Poetry
Korenbloemen
Not translated into English
Constantijn Huygens · 1658
Synopsis
The Dutch poems of a lifetime, arranged in books: the pious sonnets of the Holy Days, the consolation addressed to a friend who is losing her sight and whom the poet reminds that all men are blind, the long walk through the estate of Hofwijck, translations of John Donne, hundreds of epigrams written in 1656 and 1657, and, to close, the farce of Trijntje Cornelis, a Zaan boatman's wife lost in the world of Antwerp.
Context
The collection appeared in 1658 at The Hague and brought together its author's Dutch poems. He included pieces already in print, such as the consolation of 1647 and the Hofwijck poem, published separately in 1653, and went on writing while the volume was being prepared, even adding a comedy composed in one week of September 1653. A second edition, published at Amsterdam in 1672, brings the whole to twenty-seven books.
Who it is for
A large collection in the learned Dutch of the seventeenth century. One can enter it through Hofwijck or through the final comedy, which have their own separate annotated editions; no complete translation exists.
Prizes and reception
His Dutch poems collected together, selected in the Dutch canonical survey of 2002 and in the Flemish canon of Dutch-language literature.