Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Republican Baroque: a Yhunderclap, a City hall and two Executions
- 2 The Dramatic Potential in History: Rome and the Republic – Grevius, Vondel, Knüpfer, and Job
- 3 The Cruel Death of Worlds and Political Incompatibility – the Brothers De Witt
- 4 A Happy Split of Worlds or the Comedic Sublime – Frans Hals
- 5 The Seas or the World as Scene – Focquenbroch and Grotius
- 6 Not a Frame but a lens: the Touch of knowledge – Rumphius, Vossius, Spinoza
- 7 Public Theater, Collective Drama and the new – Van den Enden and Huygens
- 8 Interrupting Time for the Sake of Division: History and the Tableau vivant – Rembrandt (Abraham and Isaac), Quast, Vondel, and Vos
- List of illustrations
- Bibliography
- Index
- Index of names
3 - The Cruel Death of Worlds and Political Incompatibility – the Brothers De Witt
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 February 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Republican Baroque: a Yhunderclap, a City hall and two Executions
- 2 The Dramatic Potential in History: Rome and the Republic – Grevius, Vondel, Knüpfer, and Job
- 3 The Cruel Death of Worlds and Political Incompatibility – the Brothers De Witt
- 4 A Happy Split of Worlds or the Comedic Sublime – Frans Hals
- 5 The Seas or the World as Scene – Focquenbroch and Grotius
- 6 Not a Frame but a lens: the Touch of knowledge – Rumphius, Vossius, Spinoza
- 7 Public Theater, Collective Drama and the new – Van den Enden and Huygens
- 8 Interrupting Time for the Sake of Division: History and the Tableau vivant – Rembrandt (Abraham and Isaac), Quast, Vondel, and Vos
- List of illustrations
- Bibliography
- Index
- Index of names
Summary
Foundations of law: the master/father of a political house
The proverb wants it that when God closes a door, he will open a window. Politically speaking such an alternative window cannot be opened so easily, since the opening up of a new world implies the attempt to close another. I will be dealing with such an attempt in this chapter, an attempt provoked by the opening of another world: a republican one. The Republic had come into being because of the fact that subjects could no longer accept life under the rule of a tyrant. The term ‘tyranny’ had a considerable background in medieval and classical history, but in the years leading up to the Dutch Republic its most direct connotation was King Philip II. With the Plakkaat van Verlatinge, or Act of Abjuration, the States-General of the United Provinces of the Low Countries had proclaimed in 1581:
As it is apparent to all that a prince is constituted by God to be ruler of a people, to defend them from oppression and violence as the shepherd his sheep; and whereas God did not create the people slaves to their prince, to obey his commands, whether right or wrong, but rather the prince for the sake of the subjects (without which he could be no prince), to govern them according to equity, to love and support them as a father his children or a shepherd his flock, and even at the hazard of life to defend and preserve them. And when he does not behave thus, but, on the contrary, oppresses them, seeking opportunities to infringe their ancient customs and privileges, exacting from them slavish compliance, then he is no longer a prince, but a tyrant, and the subjects are to consider him in no other view.
The word ‘tyrant’ (tyran) is explicitly used in the text, indicating a ruler who considers his subjects to be slaves. In contrast and originally, so the Act argues, this is not how God conceived of ‘people’. Yet, although the English translation uses the term ‘people,’ here, the original uses a specifical politico-juridical term: ondersaten, that is to say: subjects. And even though the translator's choice of ‘people’ could be called adequate, it is only so in the most general sense.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- A Dutch Republican BaroqueTheatricality, Dramatization, Moment and Event, pp. 65 - 82Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2017