Jacob Simonszoon de Ryk. Treurspel - Merken, Lucretia Wilhelmina van 1721-1789 (Amsterdam Meijer, 1774)
Very succesful play about an episode in the Eighty Years' War (or Dutch War of Independence, 1568–1648), first staged at the Schouwburg of Amsterdam.
The play is set in Gent, in the Castle of the Counts (Gravensteen)
In 1774, the poet Lucretia Wilhelmina van Merken published a sensational play: Jacob Simonszoon de Ryk. This tragedy revolves around the heroic deeds of the sixteenth-century 'Watergeus' (Sea Beggar) De Rijk, a rebel during the Eighty Years' War who fled and issued with a privateer's certificate was entitled to fight as a privateer for the Republic against the Spanish. He ends up in Spanish captivity and becomes the focus of complex diplomatic negotiations. Thanks to his courage and perseverance, he manages to escape together with his four fellow combatants.
Jacob Simonszoon de Ryk was first performed at the reopening of the Amsterdamse Schouwburg in 1774. The crowds were so large that soldiers had to be called in to keep them under control. The heroic episode from the Eighty Years' War was so popular that it was performed many more times. It was a box-office success.
Van Merken was in her day considered one of the best writers in the Netherlands. Contemporaries praised her poetic talent and called her 'the miracle of Europe'. She can rightly be called the female Vondel of the eighteenth century.
Missing: pages 1-2,47-50
Keywords: Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam (Netherlands); 18th Century (1701-1800); Tragedy; Religion; Calvinism; Amsterdam (Netherlands); Gdańsk (Poland)