Joost van den Vondel (1587-1679) has long been honoured by his compatriots as Holland’s national playwright and “Prince of Poets”. Though scarcely known outside the Netherlands, he was the literary counterpart of his celebrated contemporaries – the painters Rembrandt, Vandyke, Rubens and the rest, to whom we owe our concept of the Dutch and Flemish Golden Age.
Poet, dramatist, satirist, patriot and tireless campaigner for political and religious freedom, Vondel was the author of thirty full-length dramas, of which LUCIFER is generally regarded as the most profound and accomplished. In addition, he produced a great deal of lyrical, polemical and religious poetry as well as translations of Greek and Latin classics. As Desmond Christy remarked in the Guardian, after attending LUCIFER’s London première at the Bloomsbury Theatre in June 1988, “If Vondel was French, we would probably all have heard of him”.
Vondel was born in Cologne, whither his Anabaptist forbears had fled from persecution during the Spanish domination of the Netherlands. While the poet was still a child, the family returned to Holland and settled in Amsterdam. Vondel’s father, a prosperous hatter, wanted the boy to follow in his footsteps. But Joost was determined to be a writer. At the age of thirteen, he was already attracting the attention of the Amsterdam literati with his rhymes. When he later married the daughter of a Flemish clothier, it was his wife who looked after the family business while Joost studied and wrote.
His first major work, HET PASCHA (1612) brought him fame and, in 1637, it was natural for the booming city of Amsterdam to celebrate the opening of its new theatre with Vondel’s historic drama GIJSBRECHT VAN AEMSTEL. In an age of bitter political and religious feuding, Vondel was frequently in hot water with the authorities. Many of his plays, though printed, were judged too controversial for the stage. Moreover, his conversion to Roman Catholicism in middle life lost him a number of friends, as well as the sympathy of many reviewers.
Much of the poet’s long life was over-shadowed by family tragedies, including the early death of two of his children and of his wife. A further blow was the death at sea of a profligate son, banished to the East Indies after ruining both himself and his father.
Though an inveterate dedicator of odes to the rich and mighty, Vondel’s pen was probably too sharp ever to win him a permanent patron or a pension. At the age of seventy, with the help of relatives and friends, he managed to obtain a humble post in the municipal small loans bank, where, it is said, he spent more time writing poetry than pawn-tickets. He was retired ten years later, but allowed to continue drawing his salary.
When at last Vondel died – very peacefully – aged ninety-one, it was left to his fellow poets to honour his memory with fulsome orations. He was buried, it seems, without monument or epitaph – not even the wry, two-line obituary suggested by Vondel himself, during his last freezing winter on earth:
Here lies Vondel, uncondoled;
He was struck down by the cold.
LUCIFER, written when the poet was in his sixties, opened at the Amsterdam City Theatre on February 2, 1654 but was banned by the civic authorities after the second performance. Calvinist zealots, outraged by Vondel’s unorthodox treatment of Scripture, denounced the play as “impious, lewd, godless and full of the most false and arrogant notions ever to spring from the mind of man.” Though the action is set in Heaven, Vondel’s celestial beings were all too human in their frailty.
Despite the stage ban, the text of the play was published and at once enjoyed an immense success de scandale. But it was not until 1910 that LUCIFER was rescued from obscurity with a memorable stage production directed by Willem Royaarts. Since then the play has frequently been performed, both by leading Dutch companies and student groups.
Some critics have seen in Vondel’s depiction of the Archangel Lucifer as a reluctant rebel – torn between loyalty to God, personal ambition, pride and the will to fight presumed injustice at all costs – the prototype of Milton’s Lucifer in PARADISE LOST, which was published thirteen years later. Milton understood Dutch, once thought of writing PARADISE LOST as a drama and would doubtless have know of the theological furore touched off by Vondel’s play. But nowadays, British as well as Dutch scholars seem agreed that both poets, to quote Professor Peter King, the leading British authority on Vondel, “were independently contributing to a common tradition.”
Though Vondel was a deeply religious man, his play is characterised by flights of artistic imagination, irony and wit – as exemplified by his piquant, tongue-in-cheek explanation of what it was about Man that frightened the Angels, even before God’s controversial decree revised their duties. The decree itself – admittedly only half the story, hence misunderstood, gives rise to what we might nowadays call a public relations fiasco, leading in turn to war.
In essence, this is a play about human nature, the clash between obedience and free will, the motive springs of revolt against tyranny, the horrors of war and, not least, the challenge posed by life itself to man’s faith in his own destiny and the goodness of God.
I was so fascinated by LUCIFER that I began to translate the play even before I had finished reading it. Later I discovered that earlier translations existed – notably those of L.C. Noppen, New York, 1898, J.P.R. Mody VONDEL AND MILTON, Bombay, 1942 and W. Kirkconnell in his CELESTIAL CIRCLE, University of Toronto, 1952. Still, it seemed, Vondel remained a stranger to all but specialists and LUCIFER unstaged. Intending no disrespect, I nevertheless decided not to read these earlier versions for fear I might lose heart.
My aim was to bring LUCIFER out of the study and on to the stage in an actable form, readily comprehensible to a modern audience. Vondel’s heroic couplets were majestic alexandrines; mine are pentameters, which I judge more merciful to actors schooled in the British tradition. I have kept the rhymes – not only because Vondel delighted in rhymes and so do I, but because they seem to me essential to the texture and “feel” of the original.
For the shortcomings of my version, I alone am responsible. But I am deeply grateful to many friends and supporters, Dutch and British, who helped my translation of LUCIFER on to the stage and now into print. In particular, I would like to thank Hans Jonkman, the former Royal Netherlands Ambassador in London and Dolf Simonsz, formerly Cultural Counsellor, for their enthusiasm; Paul Vincent for encouragement and expert advice; Peter Benedict of Oracle Productions, who directed LUCIFER in London with sympathy and imagination, and all members of the first cast for a performance much praised by Dutch as well as British reviewers.
To the STICHTING DR HENDRIK MULLERS VADERLANDSCH FONDS in The Hague, my publishers and I owe a special debt of gratitude for the Fund’s sponsorship.
Noel Clark
Lucifer was first performed in this translation, abridged and adapted by the translator, at the Bloomsbury Theatre, London, in June 1988. The cast was as follows:
| BEELZEBUB | Roland Curram |
| BELIAL | Jason Cunliffe |
| APOLLION | Bill Boycott |
| GABRIEL | Jerome Willis |
| LUCIFER | Mark Greenstreet |
| URIEL | Peter Helft |
| MICHAEL | Chris Gilbert |
| RAPHAEL | Vincent Worth |
| DIRECTOR | Peter Benedict (Oracle Productions) |
| SET & COSTUMES | Greta Clavadetscher |
| LIGHTING | Roger Simonsz |