Jan Frans Willems

Jan Frans Willems (born March 11, 1793, Boechout, Brabant, Austrian Netherlands [now in Belgium]—died June 24, 1846, Ghent, Belg.) was a Flemish poet, playwright, essayist, known as the "Father of the Flemish Movement," and the most important philologist of the Dutch language of his time. Willems was appointed assistant city archivist of Antwerp in 1815 and registrar in 1821. During these years he wrote plays and poems in the traditional style of the rederijkers (“rhetoricians”;...