THE RELIGIO-PHILOSOPHICAL ORIENTATIONS OF VONDEL'S 'LUCIFER', MILTON'S 'PARADISE LOST' AND GROTIUS' 'ADAMUS EXUL' It has been suggested that the tragedy of Vondel's Lucifer 1 has an emblematic value for man since the poet urges us to take example by the rebellious angel and to beware of pride which may draw us away as it did Lucifer ~. This interpretation seems sound and has been given by several Vondel students. New and unorthodox, however, is the manner of persuasion followed to establish this point of view, for it depends on the interpretation of some of Vondel's dramas as "illustrations of the universal truth that in the struggle between Good and Evil the soul of man is at stake, but that God grants him a margin and the freedom of decisive choice, and that what Vondel wanted to emphasize most was the necessity of blind faith in God (p. 56I)." " W h o e v e r does not take sides with God or still hesitates to do so, sides already with Satan, for there is no intermediate way; tertium non datur! It is this conviction which induces Vondel to stress in play after play the paramount importance of the choice to be made, and to emphasize the fundamental difference between the godly and the satanic way of life (pp. 559 f.)." These statements, too, apply well to Vondel. T h e y are not only consistent with the views he would hold as a Catholic, but also with those to which he would adhere as a Baroque poet. T h e martyr dramas of the period, too - written by Catholics and Protestants alike - urge the necessity of complete surrender. This occurs in the works of the Jesuits as well as of such a Protestant poet as Gryphius. T h e infinity of the eternal looms in these dramas. History plays only for this infinity and is oriented toward the sign of the Cross, under which and for the sake of which all actions are motivated, giving ultimate meaning to the victory - obtained in death - as it does to life. For let there be no mistake about it, the drama of the seventeenth century is religious to a high degree. Even in Shakespeare's tragedies we discern this profoundly metaphysical reach. It is part of man's mind, and constitutes his consciousness, that he conform to the spiritual harmony and order of the universe, the structure of which is presupposed to be in God and to emanate from Him. Lack of conformity means rupturing this moral order, and this wrong must be corrected in order to avert the chaos resulting from a world out of joint. Justice, by way of contrast, is but the virtue that endeavors to maintain the fundamental order. Vondel's Lucifer, too, is full of purpose and portent; it attempts to delve deep into man's religious and moral life. Man here - not portrayed, but involved nevertheless - is no longer a man of the early Renaissance whose existence was encompassed by time and space. His life does not unroll as a merely human event in this world ; no, his stage is formed by all of the Christian cosmos, for he stands at the cross-roads of time and eternity.

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God's justice and love, the natural order and the supernatural elevation, proud reasoning and all-comprising humility - beyond all these, Vondel's Lucifer contains the deepest tensions that stir in every rational creature of the seventeenth century, man and angel alike. Convincing as the emblematic interpretation is, it contains one remark that needs clarification, if not modification. Toward the end of the argument it is said that ,,whereas the Satan of Milton is a gigantic Titan, a god - a god of Evil it is true, but nevertheless a god - the Lucifer of Vondel is neither gigantic nor god-like. We may even call him a weakling carried away as he is by circumstances, doing what he never wants to do, ruled by his pride against his better judgment. In stead of being a god of Evil, he is merely a victim of Evil . . . . This implies that he is much more anthropomorphic, much more human, than the Satan of Milton (p. 562)." Now, it is granted that even a superficial reading of Paradise Lost and Vondel's drama reveals the difference between Milton's Satan and Vondels Lucifer to be considerable. But it does not follow that this difference must be attributed to the one being a god-like giant and the other a manlike weakling. Rather, the difference results from a diversity in motivation and intentions leading each of the poets to present a treatment of the Lucifer motif so much at variance with that of the other as to make the two works diametrical opposites in more than one respect. This diversity in purpose is all the more revealing since Milton and Vondel are both eminent representatives of the same stage in the development of literature. Hence, the influences working on the one are very much those that mold the outlook of the other. However, they react to these influences in different ways and with altogether different emphases. One difference is of a formal nature and deals with the requirements of the dramatic over against those of the epic presentation. For although Milton and Vondel must both convey the incomprehensible vastness that the transcendent nature of the subject demands by the effective use of terrestrial images, and although the human language used to describe the spiritual qualities of Heaven necessarily introduces incongruous elements, however lofty that language is, it is Vondel who has the more difficult task, since he must present in dialogue what in epic form can be conveyed by means of narration 3. But there is another, more important, difference between these two treatments of the Lucifer motif. While Milton and Vondel treat the theme at about the same time and set themselves the same task, that is, to present and make acceptable as a literary theme the Lucifer motif, by standards that are meaningful to man, this task is m a d e more difficult in Vondel's case since he wants to go beyond the mere portrayal of Lucifer's conflict. In fact, the Lucifer is not a typical ,,Seelentrag6die" at all.

