The Dutch and Flemish Golden Age

In the seventeenth century the United Provinces were the first commercial power in Europe, and that prosperity paid for poets as much as painters. Amsterdam opened a municipal theatre in 1638, where Vondel gave biblical tragedies debated by preachers. Hooft wrote a pastoral and a monumental history of the country, Bredero staged the streets and taverns in popular speech, Cats published verses of conjugal morality found in almost every house. Rembrandt was painting, in the same years, the same reading burgher.

works 5

• TheatreGranidaPieter Corneliszoon Hooft · 1605not translated into EnglishIn a conventional Persia, a pastoral sets the frankness of shepherds against the ambitions of the court.Literature
• TheatreThe Spanish BrabanterSpaanschen BrabanderGerbrand Adriaenszoon Bredero · 1617The merchant Amsterdam to which refugees from the South flock, and where a sham nobleman clashes with the common people of the city.Literature
• PoetryHouwelijckJacob Cats · 1625not translated into EnglishA verse manual of married life, written in the Golden Age to be read in the home, which fixed for two centuries the conduct expected of wives.Literature
• TheatreLuciferJoost van den Vondel · 1654In heaven, before the fall of Adam, a tragedy of pride and jealousy among the angels.Literature
• PoetryKorenbloemenConstantijn Huygens · 1658not translated into EnglishA great servant of the Dutch State gathers in one volume what he wrote in his own language over more than forty years.Literature