De “Eelsten der Polacken”. Op zoek naar Stanislas Kostka in de Zuid-Nederlandse literatuur van de zeventiende eeuw

This essay provides a first comprehensive overview of the presence of the Polish saint Stanislas Kostka (1550–1568) in the Dutch-language literature from the Southern Netherlands of the 17th century. The frequent stressing of his Polish origins serves to make the venerated Jesuit novice look like a miraculous denial of the patterns of thought of the time about the relationship between the location of countries and the nature of their inhabitants. Although the first biography of the young Jesuit hero in Dutch appeared rather late, many a song about him is included in catholic songbooks in Dutch and French. In the centenary year of the Jesuit order (1640), the Brabant Jesuit Adriaen Poirters (1605–1674) made adaptations of the poems and emblematical subscriptions in Dutch in Imago primi saeculi, including those on Stanislas. The specificity of these adaptations is explained. Poirters’s most important contribution to literary Kostka worship is the long and enthusiastic dedication poem of his Het Heylich Herte (1659). The text is explained and published as an appendix.