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Rather, it is a drama in which the poet presents his understanding of the nature of the Deity and of the way in which He works His law. And the hero Lucifer becomes a warning example from which man may learn that his salvation lies in humility, Vondel's Christian way of rendering Senecan stoic patience. Vondel therefore emphasizes Lucifer's guilt and is hardly interested in the psychological situation in which Lucifer finds himself when he changes from angel into devil. Indeed, the change is implied rather than emphatically indicated. But although Vondel does net elaborate the awful moment, he leaves no doubt that the archangel is a being with a free will and consequently must take the full responsibility for his decision and choice. It is true, Vondel's drama has a soothing element that contrasts sharply with the harshness of Milton's epic. But the reason for this difference lies with the difference in the religious commitments of the two poets rather than with the humanization of Vondel's Lucifer as contrasted to the godlikeness of Milton's Satan. Certainly, Vondel's protagonist has his moments of doubt. Where would he be as a dramatic character if he had them not? But that does not mean that he is a weakling. On the contrary, he is as much a giant - in his own environment, the realm of drama - as Milton's Satan is in his, the realm of epic. That Lucifer is more man-like than Satan is only true to a degree and only in the particular sense that he is burdened with doubts and problems. But this likeness unto man is never true in Lucifer's own mind. This distinction must be remembered if we are to do justice to Vondel as a dramatist. The temptation to look at Lucifer as a weakling is partly due, I think, to the relationship in which Vondel places him to Belzebub. It is a relationship that reminds us of the one existing between Othello and Iago, or between Brutus and Cassius. For Belzebub is Lucifer's evil spirit; he can play on his emotions as on a sensitive instrument 4. Fanning the Stadtholder's passions, he pushes him unscrupulously on a path from which return will be increasingly more difficult after each advancing step. Belzebub reveals himself as an angel who is a malcontent before Lucifer appears on the scene. It is sound proof that Vondel's dramatic aim is not the portrayal of the origin of evil, that is, the change of Lucifer the Seraph into Lucifer the Prince of Hell. In fact, the question arises, why we should at first regard Belzebub as a spirit of light. Before the fall of Lucifer he is old in sin and not at all dependent upon the great protagonist. There is no suggestion that he, Belzebub, has ever had nobler employment than as an unprincipled political leader and demagogue. He has committed himself to evil long before Lucifer has. Because he is of lesser stature and has a narrower horizon than Lucifer, Belzebub is not a problematical character. He does not weigh chances, because he has not the habit of hesitating about or pondering on his course. Aroused envy of the vast estates placed under Adam's sway, and planning, and being ready to lay plots, they are with him all one. But

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while the limitation of his interests permits him to concentrate on what he thinks is important, it also prevents him from knowing Lucifer fully. He is mainly shrewd in those situations in which his greed for power is concerned. He knows of course that Lucifer's mind does not move along the same lines as his own, that it is occupied with thoughts that belong to a loftier plan than to which he, Belzebub, would ever care to aspire. Belzebub knows of it, but he does not understand that way of thinking. He admires Lucifer for what he is, but he also thinks him impractical because of the nature of his reasoning. And impracticality is for ambitious Belzebub equal to letting good chances go unused. And so, Belzebub has a high estimate of himself for being able to take care of Lucifer's interests. That he thereby also furthers his own cause is a matter of self-interest and therefore a matter of course. In a sense, then, Lucifer is a tool in Belzebub's hand. What elevates Lucifer above his counselor, is, ironically, also what renders him vulnerable to Belzebub's slyness, even though Belzebub does not fully understand him. But compared to his pride and sense of honor, the feelings of Belzebub become low and insignificant. Even Lucifer's thirst for power is of a far superior sort and of a greater scope than would ever be possible with Belzebub. While the latter speaks out of envious greed, with Lucifer it is gigantic self-awareness that makes him chafe against the yoke of strange authority -,,strange" because has has already in his mind set himself as an entity over against God. All this suggests that, in spite of the influence which Belzebub