Vondel's Value as a Tragic Poet

Abstract

Joost van den Vondel is one of the few Dutch poets who have attained to anything approaching international fame. To him is attributed a rather noteworthy influence on Milton. As long ago as 1854 A. Fischel demonstrated in his Life and writings of Joost van den Vondel that Milton knew and made use of Vondel's works. Gosse, in his Studies in the Literatures of Northern Europe, pointed out that this influence came only from Vondel's Lucifer and was restricted to the sixth book of Paradise Lost. Edmunson, however, in his Milton and Vondel: A Curiosity of Literature (London, 1885), showed that not only in Books 1, 2, 4, and 9 of Paradise Lost, but also in Paradise Regained and in Samson Agonistes fragments are imitated from Joannes den Boetgezant (John the Messenger of Repentance), Adam in Ballingschap (Adam in Exile), Samson of the Heilige Wraak (Samson or the Sacred Vengeance), and from Bespiegelingen van God en Godsdienst (Reflections about God and Religion). Among the other discussions the most important are that of Masson in his Life of Milton, that of Professor Moltzer in Noord en Zuid (vol. 9), and that of Van Noppen in the introduction to his translation of Vondel's Lucifer.