'I, Who Used to Serve as Jupiter's Lightning on Earth': Geeraerdt Brandt's De Veinzende Torquatus (1645), Providentially Assigned Stadtholders and the Politics of Rational Deception. (2nd January 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Laureys, Tom
• Is Part Of: Dutch crossing. Volume 45:Number 1(2021)
• Page Start: 21
• Page End: 33
• Publication Date: 2021-01-02
• Subjects: Geeraerdt Brandt -- De veinzende Torquatus -- Dutch stadtholderate -- primogeniture -- Hugo Grotius -- natural law; Netherlands -- Periodicals; 949.2005
• DOI: 10.1080/03096564.2019.1615761
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0309-6564

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This article aims to show that Geeraerdt Brandt's popular revenge tragedy De veinzende Torquatus (1645) engages with the political debates concerning the rightful succession of monarchs based on primogeniture, and – be it in a grotesque, even parodic way – the Calvinistic belief that the Dutch stadtholders were God's providential instruments, assigned to guide His chosen people. Subsequently, I show that the play offers a confrontation between two conflicting conceptions of power. The play's eponymous protagonist holds what I call an intellectual (idealistic) conception of power, in which man's rational faculty, including his capacity for rational deception, is all-decisive. This vision, though, clashes with the more physical (materialistic) conceptualization of power which Torquatus's antagonist Noron upholds.