250,
400, 402, 511, 520
mercy, see mercy
’s revenge 209, 215, 220–21, 257, 260
rhetorical use made of 238, 243, 438,
440
source of justice 19, 22, 70, 182, 213,
220, 390, 399, 402, 520–21, 526
sovereign 21–22, 71, 76, 82, 129, 131,
168, 180, 214, 220, 222, 348, 355,
381, 382, 388, 396, 399, 402, 521
god, see also pagan 33, 73, 77, 141, 146,
212, 397, 424, 441, 453–54, 516–17,
520–21
classical /mythological 43, 134, 153,
161–62, 243
Gomarists see Remonstrants
Gouda 344
government 2, 3, 47n, 62, 71, 76, 230,
257–58, 378, 380, 381, 383, 400, 405,
463, 467, 468, 467–69
municipal 62–64, 109–11, 231
governance 186, 191
642
index
Grand Pensionary 2, 32, 58, 108,
461, 464
execution of 9, 62, 106, 109, 133, 162,
204–05, 209, 225–32, 228n, 229n,
238, 240–41, 245
guilt 5, 8, 11, 89, 121, 130, 132, 138, 180,
185n, 393, 437
Haarlem 104, 150, 157, 292
Habsburg Empire 88, 94, 363
he Hague 61, 72, 103, 164, 229, 231,
344, 461, 474, 506
hamartia 4, 118, 482
harmony 65, 132, 144, 163, 166, 173n,
351, 363, 366–68, 374
heaven 4, 18, 54, 66, 77, 81, 82, 106, 124,
136, 147, 348, 387–88, 397, 520
as décor 4, 10, 77, 79, 158, 159, 161,
162, 163, 167
as state 4, 168, 180, 182, 185n, 186n,
215, 216n, 219, 220, 379–80,
388–94, 397, 404
theatre of ‘heaven’ 293, 300
hendiadys 262
hermeneutics 85, 272, 360n, 429, 448,
476, 478, 479
’s-Hertogenbosch 65–66, 344
hero 3, 5, 15, 28, 35, 42, 66–67, 75, 97,
118, 125, 130, 145, 147, 159, 162, 192,
193, 210, 218, 230, 236, 240, 242, 275,
280, 286, 341, 352, 354–57, 364, 378n,
393, 413–14, 416, 417, 443, 445, 450,
450n, 453, 456, 497
heterogeneity 223
heuristics 22, 139, 144, 154, 478n
historicism 359
historism 39
New Historicism 24, 25, 31, 35, 115,
201, 204, 224, 234
Old Historicism 24, 359n
historiography 25, 27, 225, 227, 244,
255n, 478, 480
history x, 8, 56, 65, 67, 70, 71, 79, 93,
119, 123, 126, 174, 212, 234, 272, 327,
379, 387, 497, 499, 512
and anachrony, see there
Christian/sacred 41, 224, 249, 269,
385, 386, 393, 394, 395, 402, 403,
435
chronology 26
contingency 28, 35
human/secular 8, 70, 379, 385,
387, 393, 395, 402, 403, 404, 443,
521, 526
incoherence of 39, 45
as narrative/story 25, 29, 39–41, 434
making of 27–28, 32, 35, 37, 359
open/closed 36–38, 275, 385, 402,
403, 404, 440, 441, 443
and preposterousness 29, 42–44
present 25, 26, 28, 35, 38, 45
recorded 25, 27, 359
and relativism 27, 39, 359
subject of/ subjected to 278
tradition 32–35, 138, 320, 428
transcendence 28, 30–31
Holland 1, 5–6, 14, 55, 58, 65, 71, 75,
90, 102, 103, 109, 111, 125, 133, 159,
162, 172, 173, 173n, 204, 210, 211,
225, 229, 241, 250, 274–75, 285, 383,
394, 461, 463–65, 467, 468, 470, 490
home 4, 65, 80, 87, 101, 103, 130, 165,
240, 250, 309, 365, 465n
for the elderly 68
honor 442
house 52, 59, 96, 105, 130, 218n, 317,
325, 326, 333, 417, 418, 439, 466, 477
house of 129, 131, 180, 182, 186, 221,
438, 440, 441, 464, 472
household 62, 89, 267, 326
Hulst 167
humanity (mankind) 119, 129, 138, 179,
354, 446
humanism ix, 18, 58, 68, 69, 108, 110,
133, 143,249, 249n, 269, 272, 341,
343–47, 351, 352–53, 356–57, 361,
375, 407n, 427, 428, 429, 430, 431,
459– 61, 467, 478
hymn 145, 146, 147, 155, 159
hypocrisy 109, 215, 218, 243,
378, 454,
iconography 322–23, 327, 340, 499n
iconology 320, 323, 323n
idealism 205, 323n
art as expression of 29
identity 20, 215, 218, 258, 339, 356, 369,
402, 462, 485
and diference 367–68
idolatry 75, 188, 220, 223, 470
illustration 16, 52, 159, 165, 169, 205,
223, 270, 433
image 121, 179n, 242–43, 243n, 256,
260, 280n, 301, 313, 313n, 327, 330,
337–38, 357, 385n, 393, 399n, 412,
414–17, 421, 424, 441, 448
of Christ/God 131, 389, 415n
-poem- 112
index
and word 54–55, 315, 317, 319–23,
319n, 320n, 321n, 339, 386
imitation (literary) 12, 70, 105, 116n,
252, 255, 272, 349, 350, 354n, 389
of Christ 52, 358
immigrant 1, 53, 101–02, 104, 462
inalienable 65, 388, 394
independence 460, 468, 518
infallibility 15, 97–98
injustice, see justice
innocence 238, 262, 335, 347, 347n, 352,
354–55, 396
inscription, see body
interest 6, 13, 17, 18, 21, 23–25, 27–28,
