Vondel's Lucifer Part 11

Vondel lived in a memorable epoch and was its personification. It was the Augustan Era of Holland, the Dutch Age of Pericles. Amsterdam, like another Athens, had become the centre of the world's civilization.

Nowhere in that age were the arts so sedulously cultivated; nowhere had their cultivation been rewarded by such high attainment.

Science, the world puzzler, opened his toy-box, the universe, and showed its countless wonders. Philosophy, with guessive hand, played at the riddle Destiny, and mild Religion, at the game of War. Literature, the sum of all the arts and all the sciences, shone like the dazzling Arctic sun in its brief midnight noon--one hour of glory in a day of gloom.

When the poet died, the epoch died with him. A night of mediocrity now brooded over the marshy fens of Holland. A swarm of poetasters succeeded the race of poets. Originality was banished. Affectation, with his sycophantic wiles, had won the heart of a degenerate generation. Art, like a flower suddenly deprived of the warm kisses of day, pined away in the sterile cold. Genius was dead.

Vondel is preeminently the poet of freedom. The principles sanctified by the blood of his countrymen, and won by nearly a century of the most n.o.ble daring and heroic endurance, he, as the voice of his nation, glorified in his beautiful pastoral, the "Leeuwendalers." These same principles also became the rallying shout of the English Revolution of 1688. That same war-cry, reechoing at Lexington and Alamance, swept the American Colonies from Bunker Hill to Guilford Court House like a whirlwind of flame; and tyranny, with shuddering dread, fled to its native lair.

The s.h.i.+bboleth of liberty, first blown with stirring trumpet tones across the watery moors of Holland by the patriot-poet Vondel, was now repeated in deathless prose at Mecklenburg and Philadelphia. A new United States arose like a glorious phoenix from the ashes of the old.

For the American Const.i.tution was but the grand conclusion of that lingering b.l.o.o.d.y syllogism of freedom, of which the Treaty of Munster was the major premise. And Vondel, inspired logician of the true, unravelling the tangled skein of his country's destiny, also uncoiled the golden thread of our great fate.

Of his magnificent works, the natural heritage of the American people, we here present this choice fragment, the "Lucifer," aglow with the eternal spirit of revolt.

And now we leave our poet. A spotless name, the record of a n.o.ble, sacrificing life, a message of beauty, and a treasury of immortal truths--this was Vondel's legacy to his countrymen.

L.C.v.N.

The "Lucifer."

"Away, away, into the shadow-land, Where Myth and Mystery walk hand in hand; Where Legend cons her half-forgotten lore, And Sphinx and Gorgon throng the silent sh.o.r.e."

THE PARADISE HISTORY.

The Paradise history, as solving the problem of the origin of man and the origin of evil, and as foreshadowing the goal of human destiny, has always been a subject of universal concern; one full of fascination for the imagination of the poet. Few subjects, indeed, have aroused such widely diffused and long sustained interest.

Beginning with the "Creation" of the Spanish monk Dracontius, the Biblical paraphrases of the old English poet Caedmon, and the Latin poem of Avitus, Bishop of Vienna, we see, at different periods, various studies of this absorbing theme, especially in Italy, where a score or more poets and essayists made it the source of their inspiration.

Perhaps the most noted of these was Andrieni (1578-1652), who wrote the "Adamo," a tragedy in five acts, whose subject is the fall of man. This drama, however, is a rather crude affair, such allegorical abstractions as Death, Sin, and Despair being the chief characters.

About the same period, strange to say, the Netherland imagination, not long awakened from its medieval torpor, also became fired with this theme. The youthful Grotius was the first to attempt it in his "Adamus Exul," a Latin drama of considerable merit. This was in 1601, several years before the "Adamo" of Andrieni. Two other Dutchmen of the same generation, both far greater poets than Grotius, were also attracted by this subject. One was the distinguished Father Cats in his idyll, "The First Marriage;" the other was Justus van den Vondel in his "Lucifer."

