Gerbrand Adriaanszoon Bredero

Born Mar. 16, 1585, in Amsterdam; died Aug. 23, 1618, in Amsterdam. Dutch poet and dramatist.

Bredero’s dramas Rodd’rick and Alphonsus (1611) and Griane (1612) were influenced by Spanish chivalric novels with their romantic idealization of the Middle Ages. Bredero later turned to the realistic comedy of manners. Borrowing the subject matter of the comedy The Moor (1615) from Terence, he transferred the place of action to medieval Amsterdam. In the comedy The Spanish Brabantian (1617), on motifs from the Spanish novel Lazarillo of Tormes, Bredero described the manners and morals of 17th-century Dutch burghers. He also wrote lyrical and humorous verses (the collection The Great Book of Songs, 1622).