31–32, 34, 44–47, 62, 65, 85–86, 88,
94, 98, 106, 109–10, 112, 117, 122,
127, 174, 177, 186, 197–98, 208, 212,
234, 258, 272, 277, 321, 328, 360, 366,
370, 379, 385, 409, 431–33, 444,
461–62, 469–70, 477–78, 480–82, 490,
492, 498, 510–11
common 108
interpretation, see also Bible 4, 11,
18–26, 42, 78, 82, 90, 153, 168, 212,
231, 242, 243n, 246–48, 250n, 252,
254, 271, 276–77, 286, 287, 300n, 303,
314, 318, 325, 328, 342n, 344, 359,
361, 366n, 375, 376, 378–79, 414n,
416, 419, 422, 422n, 424, 429, 459,
462, 464, 469, 469n, 471, 472, 475n,
476, 477, 478, 479, 480, 483, 495, 510,
515, 525
intertextual(ity) 252, 271–84, 287–88
intertextual horizon 273
horizontal 30, 42, 204, 271, 280
as inluence 42, 204, 272
paratext 206n, 288n, 387, 389, 392
invention 45, 122, 124, 227, 232,
351, 497
inviolability 4, 76
irony 268, 278, 437, 460
tragic 268, 278
Jansenism 513
Jesuits 6, 10, 44, 60, 96, 138, 196, 198,
343, 355, 513
Jews 1, 37, 41, 53, 98, 170, 188, 202,
204–06, 209–11, 212–18, 216n, 218n,
220–24, 255n, 267, 327, 353, 445,
453–55, 522
Sephardic 210–11, 216,
Jewish faith, see Judaism
journal 17, 460
Judaism 31, 213–14, 223
643
judge/judgment, see also God 97, 130,
180, 237, 273, 335, 347n, 393, 415,
455, 461
Oldenbarnevelt’s 58, 228–29, 231, 241
justice 5, 57, 70, 76, 81, 88, 91, 153, 163,
203, 209n, 215, 257, 328, 336, 340,
342n, 352, 446–47, 455, 460, 470, 471,
473, 475, 481, 482, 483
injustice 81, 88, 347, 350, 353, 357,
471, 516, 520
katèchon 440–41, 441n, 444
katharsis 118, 351, 357, 419
king 75, 76, 101, 118, 127, 128, 129, 130,
132, 134, 149, 154, 161, 181n, 180,
185n, 220, 237, 265, 267, 341, 342,
348, 349, 355, 381, 382, 388, 396, 401,
435, 442, 453, 467, 474
representing god 187, 389
legitimate 396, 453, 454
representing god 187
knowledge ix, 4, 56, 65, 69, 73, 74, 114,
115–16, 138, 197, 239, 255, 258, 292n,
383, 409, 481n
and art/drama/literature 29, 115–16,
120–23, 319, 321, 338, 428–34,
452, 521
disciplinary 15, 459–61, 479, 485
Tree of 399
lament 66, 77, 141, 152, 262, 278–79,
280n, 296–97, 306, 350–51, 364, 399,
411n, 412, 421n, 466, 517
proleptic 279
language 56, 116, 171, 319, 320n, 485
arbitrariness in 429, 429n
artiiciality of 25–26, 321, 361, 375,
427, 428, 429
Dutch, see there
materiality of 25, 116, 131, 379,
428, 430
and power, see there
puriication of 103, 232
and referentiality (res & verba) 253,
320, 427, 427n, 428, 429, 432
as rhetorical instrument 122–23, 129,
238, 239, 323, 344, 351, 362, 428,
428n, 433, 436,
style ix, 12, 13, 14, 18, 158, 173, 238,
242–43, 286, 303, 383, 420, 420n,
446, 459, 470, 494
translation 8, 18, 254–55, 345
Latin, see also drama ix, 1, 2, 54, 56, 60,
63, 65, 69, 96, 103, 117, 196, 239,
644
index
294n, 251, 252, 255, 259n, 262–65,
263n, 269, 329, 331, 343–45, 353,
356, 506
Neo-Latin, see also school drama 2,
63, 65, 67, 78, 173, 176, 196, 252,
255, 260, 276, 231, 345–46, 484,
School 56, 103, 142–43
law 8, 15, 121, 127, 211, 251n, 461
divine/earthly 22, 67, 135, 163, 180,
183, 390, 394, 399, 401, 403, 439,
446, 448n, 455, 514, 523
inside and outside of 395, 451, 475
lawless 401, 441, 516–17, 526
and literature 459–86
Mosaic 213, 218, 219, 221, 222,
249, 447
natural 21–22, 40, 186, 250, 392, 415,
481, 523, 526
of poetry 289, 352, 357n, 457
positive 459
rule of 443, 446, 453–54, 457–59,
462–63, 474, 476, 483, 484
source of 395, 447, 453, 457, 459, 485
study of 460–61, 475–78, 480, 484–86
and violence 447–49, 453, 455, 456,
457, 458
legality 446–47, 453
legend 2, 111, 127n, 285, 322
legislation 223
legitimacy 124, 128, 129, 184, 342, 356,
380, 387, 389, 394, 398, 400, 402, 446,
447, 458, 473n, 482
illegitimacy 125, 128, 135, 349, 350n,
356, 394, 441, 516
Leiden 15, 17, 52, 55, 58, 60, 65, 110,
176, 178, 349, 493, 512
‘Leliebloem’ 163
Leuven 55, 344
liberation 1, 53, 296, 305, 463
liberty, see freedom
life world see world
linguistic turn 25
lineage 186n, 304, 368, 510
literary epistle 71, 206, 208
literature, see also law ix, 42, 226, 272,
404, 459–86
European/Western 35, 196, 272,
history of 15, 18, 19, 36, 56, 81, 96,