exerts on him, Lucifer must not be seen as a weak character. On the contrary, in the light of the preceding interpretation it is obviously Vondel's intention that Lucifer stand head and shoulder above Belzebub and the other Luciferians. That Belzebub can play his role reveals the complexity of the problem-beset archangel. While Belzebub is seen only in his shrewd wickedness, Lucifer is much more complex. His character is as problematical as the situation into which he works himself. He is blind to Belzebub's negativistic reasons for revolt, although he has at the same time a dear insight into his own position and knows what is involved. This leads to the suggestion that what was called Lucifer's man-likeness in contrast to the god-likeness of Milton's Satan is rather a dimension added to the figure of the rebellious angel as conceived by Vondel. While with Belzebub it is his lowness that prevents him from really understanding his master, with Lucifer it is the lofty quality of his outlook that makes him unobservant of his counselor's thinking. Later, when Lucifer becomes the Black Angel, he will understand Belzebub much better. Indeed, owing to the attributes that adorn him now as the highest placed Seraph, he will then outdo the counselor in devilishness. For as high as his position is now, so deep will his fall be. It is precisely the order of justice, the exclusive validity of which Lucifer wants to uphold, that demands that his fall be so deep. In the dramatic aspect, this depth

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of fall is also in conformity with the dramatic theory of the Baroque period 4. His not being fully understood means that Lucifer stands essentially alone and must make his decision by himself. He is fully responsible for his actions, and it will be impossible for him to share his guilt with anyone else. Since his is the greater genius, his also will the greater responsibility be, and he must bear the brunt of the punishment. This view, too, contradicts the notion that Lucifer is a ,,weakling, carried away by circumstances, doing what he never wants to do." Vondel stays deliberately away from that portrayal. It resembles too closely an elaboration of the predestinational doctrine to have appeal for the poet who wants to indicate emphatically Lucifer's right to exercise free will, and therefore has him repeatedly receive God's offer of grace that recurs as a leitmotiv throughout the drama. That the difference between Vondel's Lucifer and Milton's Satan is not simply a difference based on dramatic versus epic requirements, but is determined by the difference between the Catholic versus the Protestant commitment, becomes evident when we consider the Lucifer motif as it is handled by another poet of the Baroque period, Hugo Grotius. In Grotius' A d a m u s E x u l (I6oI) 6 the long prologue is spoken by Satan who carries the action whenever he appears on the stage. Rising from the abyss he states that he drags out an existence that is less than life and worse than death (vv. 95 ff.). His burning desire to be extinguished will not be fullfilled, for it is part of his punishment that he is not even allowed to perish (v. 103). Extinction would bring forgetfulness to his tortured mind. Now, the cherished memory of his former angelic status, when he was one of the peers of the Kingdom, goads his hardened heart and fear of shame denies peace to his selfconscious soul (w. Io2 ft.). Grief and panic accompany him wherever he goes. But at times his pain causes him to scorn the hurt of guilt and then his hatred burns and corrodes him; it makes him think that his suffering could not possibly be keener (vv. I2I ff.). In these beginning lines, Satan is prepared to admit his guilt and the justness of his punishment. His suffering is inward, and of a keenness that seems very great, for he once repented of his crime, although perhaps for negative reasons. Hell is a lonely place of alienation, the individual who finds himself there, whether by choice or by force, must be visited by desperate longings for home and company. Hell is the nadir of existence. Those who inhabit it are lepers outside of the law. But because Satan is banished forever - not even being allowed to find an end - it is inevitable that he endeavors to make Hell the zenith of his existence. Satan's hatred is more the result of the relentlessness of his punishment and of the ensuing mental torture than of the punishment itself. In a

