A (Dutch) Tale of the Sea: The Good Hope by Herman Heijermans

That a national play, explicitly or implicitly, can be critical of both national thought and identity too is illustrated Herman Heijermans’s The Good Hope (1900). The Good Hope displays the poor living conditions of and the dependency of the common people in a pittoresque fishing village. The play focuses on the people and folk culture and has an extensive performance history which is meticulously analysed. It becomes clear that against the background of all the recent discussion about Dutch identity the play is inextricably bound up with the history of Dutch culture, and with the history of Dutch painting and the Dutch landscape as well.