174, 202, 272, 276, 359, 359n,
360–61, 430, 470, 476–78, 480, 493
and reality 115, 175, 176, 234,
244–45, 484
renaissance 23, 34, 73, 81, 175–78,
195, 197, 226, 226n, 240, 244, 276,
360, 462, 468, 469, 476, 477
secondary 86, 117n, 124n, 225n, 288,
395n, 427n, 445, 461
world- 175, 197, 505
love 13, 13n, 36, 47, 51, 60, 79, 127, 186,
190n, 218, 231, 448, 492, 518
brother/sister 435
child/parent 327, 407, 414–16, 424,
440, 440n, 443, 518
God/mankind 52, 54, 348, 443
woman/man 8, 15, 38–39 126, 296,
306, 324–25, 328, 330–35, 364–65,
370, 373, 438, 526
Low Countries 1, 24, 51, 101, 142, 143,
344, 359n, 424, 462, 468, 477
Northern 3, 66, 102, 163, 363n,
364–65, 372
Southern 1, 3, 53, 66, 93, 101, 102,
104, 163, 241, 349, 363n, 364–65,
372, 481n
loyalty 100, 131, 265
lyric(al) 60, 110, 155, 157, 160, 164–65,
174, 177, 188, 202, 242, 301, 309
Maastricht 65, 481n
magistrate 2, 62–63, 65, 68, 71, 77, 90,
109, 111, 250, 398, 502, 504
of Amsterdam, see there
manipulation 27, 36, 428, 428n, 436
martyrdom 3, 47, 70, 71, 93–94, 126–27,
165, 184, 275, 297, 347, 347n, 355
mask (persona) 33, 132, 251, 326, 335,
428, 428n, 435
mass 2, 9, 10, 68, 108, 154, 167, 172n,
173, 274, 295
materialism 392
matière de Troy 278, 280
melancholy 57, 59, 62, 66, 90, 133, 320,
517, 519
melody 139n, 144–47, 152, 352n
memory
as act 29, 29n, 38, 330, 331
collective 8, 38, 126, 285, 330,
331, 452
communicative 331, 340
Mennonite 1, 51–62, 78, 85, 87, 89–96,
100, 101–02, 108, 120, 222, 229n
menorah 149
merchant 65, 104, 206, 513
mercy 137, 178, 181, 257, 437, 453,
473–74, 481, 512,
God’s 19, 55, 91, 119, 138, 212, 217,
259, 354–55, 391, 404, 422–23,
520, 527
messenger 257, 290, 293, 294n, 298, 303,
307–08, 309–11, 326, 350, 388
index
speech 257, 263, 293n, 310, 314, 314n,
442, 446, 455
messiah 213, 218, 448n
metaphor 43, 125, 192, 245, 248, 332,
365, 368, 374, 384, 387, 419, 435n,
437, 439, 462
metonymy 23, 263
metre 141, 188, 297, 351
alexandrine 63, 81, 183, 192,
261–62, 420
anaepestic 262
iambic 261n
Middle Ages 68, 102, 226n, 427,
429, 447n
millenarianism 214
mise en scène 289, 293, 296, 298, 312,
314, 324, 326, 332, 334–35, 339,
436–39, 451–52, 454
misogyny 526
modern ix, 4, 16–22, 31, 34, 46–47,
53, 56, 60, 63, 101, 139, 141n,
376–77, 413, 431, 450, 494–96,
506–07, 524
early modern xi, 94–95, 98, 107, 115,
119, 210n, 123, 126, 132, 139,
142–43, 410, 415n, 419, 420n, 424,
461, 477, 496, 497, 506, 507, 510
post- 26–27, 31, 42, 427, 432, 498
monarch, see king
monastery 157, 291–92, 295, 303–05,
310, 312, 500
monologue 14, 133, 178, 183, 187,
202–03, 206, 209, 214, 216, 217, 237,
238, 242, 348, 360n, 375, 453, 500
monotheism 372–73
moral(ity) 3, 53, 54, 59, 87, 108, 118–19,
123, 129, 140, 158, 184, 205, 208, 235,
240, 242, 340, 344, 352, 382, 384,
386–87, 386n, 469n, 473–76, 481–83,
511–12, 521
mother 40, 91, 179n, 181, 181n, 216,
277, 281–82, 326, 354, 357, 407–15,
407n, 424–25, 435, 440, 444, 467, 482,
516
-church 71
foster- 179n
grand- 342n
-tongue 176
Vondel’s 52, 89–90, 92–93, 104
motto 51, 55, 56, 302, 319, 320n,
366, 504
municipal orphanage 68, 105
music/musicians 139–56, 160, 166, 167,
188, 290, 297, 297n, 371, 504
classical 46
645
composer/composition 142–43, 145n,
148–50, 152–54, 167, 188
instrumental 140–41, 148, 150, 167,
291, 297, 504
as metaphor 173, 368
on stage 77, 139–56
vocal (chorus) 140, 144, 147–48, 150,
167, 290, 297, 504,
-al instruments 140–43, 148,
313n, 504
Muslim 28
Münster 74–75, 90, 164, 363, 363n, 372
myth 4–5, 34, 52–54, 63, 76–77, 81–82,
133, 160–62, 231, 235, 237, 263, 368,
373–74, 380, 382, 404, 416–17, 447,
457, 476, 478
mythology 4, 34, 52–53, 63, 237
mythopoesis 476
narrative 39, 63, 82, 98, 241, 277, 324,
328, 352, 356, 374, 380, 395, 396, 403,
435n, 446, 476, 478
and arguments 36
and dramatic action 303, 309–12
foundational 463–67, 468, 469n,
477–78
narrativism 39
natality 38, 38n
Nativity 124, 126
nation 14, 15, 67, 87, 369, 464
cultural 85, 175, 211, 213, 222, 476
political/state 175, 363, 374–75,
409, 460
nature 120, 123, 170, 192n, 193n, 361,