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drama that turns his pain inward, his thinking becomes a brooding on a gamut of thoughts that turn around the impossibility of ever obtaining forgiveness. And because for him no alleviation of his lot is to be expected, he can only end as the tempter of man. But while he is the one who begins and carries the action, he himself does not change. And since it is not he who is primarily involved in the catastrophe at the end of the drama (the exile from burning Paradise), the weight of the action lies everywhere and nowhere. Satan's decline at the end is but the perpetuation of the punishment that was administered to him prior to the prologue, and his doom is not more certain than at the beginning since it was already established. The change of Satan into a moral sufferer is of great consequence. It gives expression to the views of an era in which man increasingly begins to look at himself as the norm of all things. Up to a degree, the Protestant poet of the seventeenth century begins to identify himself with the celestial rebel and to become sympathetic with his lot. This presentation of Satan makes the Deity as his opponent hard-hearted and without mercy; it will be difficult for the poet to make God convincing later on, when He is to give the promise of the Redeemer to fallen man. This concept of God, here only a dramatic presentation, and not yet to be interpreted as the poet's personal view, will in course of time lead to the deistic, impersonal God of the Enlightenment. Even though such a manner of presenting the God of Christianity does not warrant far-reaching conclusions regarding the personal belief of the author - Grotius repudiated A d a m u s E x u l in later life and did not want it included in the authorized edition of his collected works - it is significant to observe how in I6OI the possibility of his drama reaches already far beyond the ecclesiastical piety of the Reformation period ~. It is no longer a matter of man's belief in God's grace, but of belief in His justice, of the justification also of the way in which He works in man according to dogmatic teachings. This problem is only touched peripherally by Grotius and serves mainly as a means in the temptation of Eve: It is a problem that results with the Protestant poets primarily. It is, in the literary aspect, also the result of the seventeenth century's understanding of Aristotle's Poetics and of its acquaintance with the authors of antiquity. This knowledge enables the poet to introduce into his work two aspects of Greek mythology corresponding to the philosophy that begins to gain momentum in the seventeenth century. There is, first of all, the identification of Pluto with Satan. To be sure, the poetic equation with the gods of antiquity is natural, for they were already regarded as demons by the Church fathers ~. Now, however, the relations are reversed. It is not merely that Pluto is seen as a devil, but that Satan is presented as Pluto. Thus, the polytheistic antithesis of the wars of the pagan gods now enters into the presentation of the religious concepts of Christianity. The result is that at least in form the dramatic

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aspect outrules the dogma; Satan changes speech and spirit; he changes his relation to God for he himself is now a god. He, too, has majesty about him. To that loftiness corresponds his great pride and self-esteem. His pride thus becomes a characteristic that is forced upon him by his very status, naturally and as a matter of course. If he lacked it, he would be a contradiction in terms. Therefore, Satan must act according to his prominence and, in a way, it can be said that he cannot help his arrogance, which in his own mind is no arrogance at all, but an innate part of his being. This aspect of the Prince of Hell of the seventeenth century leads to his kingly bearing, which makes him imposing to a degree of which earlier periods could not have conceived. The second aspect, occurring with the Protestant poets only, results in ~adualistic concept of the Deity that makes for dramatic inconsistency. In a later scene, Grotius' Satan will speak to Eve in a stoic manner of the Fates as the shapers of man's destiny- the Fates, who in Greek mythology symbolize the law of existence. That law is Nature itself. Even the gods are subject to it. The Greek Zeus is highly elevated above man's criticism for he never can be held responsible for the working of Nature. Zeus himself must also obey and bow to the inevitable; he is as much under the sway of the Fates as man is. It is not he who requests full revenge of man's violating the law, and it is not up to him to withold the consequences of man's rashness. This is the view of a religion which ihas its gods emerge from the elements. Zeus is not seen as a god of love :and grace. However, this does not render him hard and aloof, for he is not in a position to apply the spirit of forgiveness. He is not expected to. All this enters now into the portrayal of the God of Christianity, who thus acquires the characteristics of the Greek Zeus. However, because He is traditionally a God of grace, He now acquires - with the Protestant poet, that is - the harshness that was not formerly a part of him. The notion