biography
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Vondel, Joost van den
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| biography:
| Poet and playwright, born in Cologne, W Germany, of Dutch immigrant parents. He was the most important poet of the Dutch Golden Age. He began as a prosperous hosier in Amsterdam, and devoted his leisure to writing satirical verse, which focused on contemporary political and religious debates, as in Rommel-pot vant Hane-kot (1627) and Een Otter in t' Bolwerck (1630). In c.1640 he became a Roman Catholic, having been brought up as an Anabaptist. His changing ideas are reflected in the play with which the New Theatre in Amsterdam opened in 1637, Gijsbrecht van Aemstel. The principal sources for his drama are the Bible and history, but his interest in Sophocles' drama led him to write plays in classical form, such as Lucifer (1654) and Jephtha (1659). He is also known for his touching lyrical poems, such as Kinder-Lyck (1632), concerning the death of his son. He greatly influenced the German poetical revival after the Thirty Years' War (1618–48). |
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