368, 392, 438, 442–43, 524–25
and art 73
divine 372, 384, 415, 464, 481
equivalent with God 522–23
harmonious/instable 368, 375,
515–22, 526
‘Nederlandse Comedie’ 168
Netherlands, see Low Countries
New Critics 430–31
New York 167
nobility/noblemen 4, 125, 265, 274, 364
nomadic 39–41
nominalism/realism 427n
objectivity 410, 459, 470
obscenity 457, 460
ode 51, 65, 75, 113, 161
choral 147, 148, 354n
ontology 339, 384, 428–30
opera 143, 170, 331
oracle 34, 161
646
index
Orange, House of 9, 53, 62, 66, 133, 276,
344, 351, 394, 463–64, 468, 474, 477
Orange plays 277–83
Orangists 394, 474, 479
oratory/oratorio 123, 150, 165
order 22, 42, 89, 111, 369, 378, 383, 404,
475, 517, 521, 523
divine/earthly 384–95
symbolical 329
legal 443, 446–47, 457–58, 463
orthodoxy see religion
pagan 217, 351, 372–73, 476–77, 453–56
pain 4, 35–38, 47, 129, 179n, 181n, 214,
280, 282, 396, 418, 422–23, 450
conversion- 85
inliction of 37–38
love- 328–65
painter (schilder) 52, 59, 73, 76, 79,
111–13, 159, 165, 255, 255n, 317,
317n, 319, 322
painting (schilderij) 26, 46, 52, 75, 83,
107, 107n, 111–13, 159, 191n, 317,
319–39, 321n, 365, 384, 393, 464,
465n, 507
pamphlet 9, 11, 72, 97, 225–26, 229, 230,
232, 238, 243n, 346, 353, 377, 394,
499n, 522n
panegyric 76, 110, 275, 352
pantomime 77, 293, 294, 306–07,
311–12, 314, 314n, 423
paradise 91, 153, 163, 168, 173, 397,
401, 489
paradox 1, 2, 30, 383, 392, 401, 421n,
456, 460, 478, 483
paralipsis 366
Paris 67, 168, 250, 347n, 559
passion 3, 8, 20, 70, 79, 118–19, 191n,
238, 242–43, 248, 253, 259, 275, 279,
317, 321, 325, 328, 329, 333, 345, 364,
367, 376, 400–401, 407, 412–13, 417,
419–21, 424, 518–19
of Christ 93, 353
passion play 164
pastoral 60, 74, 164, 361, 365, 366, 372
pathos 240, 314n
patriarchy 42, 130, 272n, 330, 389, 405,
431, 443
patriarch 249, 251, 268, 389, 415,
443, 511
patriotism 14, 345, 468, 492
peace 40–41, 54, 62, 76, 129, 217, 258,
359, 363, 365, 367, 378, 391
desire for 57, 61, 65, 67, 73, 196,
108–09, 111, 365, 483
negotiations 58, 66, 228
versus war 365–75
of Westphalia 3, 73–75, 164, 363, 372,
462n, 465n
penance 54, 87, 422, 437
performance/staging of play 103,
105–06, 107, 123, 132, 140, 144, 149,
152, 153, 157–70, 194, 269, 274,
285–86
(role of) director 183–84, 289
and music, see there
opposition against 108, 159,
236n, 274
in relation to printed version 230n,
231, 233
production 165–68, 285
performativity 115, 115n, 116, 125, 128
peripeteia 4–6, 19, 74, 118, 122, 249n,
483, 490
philology 176, 498, 361, 375
classical 496–97, 506–07
material/new 496–97, 506–07
philosophy 18, 25, 27, 29, 46, 57, 59, 65,
123, 193n, 240, 319n, 347n, 360n, 392,
417, 432–33, 487, 509–27
play, see drama
poetry 8, 12, 16, 51, 53, 56, 60, 63, 64,
66, 73, 98, 102–03, 108, 117, 142, 171,
175n, 231, 272n, 289, 319, 321n, 382,
384, 388n, 394, 453, 462, 492
epic, see there
epinicial/laudatory 63, 64, 110,
206, 492
occasional 61, 75, 80, 82, 83, 110,
126, 160
poetics 19, 25, 117n, 118, 142, 171,
351–52, 407–09, 414, 419, 421–25,
421n, 434
polemics 2, 110, 229, 341, 466
politics 38, 51, 61, 69, 108, 109, 124, 197,
208, 228, 235, 239, 244, 250, 286, 344,
430, 432, 471
and aesthetics 225–26, 226n, 234,
234n, 248
and religion 45, 115n, 365, 377–404
polytheism 372–73
Portugal 34, 211
positivism 204, 329n, 359, 360, 360n,
459, 496
postcolonial 27, 259n, 431
post-humanism 431
postmodern 26–27, 31, 42, 226, 376,
427, 432, 498
poststructuralism 271, 272n, 279, 359,
361, 363,
index
potentia 515, 517, 521
potestas see power
power 9, 11, 28, 40, 58, 62, 76, 109,
115–16, 123–24, 126–36, 168–69, 177,
186–87, 207–08, 218, 237, 243, 258,
259, 277, 348, 348n, 373–75, 378–404,
388n, 468, 470, 485–86, 523, 526
of art 46–47, 70, 122, 128, 152, 165,
201, 315, 339, 412, 421, 423
economic 65, 76, 77, 114, 176
and gender, 128–37, 409–10
and language 116, 128–37, 128n,
399, 423
military 463–64
to record 27, 32, 38
struggle 3, 40–42, 109, 133, 441
predestination/preordinatio 88, 209, 228,
421, 424
double 91, 424
preface 12, 22, 40, 73, 77–79, 106, 112,