We would, in pa.s.sing, call attention to the curious coincidence that so many poets of so many different nations, most of them doubtless without knowledge of the others, should about the same time have chosen this subject of such historical and symbolical importance. For besides the poets mentioned were many others: the Scotchman Ramsay, the Spaniard de Azevedo, the Portuguese Camoens, the Frenchman Du Bartas, and two Englishmen, Phineas Fletcher and John Milton. A more remarkable instance of telepathy is not, we believe, on record.

Of all of the works of the many authors who have treated this theme, only two, however, have withstood the critical test of time; only two have been awarded the palm of immortality. These two are Milton's "Paradise Lost" and Vondel's "Lucifer": the former, the grandest of English epics; the latter, the n.o.blest of Dutch dramas. It is the "Lucifer" that we have been asked to discuss.

DID MILTON BORROW FROM VONDEL?

The "Lucifer" was published thirteen years before "Paradise Lost." The scheme of the English poem had, however, already been crystallized in the mind of its author for fifteen years. This scheme originally contemplated a drama, which the poet's powerful imagination gradually developed into an epic.

To whom Vondel was indebted for the foundation of his tremendous drama is easily ascertained. He himself mentions his authorities in his admirable and learned preface. Among these were, besides the Holy Writ, the various Church Fathers, the "Adamus Exul" of Grotius, the work of Du Bartas, and a treatise on the fallen angels, by the English Protestant, Richard Baker. His own imagination, however, soared far above the fundamental hints that he received from any of these works on the subject, so that the "Lucifer" is rightly considered one of the most original and comprehensive poems in literature.

To whom Milton was indebted for the idea of his great epic is, on the other hand, not so easy to discover, although generation after generation of critics have thrown upon this problem the searchlight of innumerable essays.

That the "Paradise Lost" is scintillant with many of the brightest gems in the crown of the Greek and Latin cla.s.sics is apparent even at a cursory reading. That it is also studded with poetic paraphrases of many modern authors has often been a.s.serted.

However, the opportunity for originality was colossal, and Milton's imagination proved equal to the task. The conception of "Paradise Lost"

alone makes it the grandest work of the imagination of modern times.

That the English poet occasionally borrowed a thought or a sentence can not be doubted. Besides, he had a wonderful memory, long and tenacious, which involuntarily emptied its gatherings into the flow of his thought and into the stream of his discourse. That this was not always done unconsciously is known from Milton's own confession, where he says: "To borrow and to better in the borrowing is no plagiarie." And that he bettered in the borrowing who can doubt? All that he touched turned to gold; all that he thought came out transfigured. In the alembic of his genius truth became beauty; the mortal, the immortal.

As the "Lucifer" and the "Paradise Lost" are both concerning the same subject, and as they are both founded upon the Biblical account of the creation, it is but natural that they should have much in common. A comparison of the two poems, therefore, we feel sure would bring to light some striking and curious resemblances and many equally strong and remarkable contrasts.

As such comparison would expand this article beyond the prescribed limits, we must leave it to the reader himself. Nor should he, for one instant, forget the fundamental difference between the drama and the epic.

The epic may wander through the dales of Arcady, along description's slow, meandering way, to pluck the roses of beauty and the lilies of sentiment there growing in so sweet abundance. The drama, with vigorous step and bold, unerring eye, pursues a straight path to the mountain-top of its climax, whence, with increasing momentum, it plunges down to its awful catastrophe. It is the difference between narration and action.

We shall have to content ourselves, therefore, by a brief reference to those who have already given this matter their attention.

That Milton was under great obligations to Vondel's drama has been maintained by Dutch men of letters for generations. It has also become the contention of several distinguished English critics. Even as far back as 1825 the poet Beddoes, in a review of "Hayley's Life and Letters" (_Quarterly Review_, vol. x.x.xi.), says: "An effect which has. .h.i.therto not been noticed was then produced by the Dutch poets. In their school Joshua Sylvester (who lived amongst them) learnt some of the peculiarities of his versification; and if Milton was incited by the perusal of any poem upon the same subject to compose his 'Paradise Lost,' it was by studying the 'Lucifer' and 'Adam in Ballingschap' of Vondel, for he tried his strength with the same great poet in the 'Samson Agonistes;' Vondel being, indeed, the only contemporary with whom he would not have felt it a degradation to vie."

