It wurk fan Gysbert Japix n-2 - Tresoar

1625. There are no scholarly aspects to GJ's booklist. Although he counted Mennonites
among his literary friends, he himself belonged to the Nadere Reformatie ("Further
Reformation"); this is also testified by his work. His poethood can be fitted into
the artistic culture in Friesland which can be localized in the courtly circles of the
Frisian stadtholder after his victory in the struggle with the old nobility for provincial
sovereignty in 1637. Artistically, the 'courtly culture' is characterized by a wide
variety of forms, such as poetry, painting and music; socially, through the participation
of the highest circles of the middle-class elite, especially also of women; and politically,
through the aim for establishing stadtholdership as a symbol for Frisian
unity. Characteristic, too, seem to be certain pastoral aspects. The link between the
frisian identity and the stadtholder was possible, because Friesland had its own
stadtholder, and it was tightened by anti-stadtholder tendencies in Holland, which
province was experienced as a threat because of its dominant position in the
Republic.
Textual Commentary (5)
Approach (5.1)
The analytic model used for the discussion of the texts consists of six parts.
1. Part 1 regards the sources. I distinguish these sources formally in models and parallels
to the degree of probability that they have indeed been used by the poet as
sources, i.e. as immediate models; with respect to contents in literary texts, Bible and
other sources, wich include, besides non-literary texts, pictures.
Identifying literary texts which have served as models is difficult for three reasons.
First, parallels are not always easy to recognize. This applies especially when they
are short and, as it were, are hidden in extensive elaborations with many new elements.
Knowledge of seventeenth Century adaptation techniques can help us in tracing
them. Secondly, parallels need not be exclusive. Parallels consisting of proverbs,
sententiae, or topoi are as little exclusive as similarities on the basis of a common
source or an intermediary one. Moreover, there is the impossibility of reading and
knowing everything which GJ has read. This appears to have been especially the
classics and seventeenth Century Dutch poets.
I have taken to be models those parallels that seemed to be exclusive to me. Apart
from a few exceptions in which an unusual parallel in structure or pattern of dialogue
gave occasion to decide in favour of dependency, verbal parallels were conditional,
preferably more than once. Ambiguous instances and verbal parallels restricted
to a single phrase have been included as parallels. In the latter case a
classical source could often be identified.
2. By genre I mean a collection of characteristics of form, content and function
which make that a text can be grouped with one or more collections of other texts.
Such collections are usually so loosely connected, that the Classification has a tentative
character. Moreover, it is not certain whether these characteristics are conditioned
by the genre or by the adoption of model texts. In addition to the formal characteristics,
identical stanzaic forms are indicated in the works of others.
3. Dating constitutes the third part. There are but few texts of which the date is an
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