117, 118, 120, 141, 144, 146, 185,
216n, 235, 244–46, 251, 253, 255,
352–53, 387, 411, 414n, 415, 420, 423,
440, 443, 446–48, 455, 457–58,
492–93, 501n
preiguration 40–41, 385–86
igure 385
pre-/postlapsarian, see fall
priest 19, 33, 41, 70, 92–93, 96–97,
127–28, 132, 138, 148–50, 154, 202,
214, 216, 220, 237, 243, 264, 278,
345–46, 364, 416, 418, 419–20, 422,
504, 513
prince 77, 125, 127, 190, 383, 388–89,
388n, 412
of chamber of rhetoric 64, 104
of Orange, see there
of poets 7
printed text 1, 4, 6, 12, 13, 58, 59, 61, 62,
69, 77, 78, 95, 105, 106, 111, 141, 142,
142n. 143, 145, 146n, 147n, 159, 162,
173, 178, 210, 221, 341, 342n, 343,
343n, 345, 357, 434, 491, 494n, 496,
500, 500n, 301, 504, 505
and performance 491–92, 498,
501, 504
reprints 8, 13, 77, 150, 231, 319, 320n,
492, 493, 501, 505
privilege 87, 100, 259, 389, 399n, 471
procession 103–04, 150, 164, 190
prologue 161, 180, 274, 279n,
310, 414
property 182, 186n
prophecy 2, 37, 53, 106, 134, 149, 216,
218, 242, 257, 259, 263, 266, 268, 277,
647
303, 305, 387, 393, 395, 402, 438,
440–43, 511
propaganda 1, 3, 51, 71, 95, 115,
347n, 353
protagonist 4, 18, 19, 35, 41, 74, 117,
118, 249, 250, 258, 260, 266, 275, 277,
280, 348, 349–57, 408, 422, 428, 446,
450, 460, 482
prosperity 14, 41, 68, 101, 107, 108, 208,
212, 268
Protestant 2, 10, 14, 56, 60, 77, 85, 88,
93, 95, 98–99, 134, 321, 341, 341n,
343, 344–45, 348–49, 351n, 352, 356,
363, 380n, 381, 404, 423–25
providence, see God
Provinces, see Dutch
prudentia 344
Prussia 275
psalm 145, 145n, 147, 147n, 155, 255n
public opinion/debate 15, 68, 164, 342n,
357, 462
publisher/-ing house 2, 4, 10, 11, 13, 44,
52, 54, 61, 62, 63, 70, 83, 111, 135, 236,
319, 341, 461, 491–507
punishment, see also God 5, 6, 9, 41, 81,
121, 137, 180, 182, 214, 227, 257, 274,
283, 398, 453, 454, 466n, 521
purgation, see emotion
psychoanalysis 319n, 431–33, 445–58
Qur’an 325, 327–28, 338
Raadspensionaris, see Grand Pensionary
racial prejudice 34n
Radical Enlightenment 521–22
rape 38, 125–26, 274, 314, 343, 338, 371,
373–75, 435–36, 439
rational/reasonable 57, 63, 119, 133,
181, 211, 238–40, 243, 362–63, 373,
392, 400, 402, 413–20, 421n, 424, 467,
469, 482, 515, 523–26
irrational 133, 523, 373
reader ix, x, 4, 11–12, 16–18, 20–21, 28,
39–40, 51n, 95, 116, 119, 123–24, 138,
202, 209, 211, 216n, 225–27, 235–42,
245–46, 250–51, 254, 264, 271, 273,
276, 278, 280, 282, 283, 318, 321–23,
362, 376, 378, 386, 387, 393, 396–97,
401, 403, 405, 424, 446, 448, 490,
494–96, 505, 507, 522, 524
-response 272, 274
Realpolitik 443
rebellion, see revolt
rebirth 54–55
redemption 4
648
index
reception of work, see Vondel
rederijkers 142, 163, 201, 344
-kamer (Chamber of Rhetoric) 1, 19,
53, 64, 103, 103n, 104
Reformation 381, 421–22
Counter- 15, 347
regent 62, 68, 71, 136, 208, 211, 230,
231, 249
relevance ix, 2, 18, 23, 24, 35, 45, 123,
126, 132, 172, 177, 195–96, 210, 224,
227, 230, 240, 248, 254, 255n, 318,
321, 331, 337, 344, 363, 434, 441–42,
461, 465n, 510
religion, see also politics 10, 45–46,
86–100, 109, 115n, 132, 134, 168, 207,
214, 219, 223–24, 244, 259, 267, 353,
353n, 365, 377–02, 422n, 501
dogmatic/orthodox 9, 18, 79, 86n,
108, 206, 228, 372, 375, 392,
437, 512
state-/public 87–88, 260
Remonstrant 2, 10, 58, 64–65, 72, 85,
87–89, 91, 96–97, 99–100, 108, 110,
204, 206, 209n, 211, 228–29, 232, 240,
242, 512–13, 513n
Counter- 9–10, 58, 72, 88, 206–07,
210, 228–29, 228n, 226n, 242–43,
243n, 422n, 424, 512–13
Renaissance 23, 45, 53, 56, 71, 101, 225,
276–78, 281, 327, 331, 409, 415,
427, 459
repetition 272, 385, 393, 395, 445
representation 13, 15, 115n, 121–22,
158, 224, 242, 351, 352, 356–57, 372,
389, 391
and art/language 26–27, 39–40,
335–38, 433–36, 445, 449, 456
crisis of 427–32
gender 273, 280, 407–14, 421–25
representative 13–14, 58, 71, 79, 76, 129,
175, 217, 222, 244, 334, 382, 388n,
414–15, 416, 453, 473n
repressed 274, 448–49, 451–52, 471
republic 76, 233, 341, 381, 404, 463
resignation 66
of the world 355
resistance 75, 125, 159–60, 165, 168,
208, 216n, 274, 281, 283, 303, 360,
