Piet Calis

Joost van den Vondel usually simply referred to as Vondel was one of the greatest Dutch authors of all times. His statures measures that of William Shakespeare. Vondel was a contemporary of Rembrandt van Rijn, the great Seventeenth century painter. In fact, they lived very closely.

However, the Dutch literary scene and Dutch publishing are unlike the English-speaking world, where multiple editions of Shakespeare's works are readily available. And as a result of the scarcity of editions, Vondel remains largely unread. People know his name, but would be hard pressed to name any of his plays.

Therefore it is a good thing Piet Calis wrote this new biography of Vondel. Calis has a very modern, accessible writing style, free of academic pretense. Some of his comments are even boderline banal, or a bit too colloquial, but this is quite typical on the contemporary no-nonsense Dutch style.

The book starts with the controversy around the Gijsbrecht van Amstel, the only play of Vondel that was regularly on the play roll as it is considered closely connected with the history of Amsterdam and the spirit of Dutch people.

However, after that the biography is mostly chronological, discussing all the major plays and book publications of Vondel's works in his day. Besides playwright, Vondel was a magnificent poet.

Vondel, who lived to the high age of 91, was also a contemporary of John Milton. It is known that Milton could read Dutch and it has often been suggested that Milton found inspiration in Vondel for his famous poem Paradise Lost, although this assertion is more or less refuted in this Vondel biography.

Besides describing and explaining Vondel's plays, the biography gives a wealth of detail about Vondel's life. Not only was Vondel a hard-working writer, he also conducted business successfully, and despite effectively being a millionaire in his time, worked as an employee at a pawn shop for many years, until he asked for and was gracefully released into old-age retirement.

The most shocking episode in his life was his relation with his son, and the guilt complex he developed after his son's death.

Vondel's life ran parralell to the development of the city of Amsterdam and the glory of the Netherlands it it's Golden Age.… (mehr)