of the Fates weaving man's destiny enters into the drama and epic and makes for a metaphysical blend of pagan and Christian ingredients which cannot be reconciled with each other. The concept of God thus resulting makes His application of grace with respect to man a tour d e f o r c e that does not quite succeed. It establishes a dualism in the Deity and evokes the thought of arbitrariness since He is not willing to grant :grace to Satan also. W i t h Grotius' Satan it is not a matter of perpetuating evil for its own sake. Whatever pleasure he derives from doing and causing evil is not based on a purely negative and perverse set of demonic values. Rather, the spreading of evil has only value for him because it enables him to work against his great enemy who once banished him. This outlook is quite different from that which he had in the Reformation period, when he seemed to be enjoying an occupation rather than conducting an enterprise 9 The Devil of the seventeenth century knows that, when he perpetuates evil, he adds to the evil already committed. And because he is

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still plagued by a conscience and is tortured by pain and fear, this added evil means added pain to his own suffering. All the sorrow evoked will find an echo in Satan himself. He is, so to speak, the first victim of his own attacks. It is i n this way that the injury which Satan has done to himself becomes an inseparable part of him. It becomes Satan who cannot continue without revenge, and thus it even becomes possible - and inevitable - that he cherishes the memory of his catastrophic fall. He finds a new Paradise, the Paradise of Despair ~~ as a fallen angel, which is also his delight, the delight of the Devil, who now has something of Narcissus about him. Satan's prologue is followed by a chorus of angels in which the theme of Satan's high fall is elaborated in a manner depicting the dramatic theory of the seventeenth century. It is the theme of the proud creature who once had the right to look God in the eye and who now continues to do so even though he is no longer entitled to it. For it is now a gaze that crosses the boundaries between Hell and Heaven. And between Satan and God lies the world, as yet unpolluted by sin. T h e Garden of Eden is situated between these opposing forces as between two mirrors in which vision of what may become of Paradise multiplies beyond perspective. While at the end of the drama Eve learns that the passions must be ruled ~, the serpent Satan has slithered away, cursed and hated. And so, Grotius' Satan is at the end deeply humiliated. P1oud Pluto-Satan met God while still assuming the form of the serpent, the lowly reptile. Suddenly there is the turnabout in his portrayal. In so far as he h a s identified himself with the serpent, he is to crawl in the dust. It is irony that this is the stuff of which his second enemy, man, was made. And the p o w e r he wields over fallen mankind is not unlimited. While Satan's reason is irrevocably the product of a mind riddled by the disease of blind hatred, man's reason will still be able to lead him back to the source of light from which he had his innate being and in whose image he was created. T h e powerful weapon of reason, used by Satan so successfully to cause Eve's fall, will be used against him. T h e interpretation of Grotius' drama as given here indicates how closely his and Milton's views resemble each other 12. In the works of these two poets the groping for insight and understanding is based on an individualistic outlook. With both, this has resulted in a secularization of the Lucifer motif, which has become a device by means of which light is shed on questions that are of a phil0sophical-problematical rather than a religious nature. But while the treatment of the Lucifer motif by Grotius as well as by Milton is a rational theodicy, with Vondel it becomes a theodicy of the heart. By means of the portrayal of extreme revolt against the divine ordinance, he deepens and illuminates the concept of God's authority. His kingship, by Lucifer seen as tyranny, changes into mercy for him who in humility contemplates the greatness of the Deity whose realm is based on the ordo amoris. Neophilologus, XLIV. I5

