Spain's Dramatic Conquest of the Dutch Republic. Rodenburgh as a Literary Mediator of Spanish Culture

Samenvatting

Theodore Rodenburgh was in an exceptional position to become a literary mediator of Spanish poetics. He introduced the comedia nueva in the Dutch Republic at the beginning of the seventeenth century. This article investigates specifically how Rodenburgh dealt with Lope de Vega’s poetics, transforming them to make them fit the Dutch literary tradition. Through translation, adaptation and acculturation, the Iberian comedias became Dutch tragicomedies, plays that would become most popular in the Dutch Republic. Rodenburgh’s endeavours mark the initial phase of the transfer of the comedia nueva to the Dutch Republic.