Jan van der Noot


Jonker Jan van der Noot was a Netherlandish writer who is regarded as the first Renaissance poet in Dutch.

Life

Jan van der Noot was born to a noble family in Brecht, in the Duchy of Brabant, about halfway between Antwerp and Breda. In 1558 he moved to Antwerp and at some point became a Calvinist. In 1567, during the early stages of the Dutch Revolt, he was implicated in an attempted coup in Antwerp and fled to England.
His first work was published by John Day in Dutch and French editions in London as Het theatre oft toon-neel and Le theatre. The following year Edmund Spenser's English translation, A theatre wherein be represented as wel the miseries & calamities that follow the voluptuous worldlings, came out with Henry Bynneman. It was a combined work in verse and prose, reflecting on the deceits and shortcomings of the world.
In 1571 he was in Cleves, and in 1572 in Cologne. He eventually returned to Antwerp in 1579. Ironically, he was now a Catholic and the city was coming under the rule of Calvinists. In Antwerp he produced a series of volumes of new verse, all with the title De poeticsche werken. He died in 1595.

Works