372, 373–74, 383, 409, 443–44, 450,
453, 482
responsibility 15, 67, 69, 76, 119, 130,
135n, 206, 212, 266, 274–75, 286, 374,
378, 512, 517
restoration 67, 214, 222, 391, 507
Restoration, the 80, 382
resurrection 124–25
revelation 90, 384
revenge 5, 125, 130, 131, 182, 209, 220,
237, 241, 333, 414, 417, 446, 448, 454,
455, 467, 473, 520, 526
holy 191n, 193, 215–16, 218, 445, 446,
454, 455, 456
revolt 10, 21, 76, 130, 216, 257, 259, 356,
377, 380–81, 389–91, 393, 398,
400–01, 404–05, 434, 441, 450
Dutch, see there
Batavian 5, 345, 464–67, 465n, 466,
467 471, 473, 478, 480
revolution 168, 344, 353–54, 382, 457
English 381
rey, see chorus
rhetoric 20, 22, 53, 120, 122, 219, 248,
268, 277n, 323, 336, 343, 357, 357n,
360, 365–66, 365n, 390, 396, 401, 403,
421, 428, 430, 433, 435, 466, 476,
494, 525
rhetoricians see rederijkers
rhythm 63, 261n, 303, 310–11,
314, 351
rite/ritual 132, 137, 371, 380, 397, 446,
449, 452–56
rights 65, 87, 91, 99, 102, 168, 180, 184,
184, 186n, 192n, 212, 330, 373, 375,
378, 383, 386, 389–99, 403, 471,
473n, 517
Romanticism 165, 273
Rome 3, 5, 59, 69, 76, 94, 96–99, 202n,
216n, 218, 275
Rotterdam 58, 59, 162, 166, 233,
491n, 499n
Royalist 210, 381
rule 19, 22, 58, 70, 73, 76, 94, 101, 104,
121, 133, 161, 185n, 210, 289, 382,
388n, 389, 395, 397, 398, 401, 405,
457, 459, 462, 474–76, 481, 485
ruler 31, 64, 67, 73, 79, 116, 128–29,
131–32, 136, 137, 182–83, 187, 188,
190, 241, 249, 256, 259, 261, 267,
296, 305, 348, 349, 353, 356, 364,
388, 388n, 389, 398–99, 511
sacriice 4, 33–34, 77, 100, 116, 130–31,
132–37, 138, 141, 149, 154, 170, 219,
245, 257, 281–82, 345, 364–65, 371,
373, 375, 407–09, 413, 415, 418–19,
422n, 424, 441, 443, 452, 453–54
self- 137, 415, 446, 448, 452
sacriicial lamb 132, 353
index
salvation 6, 21, 54, 119, 124, 135, 257,
269–70, 407, 410, 422, 513
satire 208, 232–33, 236n, 243, 504
saviour 213, 217–18, 220, 256, 256n, 372
scapegoat 132, 134, 136
scholasticism 525–26
Schouwburg (New Amsterdam heatre)
ix, 2–3, 5, 9, 12, 68–69, 72, 74–75,
77–79, 106–07, 122, 124, 140, 143,
157–63, 165–66, 168, 169, 285–86,
289, 292, 293, 299–300, 341, 501
Koninklijke (Antwerp) 168
Munt- (Brussels) 163, 490n
Scotland 342, 349, 353, 355
Scripture, see Bible
semiotics 25, 252n, 271, 319n, 328, 330,
359n, 432, 455
semitism
anti- 211
philo- 211, 214–15
set, see also costumes; see also décor 141,
165, 166, 287, 290
-scene 153–54
props 108, 291, 298–99, 314, 327–28,
436, 439, 504
sexuality 30, 188, 190, 371, 374, 409, 451
sex of 409, 413, 415n, 527
sexual assault/excess 127, 259, 278n,
325, 364, 369, 371, 398, 516
sexual intercourse 223, 525
sign 23, 25, 59, 61, 220, 254, 295,
327–28, 331, 355
signiier/signiied 43, 361
sin 11, 53, 57, 13, 215, 219, 259, 347,
357, 398, 422, 448n, 512, 514, 521
original 355, 355n, 400, 525
sincerity 10, 129, 145, 237, 240, 243,
375, 380, 393, 444, 467, 512, 515
sister 34, 89, 102, 126, 134, 135, 179n,
181n, 186, 231, 300n, 437, 466, 482
slaughter 37, 38, 185n, 219, 297, 313–14,
314n, 500
slave(ery) 34, 53, 161, 237, 249, 257,
329, 333
trade 34
Sluis 167
Socinians 87
son 5, 9, 28, 40, 41, 66–67, 114, 126, 130,
132, 136, 153, 161, 207, 212, 217, 249,
250, 257, 258, 279, 325–27, 342, 351,
364, 417, 434–35, 439–41, 443–44,
463–64, 466, 471, 511
bastard- 290
as metaphor 136
649
Vondel’s 80–81, 96, 101–02, 114
song ix, 53, 60, 63, 73, 104, 108, 110,
113, 139–54, 160–61, 167, 201, 463,
518–19
choral 296–97, 305–06, 348, 454, 504
contrafacta 141–55
sovereign 128, 207, 342, 363, 373, 375,
376, 381–82, 387–90, 388n, 392, 440,
471, 478, 486, 512–13
sovereignty 21, 30, 31, 45, 86, 128, 342,
353, 355–58, 360, 363, 380, 388, 391,
392, 394, 399, 400, 402, 409, 440,
441n, 447–48, 462, 471, 473–78, 480,
486, 515
cultural 373, 376
difuse/mixed 175, 176, 468, 469
supreme 177, 183–84, 207, 373, 375,
378, 381–83, 387, 388n, 389–90,
396, 472, 512–13, 520
space 486, 497
spoken 292n
and theatre 166, 296, 329, 385, 419,
436, 437, 439, 449, 456
Spain 1, 3, 4, 54, 58, 62, 65, 72, 73, 75,
101, 143, 143n, 157, 172, 206, 228,
363, 377, 381, 447, 461–63, 468, 481n
