It wurk fan Gysbert Japix n-2 - Tresoar

Cats, Camphuysen, Vondel and Huygens. Ancient poets such as Virgil, Horace and
especially Ovid supply additional material. More than once Du Bartas/Heijns function
as a source of matter.
The imitations can be distinguished into borrowing (complete and slavish similarity
between model and copy), imitatio (Variation, especially through transformation
of place, time and subject; usually (or always?) on the basis of more than one model)
and aemulatio (improvement of model(s)). To the category of borrowing belong in
most cases the short elements such as Scriprural passages, topoi and Standard motifs.
They often occur within the larger whole of imitations of complete texts or longer
portions fhere of. Their function then seems to be to diversify the matter and to embellish
it. Together with the combination of longer portions of text or of complete
texts they bring about in the imitatio the characteristic dissimulatio or contamination.
Dissimulation in the sense of concealing the model does not seem to have a special
significance in GJ's work. The models remain clearly recognizable and are not at all
obscure. Aemulatio for GJ is a matter of style. I have not found any instances of models,
although, as a matter of course, there are differences as to content.
Character and development of GJ; work (7.2)
Looking for a common denominator with which to sum up the characteristics I
have detected in GJ's work as a whole, I come up with the word 'craftsmanship'.
Throughout his oeuvre there is indeed present ingenious inventio (and also elocutio),
but no personal or other concrete, topical information can be found, not even in the
dialogues and the Friesche Herder, however intense they may be in their Christian inspiration.
After all, by far the larger part of his work consists of translations (of prose
texts), versifications (of psalms) and adaptations (such as after Roemer Visscher in
the love poems). In it one is Struck by the ingenuity with which the liveliness of the
Originals is enlarged by technical means such as visualization, dialogization and alliteration.
The (rare) Bolsward elements in Friesche Tjerne and Sjolle Kreamer, which
scarcely reoccur in his other works, would seem to be an exception if explaining
them as conventional adaptations to local circumstances would not be more likely.
Likewise characteristic of the decidedly literary nature of the work are the allegorizing,
personifying and pastoralizing features in the texts, as well as the literary impulse
which often explains the genesis of a text. GJ himself mentions the honour of
the Frisian language as the motivation for his poetic activities, and perhaps his main
aim was indeed language construction and language expression.
His concern for form might also explain the originality present in the design of his
work. For instance, there are no known models of the dialogues in the second part of
the FR which appear to owe their form to an internal development in GJ's poetic career.
Nor have I been able to find models of the concluding last line, which, as an extra
conclusion, falls outside the rhyme scheme and (possible) stanzaic order. A clear
example of artful design, in which he went further than others, are the ladder patterns
in two dialogue songs.
There is one characteristic, however, which I cannot classify as craftsmanship, at
least not in the meaning of technical skill as it is used here: his humour. It is revealed
in many texts, especially in his love poems, as if love poetry were especially suited for
the poet (and seventeenth Century authors in general?) to demonstrate wit.
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