‘Een ruwe diamant, maar van het eerste water’. Het Vondelbeeld in de eerste helft van de negentiende eeuw

Abstract

The figure of Vondel continued to attract a lot of attention in the first decades of the nineteenth century, just as in earlier times. Poets chose him as the subject for their works and literary societies such as the Maatschappij der Nederlandsche Letterkunde debated on the question of who could be claimed to be the greatest poet in Dutch history. Vondel was not only considered a national hero, but also – as a result of the upcoming cult of genius – a literary genius. At the same time, the quest for a contemporary Vondel resulted in identifying the poet Willem Bilderdijk as Vondel's nineteenth-century counterpart. This article focuses on the creation of a new Vondel in the early nineteenth century.