speech act 115n, 116, 127, 129, 131,
319n, 424
stadtholder 32, 35, 58–59, 62, 63, 66, 75,
90, 97, 98, 133, 160, 162, 206–08,
228–29, 232–33, 235, 237, 250, 388n,
463–65, 472–74, 473n, 484
stage 2, 4, 7–23, 69, 75, 77, 78, 90,
103–05, 106–08, 112, 115–17, 120–23,
125, 128, 132, 136–37, 139, 140, 141,
142, 143, 148, 152, 153, 154, 157,
158–59, 161, 164, 166, 168, 178, 181,
183, 184, 188, 192n, 210, 218, 221,
225, 236, 244, 245, 260, 269, 277,
277n, 278–79, 286, 289, 291–92, 294,
295, 297, 297n, 298, 300, 301–03, 309,
310, 312–14, 314n, 327–28, 334, 336,
337, 343, 345, 357, 372, 384, 391, 410,
412, 420, 424, 436, 439, 440, 445n,
446, 449–52, 451n, 454–57, 468, 490,
491, 501,
polytopic 105, 289, 292, 294, 314
staging, see performance
stanza 104, 139, 141, 142, 144–48 144n,
146n, 147n, 150, 153–54, 155–56, 297,
state 79, 86, 129, 130, 133, 134, 135, 136,
179, 184, 186, 192, 207, 208, 228, 243,
344, 363, 363n, 379, 382, 383, 391,
397, 401, 457, 460, 468, 470, 481, 484
650
index
dramatic change of 81–83
States 32, 71, 175, 204, 207, 207n, 210,
211, 228, 250, 368, 375, 394, 430, 469,
473n
General 32, 58, 65, 463
Stoicism 66, 138, 238, 240, 242, 350,
355, 411n, 417
strophe 146–47, 146n, 150, 153
style 53, 63, 83, 107, 111, 152, 158, 159,
162, 165, 166, 196, 238, 242–43, 254,
287 298, 343, 344, 347–49, 351, 459,
499n, 506
genus sublime/humile 494
sublime 173, 455, 494
subject(ivity)
subject of 4, 29, 35, 37–38, 41–42,
101, 119, 129, 177, 184, 185n, 186,
196, 207, 319, 322, 331, 341, 342,
372, 389, 430, 432, 436, 438, 444,
451, 460, 476, 479, 486, 516, 520
subjectivity 18, 27, 240, 277, 318,
319n, 323–24, 330, 332, 334, 360,
428, 436, 438
as topic 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 13n, 71, 74,
77–79, 81–82, 85–86, 97, 117, 122,
125, 159, 172n, 204–05, 221, 227,
231, 235, 289, 341, 342, 345, 356,
383, 410, 417, 421, 450, 465,
466–68, 472, 475, 489, 502,
511, 513
subversion 376
superstition 68, 154, 188
symbol 18, 54, 76, 122, 124, 128,
131–32, 135, 137, 165, 166, 209, 210,
226, 285, 320, 327, 342, 353, 374, 415,
448n, 455, 518
symbolic order 329
sympathy 9, 18, 334, 514, 524
synod 88, 206–07, 512
tableau vivant (vertoning) 105, 159,
306–07, 312, 504
Tachtigers 166
Tanakh 41, 267–68, 321, 330, 427,
434n, 441
temple 33, 76, 90, 149, 154, 188, 214,
215, 218, 218n, 219, 382, 441, 446,
453, 455, 456, 457
as metaphor for Church 41
territory 28, 65, 134
terror 74, 118, 122, 241, 282, 309
text, see also edition; see also printed text
electronic 505–06, 506n
‘ideal’ 495–96, 498, 506
Urtext 496, 507
theatre 1. 3. 4. 7, 10, 12, 14, 46–47, 105,
114, 115n, 116, 120, 122–23, 139–56,
164, 168, 172, 177, 183, 190, 245–46,
274–76, 277, 282, 301, 310, 312, 315,
322–23, 324n, 334, 352, 357–58,
383–84, 408, 410–12, 414, 419–21,
423, 428, 437, 447–53, 455–58, 490,
492, 501
as critical vision machine 323–25, 338
inner/outer 323–30, 332, 334–40
-goers 286, 292, 309
-makers 286n, 287–88, 292, 293, 300,
301, 312, 314,
prohibition of 79, 231, 461
theatricality 115, 115n, 116, 122, 123,
165, 181, 183, 244–46, 322–24, 325,
327, 328–29, 331, 334–35, 337–40,
430, 433, 435–39, 453, 455
theatrum mundi 244–45, 384
teichoscopy 293n, 294, 305–07
theory 3, 4, 34, 40, 78, 105, 254, 272,
272n, 319n, 342n, 359, 360, 361, 378,
386, 397, 419, 427, 427n, 429, 432–34,
448, 452, 460, 477, 479
literary 20, 35, 351, 360n, 361
tolerance 197, 208, 208n, 228,
229, 470
religious 64, 204, 207, 461
topos 24, 253
trade 62, 76, 80, 102, 108, 366
monopoly 58
tradition 2, 7, 9, 17, 28, 32–35, 81,
93–94, 103, 104, 127, 145, 165, 168,
177, 190, 201, 203–05, 211, 223,
239–43, 260, 268, 272, 274, 276,
285–87, 285n, 300, 312, 314, 327, 334,
359–61, 366, 373, 375, 378n, 409, 413,
427, 442, 444, 450, 455, 459, 462,
475–77, 498, 506–09, 513n, 523
humanist 341–59
tragedy, see also drama ix, 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9,
11, 18, 20, 30, 41–42, 67, 69–71, 74,
76–78, 81, 106, 111, 118, 122, 125,
130–32, 124, 134n, 137–38, 144, 164,
178, 184n, 185, 194, 201, 220, 221,