Mr. Edmund W. Gosse, in a brilliant essay ent.i.tled "Milton and Vondel,"

was, we believe, the first Englishman who gave the subject conscientious study.

For this, on account of his knowledge of the difficult Dutch language, he was peculiarly fitted. Mr. Gosse, in his own interesting manner, tells how, during the seventeenth century, the Dutch, then one of the most vigorous languages of Europe, was much more studied than it is to-day; how the patriot Puritan, Roger Williams, having learned the language in Holland during his exile there, taught it to John Milton, then Cromwell's Latin secretary; how Milton also must have heard of the great fame of the "Lucifer," and of the storm of fanatical opposition that greeted its publication, from some of the Dutch diplomats whom it was his place to entertain; how, too, he could hardly have been ignorant of the name of the distinguished author of the drama, since it is known that he was well acquainted with Hugo Grotius, who was a warm admirer and the bosom friend of Vondel.

In addition to these and other reasons, Mr. Gosse then brings forward a plausible array of internal evidence, showing many points of similarity in the construction and in the treatment of the two poems, summing up with the conclusion that Milton was undoubtedly under considerable obligation to his great Dutch contemporary.

Rev. George Edmundson, M.A., of Middles.e.x, England, a graduate of Oxford, in a scholarly and painstaking work of two hundred pages, ent.i.tled "Milton and Vondel--a Literary Curiosity," next took up the subject, carrying the comparison not only into these two poems, but into all the works of Milton and into several others of Vondel.

Mr. Edmundson also discovered many wonderful coincidences and innumerable parallelisms in phrase and in imagery. Inspired with the motto, _Suum cuique honorem_, he has woven a tissue of most ingenious arguments to prove that Milton borrowed a.s.siduously from the "Lucifer,"

the "Adam," the "Samson," and other works of Vondel.

Mr. Vance Thompson, in the New York _Musical Courier_ of December 15, 1897, has also added some interesting data to the subject.

With all the conclusions of these gentlemen we are not yet, however, prepared to agree. It is true we have not given the matter the comparative study that they have given it. We would wait, therefore, until we had thought more deeply about it before expressing our final opinion. However, we believe that a critical and impartial comparison of the two masterpieces will neither detract from the glory of Milton nor dim the grandeur of Vondel.

THE SCENE OF THE PLAY.

"Lucifer" is not the story "of man's first disobedience," though this is the outcome of the catastrophe. It is the drama of the fall of the angels. Yet man is the one subject of contention. Our first parents are, therefore, kept in the logical background of cause and effect. The creation of Adam, his bliss and his growing eminence, were the prime cause of the angelic conspiracy. The two-fold effect of the revolt was to the rebellious angels loss of Heaven, and to Adam loss of Eden.

Vondel, moreover, follows the doctrines of certain theologians that Christ would have become man even had Adam not sinned. Like Milton, he measures the scene of his heroic action with "the endless radius of infinitude," and by the artful use of terrestrial a.n.a.logies conveys to the reader that idea of incomprehensible vastness that the transcendent nature of the subject demands. Vondel is, indeed, even more vague; the drama not giving opportunity for detailed description. Both are a wonderful contrast to the minute visual exactness of Dante.

The attempt to reconcile the spiritual qualities of the divine world with the physical properties of this, necessarily introduces some unavoidable incongruities. How can a material conception of the immaterial be given save through the symbols of the real! How else can the unknown be ascertained save through the equation of the known! How else, save by visual and sensuous images, express such impalpable thought!

"Thus measuring things in Heaven by things on earth,"

the poet gives us a finite picture of the infinite; a picture which yet, by means of shadowy outlines and an artistic vagueness, impresses us with the awful sublimity of the illimitable and eternal. The physical immensity of the poem is unsurpa.s.sed.

Humanized G.o.ds and t.i.tanic pa.s.sions shadowed by fate upon the immaculate canvas of sacred legend--this is the play. The personality of the author is never seen; yet when we know the man and his life, we cannot but see therein the reflex of his own experience. The scene is in Heaven and never leaves it. When actions occur elsewhere, they are described.

Infinities above the scene of contention, far beyond "Heaven's blazing archipelagoes," where no imagination dares to soar, reigns He