Vondel's Lucifer

by Joost van den Vondel

It is, moreover, a play full of heart-agitating passion; and it is addressed, in a most extraordinary degree, to the moral nature—the chief function of all tragedy. Here, too, as in the great drama of the universe, the divine law is the first propelling cause of the action.

The clash of interests and the logical destiny of cause and effect carry the tragic subject without apparent effort to its denouement. The causes are everywhere adequate to produce the effects, and no trivial effects are the result of the huge action; no mountain is set in travail to bring forth a mouse. The disposition of the characters also conforms to our sense of justice, and their development is everywhere within the range of probability.

Besides the main theme, ambition, and the chief object, self-aggrandizement, are various incidental themes and objects which naturally arise out of the circumstances and conditions of the play. This is, however, but natural, and only renders the drama more varied and interesting; these little streams of interest being but tributaries to the main stream of the action, contributing to, rather than retarding, its majestic sweep to the Niagara of its catastrophe.

The drama, though concerning the divine beings of another sphere, conforms, except where tradition or religion has invested these with extraordinary qualities and powers, to the physical requirements of this, thus making it more probable and the action more dramatic.

The dramatist is a veritable illusion-weaving magician, leading the spectator through tortuous mazes of expectation into a labyrinth of suspense. The end is reached, and lo! the path which appeared so bewilderingly crooked is straight and direct, without a turn to its starting point. Everywhere, too, the mind of the reader coöperates with the mind of the poet in his logical appeals to the heart.

The action, moreover, has its mainspring in error, and ends in showing the natural consequences of crime, with a picture of the sin atoned though not unpunished.

Nowhere is the human interest of this drama lessened by grand scenic displays. These are truly splendid; but even such sublime properties as the universe affords only heighten the interest by showing that, after all, "the thinking will" we call the soul is the noblest work of God. As played on the stage, the drama must have had exceedingly simple, though perhaps somewhat costly, accessories.

Nothing in the play is more admirable than the uninterrupted contrast of thought and the constant antithesis of character. Nothing, furthermore, can surpass the inimitable art with which the monologue is handled at the critical moments that determine a character, as in Lucifer's soul-revealing soliloquy in the fourth act. Here the action, though still sweeping irresistibly on, seems to be in perfect poise, while the inmost secrets of the heart are laid bare.

In his dialogue, also, Vondel is simple and direct. The conversation is always used to recall, to suggest, or to display some motive that binds, while, at the same time, it urges, the action. In such scenes, of course, talk is action.

If art is, as some assert, a thing of proportions, then surely this drama is entitled to the highest praise; for its proportions are irreprehensible. If, too, as Ruskin says, "Poetry is the suggestion by the imagination of noble grounds for the noble emotions," as a poem, also, it is unsurpassed. There are, indeed, as many definitions of poetry as there are poets. The "Lucifer" is Vondel's definition.