Het dichtwerk van Jan van Foreest (1585-1651)

Abstract

The dissertation consists of an edition of Jan van Foreest's Greek poems and the greater part of those written in Latin, provided with translations and a succinct commentary in Dutch. A number of the Latin poems appears in print for the first time ever. Jan van Foreest (1586-1651) studied arts at the university of Leiden, where - around 1600 - the literary climate was very stimulating for humanist writers. He also took up the study of law, which prepared him for the several civic duties (e.g member of the Hoge Raad (supreme council) of Holland and Zeeland and member of the board of the Dutch West India Company) he was to perform throughout his life. In 1605, he published his first work: Idylla sive Heroës et alia poëmata quaedam, a collection of short epic poems in Greek. All his later poetry was to be written in Latin. The main part of the Latin poetry (e.g. Merita Principis Auraicae in Belgas [1620] and Hispanus Redux [1622]). consists of comments by Van Foreest, a convinced protestant and a keen patriot, on what happened just before and during the Eighty Years' War with Spain. He was also an ardent supporter of the house of Orange, which becomes clear in Hymen Auriacus (1641), written on the occasion of the marriage of Prince Willem II to Mary Stuart of England. The city of Alkmaar's municipal archives preserve a large quantity of Latin poems that have never been put into print; a number of these appears in this dissertation. Foreestius was proficient in the composition of both Greek and Latin poetry. His verse is metrically sound. His Greek poems resound with Homer, those in Latin with Vergil and Ovid. On the whole, Foreestius feels more comfortable with Latin than with Greek