225, 226n, 231, 233, 244, 245, 249,
249n, 255n, 274, 276, 297n, 309, 314,
317, 342n, 344, 346, 349, 350, 351–52,
382, 393, 399, 407, 407n, 408, 409,
414, 417, 423, 424, 450, 455, 461, 465,
466, 470, 471, 467, 484, 489–91, 499,
501, 521
Aristotelian/classical 2, 3, 19, 74,
78–79, 117n, 118, 146, 158, 164,
345, 352n, 355–57, 449, 450
index
651
consolatio of 138, 261
Senecan 140n, 143, 239–44, 345, 347,
349, 417, 418, 419, 421n, 490
transcendence, see also history 361, 372
translation 19, 54, 55, 58, 60, 159, 163,
172, 269, 274n, 319, 331, 341n, 343,
345, 449, 484, 486, 491
as appropriation 269
translation of Vondel 172–75, 178,
179–81, 181n, 193, 196, 198
Vondel’s 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 67, 69, 72, 80,
106, 110, 116, 117, 145, 146, 158,
202n, 245, 250–52
word/image 319–20, 321
trauma 28, 37, 38, 125, 126, 132,
282, 382
treason 58, 90, 133, 228, 236, 342,
347n, 395
tribe 170, 188, 467
truce 62, 65, 204, 210, 368, 440
trust/trustworthiness 36, 167, 258, 315,
355, 364, 398, 428, 446, 464, 465,
481n
truth 8, 96, 99, 163, 191n, 193n, 232,
244, 278, 452, 478, 483, 524
divine 212–13, 215, 217, 219, 385,
402, 433
and knowledge 25, 338, 363,
428, 429
and representation 27, 320, 335–36,
338, 385, 428–29
typesetting 63, 497, 501n, 502
typological 268, 278–79, 327, 371, 373,
378, 385
tyranny 5, 67, 97, 133, 163, 175, 182,
350, 381, 382, 391, 395, 397–98,
400–05
victim 3, 5, 71, 93, 100, 126, 136, 188,
207, 278, 278n, 280, 282, 313, 333n,
348, 378, 436, 443, 446
victory 4, 63, 65, 127, 30, 163, 193, 203,
393, 444
violation 126, 127, 132, 347, 382,
398, 473
violence, violentia 185n, 305, 366–67,
375, 399, 445, 446, 449–57, 517
divine 73, 367, 373, 375, 447–48, 457,
458
and gender 125–26, 127, 137, 278n,
371, 374, 413–14, 418–19, 511, 517
as illegitimate power 76, 94, 124,
127–32, 135, 138, 186, 363–64,
368–69, 374, 400, 446, 447–48,
457, 464
and language 130–34
and law 453–58
and marterdom 47, 131
virgin(ity) 96, 146, 154, 370, 411–13,
420, 424, 426
city virgin, see Amsterdam
Mary 354
as martyr 2, 70, 409
virtue 55, 75, 120, 121, 163, 186, 186n,
187, 191n, 193n, 207, 258, 260, 272,
288, 299, 352, 354, 356, 366, 413, 453,
454, 482
virtu 187, 187n
visual analysis 319n, 322–23, 335
‘Vlaamse Volkstoneel’ 167
voice 62, 140, 149, 152, 164, 166, 168,
181, 185n, 224, 254, 280, 283, 298,
300, 300n, 335, 373, 375, 413, 415,
427, 431, 432, 483, 484
vulnerability 371, 409, 498
unity of 281, 284, 476, 478
time 13, 78, 295, 411
place 291
plot 408
universality 248
university 17, 110, 417n, 470n
of Leiden x, 17, 65, 176, 178
utile dulci 351
utopian 368
Utrecht 19, 51, 101, 143, 166, 195, 275,
313, 320n, 344, 367, 493
war 47, 127, 202n, 286, 386, 390,
392–93, 480–81
Eighty/hirty years 3, 6, 43, 54, 62,
65–66, 72–73, 101, 344–45, 363,
381, 405, 414, 462–63, 466, 468
civil (strife) 9, 43–44, 125, 132, 216,
228, 373, 383, 392–94, 396n,
398, 512
Dutch wars see English wars
English wars 80, 509
just 468
versus peace, see peace
poet’s 12
Trojan 231, 235
widow 40, 42, 52, 83, 97–98, 129, 182,
279, 279n, 280–83, 364, 491, 500,
501, 504
value 5, 13, 14, 22, 45, 69, 90, 98, 100,
163, 175, 197, 232, 233, 256, 321, 368,
410, 428, 459, 460, 507, 518
vengeance 182, 215, 257
play 445
652
index
‘Wijngaard’ 163
‘Wit Lavendel’ 1, 53, 56, 64,
104, 105
Woman, see also widow 11, 327, 333,
335, 348n, 349n, 511, 517, 518,
519–520
actress 322
and body 124–25, 374, 526
and emotions 277–79, 325, 325n, 330,
373, 409–13, 414n, 421
exchange of 371
as klop 96
malefactrix 347, 490
as subject 11, 42–44, 99, 278,
281–82, 330–32, 331n, 352, 374,
409, 436, 474
world 57, 76, 118, 121, 133, 170, 182,
187, 191n, 193n, 253, 256, 256n, 267,
351, 368–69, 388, 398, 402,
435–37, 443, 472, 474–76, 489,
515, 527
creation/destruction of 81, 501,
510–11, 517, 520, 526
dream- 74
historical nature of (world view) 21,
32, 42, 266, 268, 371–72, 385, 393,
399, 402–05, 516, 526
literature, see there
resignation of/engagement with 39,
108, 350–55, 350n
as stage, see theatrum mundi
xenophobia 170
Zeeland 58, 103, 467