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List of notable or famous poets from the Netherlands, with bios and photos, including the top poets born in the Netherlands and even some popular poets who immigrated to the Netherlands. If you're trying to find out the names of famous Dutch poets then this list is the perfect resource for you. These poets are among the most prominent in their field, and information about each well-known poet from the Netherlands is included when available.
This list includes Isabelle de Charrière, Simon Carmiggelt and more people.
This historic poets from the Netherlands list can help answer the questions "Who are some Dutch poets of note?" and "Who are the most famous poets from the Netherlands?" These prominent poets of the Netherlands may or may not be currently alive, but what they all have in common is that they're all respected Dutch poets.
Use this list of renowned Dutch poets to discover some new poets that you aren't familiar with. Don't forget to share this list by clicking one of the social media icons at the top or bottom of the page. {#nodes}
Albert Verwey (May 15, 1865 – March 8, 1937) was a Dutch poet belonging to the "Movement of Eighty". As a translator, staffer, and literary historian he played an important role in the literary life of The Netherlands in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Verwey was born in the center of Amsterdam; all his life he spoke with a strong local accent. Both his father and grandfather were furniture makers. In his youth, he lost both his parents, caused by tuberculosis. Verwey began to write poetry early in life. In 1880 he translated poems by Samuel Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Wordsworth. After finishing high school Verwey worked at a securities office. Because Verwey was very good in English, the 18-years-old Verwey was invited by the Dutch directors of the Maxwell Land Grant to join them as translator to Cimarron, New Mexico. His first book of poems, called Persephone, after the Greek goddess, was published in 1883. In 1885 he was a co-founder of the periodical De Nieuwe Gids (“The New Guide”), which was one of the chief organs of the Dutch literary revival of the 1880s. Verwey contributed sonnets and more poems. Verwey had an intimate friend in Willem Kloos. An affair developed between the two poets, which is unprecedented in Dutch literature. They broke their relation in 1888. In 1889 he did not pass his examinations in Latin. In the same year, his collected poems were published, with translations of work by Christopher Marlowe.
In 1890 Verwey married and moved to Villa Nova in Noordwijk aan Zee. Frederik van Eeden became his brother-in-law. Verwey was involved in the decoration of the Beurs van Berlage, a "synthesis of the arts". For a time he was influenced by Spinozism and Socialism through his wife. Since 1895 he was connected to the esoteric German poet Stefan George, whose work he translated. In some of his poems, Verwey reflected on the horrors of the World War One; Verwey held Germany responsibly and refused to accept George's later ideas about a spiritual aristocracy. In 1922 his translation of Gulliver's Travels was published. From 1924 till 1935 Verwey was a professor at the Rijksuniversiteit Leiden. Verwey translated and promoted medieval poetry in search of passion, vision, and dreams.
Although no Dutch writer has won the Nobel Prize in Literature he is among Dutch writers to have been nominated by multiple people. Verwey was a prolific writer; at the University of Amsterdam his carefully kept correspondence (of 20.000 letters) can be consulted.
Lambertus Roelof (Bert) Schierbeek (18 June 1918, Glanerbrug, Overijssel - 9 June 1996, Amsterdam) was a Dutch writer. He won numerous awards throughout his career, amongst them the 1991 Constantijn Huygens Prize.
During the German occupation, Schierbeek was part of the resistance movement; directly after the war (in 1945), he published his first, still conventional novel that dealt with exactly these experiences (translated, this novel reads as Terror against terror). Then, he wrote the first experimental novel in the Dutch language, which was published in 1951. Its title is Het boek Ik (The Book I) and apparently does not have any narrative structure; it seems to consist of poetic associations of 'loose' words and thoughts. It is the first in a trilogy. The other volumes are De andere namen (The Other Names) and De derde persoon (The Third Person).
Bert Schierbeek was also part of COBRA, an internationalist artistical movement that intended to renew and modernise the postwar visual arts and poetry (with members like Karel Appel, Hugo Claus, Corneille and Lucebert).
His De Tuinen van Zen (The Gardens of Zen, 1959) was one of the first books on Zen Buddhism to be published in Dutch.
His 'composition novels', composed of fragments, culminated in the multilingual and multimodal (including illustrations and experimental typography) Een grote dorst (A Great Thirst, 1968).
Lambertus Jacobus Johannes "Bertus" Aafjes (May 12, 1914 – April 23, 1993) was a Dutch poet whose work is marked by his devout Catholicism.
He wrote a five-book series featuring Japanese samurai Ōoka Tadasuke.Aafjes was born in Amsterdam. He wrote poems on the resistance to the German occupation during World War II.
He was married and the father of 3 daughters and 1 son. He died in Venlo.
Aafjes also scripted the comics Mannetje Bagatel (1946) and Kleine Isar, de Vierde Koning (1962) for Eppo Doeve
, as well as Peter-kersen-eter (1943) and De Vrolijke Vaderlandse Geschiedenis (1948) for Piet Worm.
Charles Edgar du Perron, more commonly known as E. du Perron, was a famous and influential Dutch poet and author of Indo-European descent. Best known for his literary acclaimed masterpiece Land van herkomst (Land of origin) of 1935. Together with Menno ter Braak and Maurice Roelants he founded the short-lived, but influential literary magazine Forum in 1932.
E. du Perron, born in Meester Cornelis, Batavia, Java, Dutch East Indies on 2 November 1899, and died in Bergen, North Holland, the Netherlands on 14 May 1940, descended from French aristocracy. Most probably his bloodline can be traced back to the legendary Jean Roch du Perron (Born in Bulhon, in Auvergne, France in 1756 – Died in Batavia, Dutch East Indies in 1808).
Gerrit Jan Komrij (30 March 1944 – 5 July 2012) was a Dutch poet, novelist, translator, critic, polemic journalist and playwright. He rose to prominence in the early 1970s writing poetry that sharply contrasted with the free-form poetry of his contemporaries. He acquired a reputation for his prose in the late 1970s, writing acerbic essays and columns often critical of writers, television programs, and politicians. As a literary critic and especially as an anthologist he had a formative influence on Dutch literature: his 1979 anthology of Dutch poetry of the 19th and 20th centuries reformed the canon, and was followed by anthologies of Dutch poetry of the 17th and 18th centuries, of Afrikaans poetry, and of children's poetry. Those anthologies and a steady stream of prose and poetry publications solidified his reputation as one of the country's leading writers and critics; he was awarded the highest literary awards including the P. C. Hooft Award (1993), and from 2000 to 2004 he was the Dutch Dichter des Vaderlands (Poet Laureate). Komrij died in 2012 at age 68.
Govert Bidloo or Govard Bidloo (12 March 1649 – 30 March 1713) was a Dutch Golden Age physician, anatomist, poet and playwright. He was the personal physician of William III of Orange-Nassau, Dutch stadholder and King of England, Scotland and Ireland.
Bidloo was also a prolific and popular poet, opera librettist, and playwright. He wrote the libretto for the first-ever Dutch opera, Ceres, Venus en Bacchus (1686) by Johan Schenck. His collected works were published in three volumes after his death.
One of Bidloo's students was his nephew Nicolaas Bidloo, who would go on to become the personal physician of Russian czar Peter the Great, and also founded a medical school in Moscow.
