Vondel's dramas: a chronological survey
This introductory chapter talks about Vondel's dramas: a chronological survey. Vondel's dramatic work is marked by a series of paradoxes. He produced a remarkably extensive theatrical oeuvre of thirty-three plays- many original, others translated from Latin or Greek - even though he only really started writing his major works for the theatre when he was around fifty. As an immigrant from the Southern Netherlands living in Amsterdam, the young Vondel joined the Brabant chamber of rhetoric 'Het Wit Lavendel', and it was for this theatrical company that he wrote his first play, Het Pascha. This drama about the exodus from Egypt features an epilogue comparing the liberation of the Dutch Republic from Spain with the liberation of the Jews from Egypt. Vondel had by this point developed into an ardent polemicist, and an advocate of the Arminian position in the religious and political conflicts of that time. Keywords:Amsterdam; Vondel's dramas