Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft

Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft (1581–1647) was born in Amsterdam, the son of a leading burgomaster. As a young man he travelled in France and Italy, where Italian poetry shaped his ear, and on his return he joined the Amsterdam chamber of rhetoric De Eglantier. He is remembered as one of the poets who gave Dutch verse its Renaissance polish.

From 1609 he was bailiff of Muiden and governor of Gooiland, and at Muiden Castle he gathered the circle of poets, scholars and musicians known as the Muiden Circle. Besides love lyrics, songs and sonnets he wrote the pastoral tragicomedy Granida and the tragedies Geraerdt van Velsen and Baeto, as well as the Nederlandsche Historien, a landmark of Dutch prose. These versions come from John Bowring's Batavian Anthology (1824).