Jeremias de Dekker or ''Decker'' (1610 – November 1666) was a Dutch
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...
.
Biography
Dekker was born in
Dordrecht
Dordrecht (), historically known in English as Dordt (still colloquially used in Dutch, ) or Dort, is a city and municipality in the Western Netherlands, located in the province of South Holland. It is the province's fifth-largest city after R ...
. His father was a native of
Antwerp, who, having embraced the reformed religion, had been compelled to take refuge in the
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
. Entering his father's business at an early age, Jeremias found leisure to cultivate his taste for literature and especially for poetry, and to acquire without assistance a competent knowledge of English, French, Latin and Italian.
His first poem was a paraphrase of the ''Lamentations of Jeremiah'' (''Klaagliedern van Jeremias''), which was followed by translations and imitations of
Horace,
Juvenal
Decimus Junius Juvenalis (), known in English as Juvenal ( ), was a Roman poet active in the late first and early second century CE. He is the author of the collection of satirical poems known as the '' Satires''. The details of Juvenal's life ...
and other
Latin poets
Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings written in the Latin language. The beginning of formal Latin literature dates to 240 BC, when the first stage play in Latin was performed in Rome. Latin literature ...
. The most important of his original poems were a collection of
epigrams (''Puntdichten'') and a
satire
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming ...
in praise of avarice (''Lof der Geldzucht''). The latter is his best-known work. Written in a vein of light and yet effective
irony, it is usually ranked by critics along with
Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' w ...
's ''Praise of Folly''. Dekker died in
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...
in November 1666.
Works
A complete collection of his poems, edited by
Brouerius van Nideck, was published at Amsterdam in 1726 under the title ''Exercices poétiques'' (2 vols. 4to.). Selections from his poems are included in
Siegenbeck's ''Proeven van nederduitsche Dichtkunde'' (1823), and from his epigrams in
Geijsbeek's ''Epigrammatische Anthologie'' (1827).
Notes
References
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dekker, Jeremias De
1610s births
1666 deaths
17th-century Dutch poets
Dutch male poets
People from Dordrecht