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Document Details : Title: O krancke troost! Subtitle: Ter interpretatie van Vondels 'Uitvaert van mijn dochterken' Author(s): STEYAERT, Frans Journal: Spiegel der Letteren Volume: 51 Issue: 4 Date: 2009 Pages: 429-439 DOI: 10.2143/SDL.51.4.2042710 Abstract : In the last verse of Vondel’s ‘Uitvaert van mijn dochterken’ the implied opposite of the homage offered by a playmate – considered by the poet as weak and short – is not the enduring sorrow of the father, as it is usually understood. The poem, which overcomes time, is itself the opposite. Following Horatius’ Exegi monumentum aere perennius, Vondel found comfort in creating a lasting monument for his daughter. This reading is syntactically, semantically and prosodically plausible and results from the analysis of the last strophe. This is a consolatio in which the weakness of the funeral pomp (funerum magnificentia) is opposed to the strength of the poetical remembrance (memoriae decus). A comparable kind of consolatio is to be found in other epicedia by Heinsius and Vondel. That Vondel did not speak expressis verbis is the result of the discretion that the subject imposed on him. |
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