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It is significant that in the seventeenth century the difference in the portrayal of the Devil are very pronounced when we compare the Protestant presentation with that of the Catholic. The often noticeable sharpness and unevenness in the Protestant treatment indicates that for him who attempts to solve the problem from the personal, ,,inside" point of view, the Catholic solution with its elements of mercy is not possible and perhaps not desirable. It is interesting to note that the rational theodicy employed by the Protestant poets is intended to lead by way of the expression of dramatic empathy with the Lucifer figure to a justification of and an apologia for man's position with regard to God. But in the endeavor to solve the pro~ blem involved from the Protestant-individualistic point of view, the distance between the angel-turned-devil and the poet suddenly widens at the end. The latter's philosophy does not enable him to carry through his endeavor in the manner in which he began it. With the Catholic poet, on the other hand, we are never allowed to forget that the poet does not for a moment think of the rebellious angel in the autobiographical manner. And yet, it is in the Catholic treatment of the Lucifer motif, in which the poet emphatically takes the side of Heaven, that Lucifer receives a treatment with which it becomes possible to think in terms of his possible uhimate redemption la. The Catholic economy of salvation as conceived of by Vondel lends the Lucifer motif a dimension that lies unabashedly beyond the realm of drama proper. But from the poet's viewpoint it is by far the more stirring treatment. For now also the fallen archangel himself is aware of the all-comprising mercy with which the Deity is prepared to receive him. It is this awareness which renders a character with a conscience so acutely aware of his position as to make him the more poignantly tragic among the fallen angels. He was a something and did not know it; he knows it now, but is it no longer. It is this dichotomy between former being and present knowing that tears him apart. This knowledge lies at the base of his melancholy, and it is this melancholy that makes of him a being with a tragic wisdom. Whereas the Devil of the Protestant treatment can be said to have his being in a Paradise of Despair, the figure as presented by Vondel lives truly in the very deep of Hell. But the considerations presented so far lead to other consequences casting light on the figure of the Baroque Devil. In the Protestant treatment, he acquires also human dimensions, in the sense, namely, that man begins to identify himself with him. This, as we remember, is not the case with Vondel. But while this self-identification makes for autobiographical overtones, it i~s far from complete 14, for the protagonist receives also the stature of a Pluto who opposes his brother-god Zeus with a feeling of self-righteousness, obtaining the lowering dimensions that belong to deities, and opposing a rival who becomes an unapproachable power, cold and far beyond distant constellations. And so, because he, too, seems to partake of divinity, the Devil of the seventeenth century

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becomes a dualistic character, a spirit bringing division into the world, but at the same time a spirit divided against itself. The struggle and doubt which he evokes in man become part of the fallen angel himself. The Protestant as well as the Catholic poet of the Baroque era endow the Devil with a sense of honor and virtue that is painstakingly balanced and easily upset. It is the honor of a being whose innate nobility cannot endure that honor to receive the slightest tarnish. The Devil has here developed a scope of evil which can only be attained with an extraordinary greatness of soul 15. The dualism in the character of the rebellious angel is thus increased and sharpened and he becomes for the poet of the century the dramatic character par excellence whose depth of fall is difficult to match with any other Protagonist's since his god-like dimensions are of the greatest imaginable. His imposing size harbors the very traits that to the era make for dramatic grandeur. And since his actions are determined partly by factors that are superimposed on him - at least, in his own mind - he Cannot altogether help himself, but is driven by fate, the theatrical doomsayer of an age which in spite of all its pride and self-awareness, and in spite of its fervent, sometimes even frantic, belief is deeply convinced that a stoic attitude serves best to meet the forces that work in a tempesttossed-world. Also, with the Protestants, in so far as the rebel is seen as a creature whose unbending will is but the expression of his desire for freedom and of the belief in the autonomy of the individual, his fall is inevitable from the religious point of view which suddenly is exercised at the end. Ultimately, then, his fall becomes also here a warning example. It stands in striking contrast to the passionate portrayal of his revolt. The dichotomy in which the Christian concept of Sin stands to the Greek view of the gods as mere speaking tubes of Fate suddenly can no longer be maintained. It is as if the poet belatedly realizes that Christianity and Greek antiquity speak different languages and live by different truths. This dualism causes the conflict in which the rebel is involved in the Protestant work to become a knot which cannot be