Theatre
Lucifer
Joost van den Vondel · 1654
Synopsis
The setting is heaven. Apollion returns from earth, where Lucifer sent him to observe Adam's happiness, and the angels who serve God's lieutenant, Beelzebub and Belial, listen to his account with unease. Gabriel comes to announce that God will raise man above the angels. Lucifer, the most beautiful and most powerful of them, feels dispossessed; jealousy spreads among part of the heavenly legions, and he must choose between obedience and revolt.
Context
The tragedy, written from 1648 to 1654 and dedicated to the Emperor Ferdinand III, was first performed at the municipal theatre of Amsterdam on 2 February 1654, in a heavenly setting in which, under the direction of Jan Vos, the angels flew suspended from ropes. After the second performance, on 5 February, the city authorities banned it at the request of the Calvinist pastors, who considered it sacrilegious to bring heaven onto the stage. The text, published the same year by Abraham de Wees, was reprinted all the more for it, and the author wrote another play so that the set could be used again.
Who it is for
A tragedy in five acts and in verse, in which only angels appear. There is an old French translation and several English translations, including that of Noel Clark.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the author's most famous play and often compared to Milton's Paradise Lost; sixteenth in 2002 and thirty-sixth in 2022 in the canonical surveys.