untied, but at the end must be cut through by the supernatural intervention of the d e u s e x m a c h i n a . It is at this moment that the Protestant poet of the seventeenth century shows himself to be the child of a time which still adheres to an orthodox belief in the transcendental. Lucifer is still a dogma, not yet a parabel. It is almost as if the author assumed an attitude in the beginning for literary purposes. However, his very ability to do so indicates that the values and concepts of the past are becoming problematical and that their validity may soon be openly questioned. A newly forming society, a newly discovered humanity vacillates between the above and the below, the transcendental and the wordly, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It is aware of the dichotomy in the Lucifer motif, and of the dualism in it between the religious and the human. That is the reason why here, in spite of prohibitions, backthrusts

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a n d even contradictory factors a n d instances the b r e a k t h r o u g h to the second m o m e n t of the m o t i f - the h u m a n - m u s t be sought. T h e Lucifer figure of the seventeenth century, then, is a transitional figure u p o n w h o m a h u m a n n a t u r e is b e g i n n i n g to be superimposed. He reveals the Janus head of the Baroque i n a m a n n e r more significant t h a n that i n which this image is applied to seventeenth c e n t u r y literature i n general. Partaking of the old as well as the new, he has a split personality. T h i s renders h i m sometimes opaque to the endeavor to give h i m psychological f o r m u l a t i o n a n d coherence. W h i l e formerly his n a t u r e a n d actions did not need motivation, b u t were taken for granted because he was what he was, he is n o w draped i n h u m a n garb, to accommodate h i m to a stage no longer willing, or able, to receive h i m in his original form. HUGO BEKKER. Notes I. (Amsterdam, I654). In vol. XXIII of De Werken van ]oost van den Vondel, ed. Jacob van Lennep and J. H. W. Unger (Leiden, 1895). 2. W. A. F. Smit, "The Emblematic Aspect of Vondel's Tragedies as the Key to their Interpretation", M. L. R., LII (1957), 562. 3. It is this aspect of the Lucifer motif that leads Marianne Woodhull, The Epic of Paradise Lost (New York, 19o7), passim, to the conclusion that the theme lends itself better to epic treatment than to dramatic presentation. 4. G. Kalff, Geschiedenis der Nederlandsche Letterkunde, III (Groningen, I912), 287. 5. Cf. Julius Rfitsch, Das dramatische Ich im deutschen Barocktheater (Wege zur Dichtung, Zfircher Schriften zur Literaturwissenschaft, XII; Leipzig, 1932), p. 35. 6. In Watson Kirkconnell (ed. and tr.), The Celestial Cycle, The Theme of Paradise Lost in World Literature with Translations of the Major Analogues (Toronto, 1952), pp. 96-z2o. 7. Cf. Hugo Bekker, "The Lucifer Motif in the German Drama of the Sixteenth Century", Monatshefte I (I959), 237 ff. 8. Cf. Edward Langton, Satan, a Portrait: A Study of the Character of Satan throughout the Ages (London, 1945), p. 53. 9. Cf. Hugo Bekker, op. cir., p. 243. io. Cf. Rfitsch, op. cit., p. 35. 1I. The manner in which Eve learns it marks her as a character of the seventeenth century; cf. W. Etemming, ,,Die Auffassung des Menschen im siebzehnten Jahrhundert", Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift far Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, VI (I928), 4o3-446. Cf. als0 Hans Henckel, when speaking of Jakob B6hme, in Geschichte der deutschen Literatur, Von den Anfdngen his zum Ausgang des Barock (Einzelschriften zur schlesischen Geschiehte, II; I929), p. 172: ,,Der Kampf Gottes gegen Lucifer, als den so die Sch6pfung sich darstellt, soll der Mensch, als der Stellvertreter der Welt, in seiner eignen PersSnlichkeit und Seele austragen". 12. For one of the latest interpretations of Paradise Lost, cf. Basil Willey, The Seventeenth Century Background (New York, I955), chap. II, 2. 13. Cf. Hugo Bekker, "Divine Love as the Unifying Principle in Vondel's 'Lucifer'," M. L. R. IV (I959), 389 f. I4. Such complete self-identification occurs later, with the poets of the Romantic period, with whom it is no longer a mark of eccentricity to defend or of perversity to extoll the fallen angel. Some of these poets rewrite Paradise Regained according to their own insight and under new titles, humanizing it, and, in doing so, degrading the celestial rebel who is brought closer to earth and to the god-defying Prometheus, grand, but man. In these portrayals of moral victory after bitter defiance until the end, a portrayal of which Grotius and Milton could and would not have conceived, the Devil becomes through the poet's complete sympathy a sufferer whose first enemy, God, is negatively depicted. I5. Cf. Blaise Pascal, Pensdes (ed. L4on Brunschvigg; Paris, 19o7), fragment 4o8.