Jacques Perk

His crown of sonnets Mathilde, published by Willem Kloos, was the first important announcement of a renewal in Dutch poetry brought about by artists that came to be known as the Tachtigers.

Perk's lyrical poems about nature, especially his sonnets, were influenced by Percy Bysshe Shelley, and were of great importance to Dutch poetry.

Disappointed with the intellectual climate of the HBS, he left it in 1877, and by next year his father had found him a position with the Algemeen Handelsblad, an important liberal newspaper, where he translated and edited from French.

Her father had no faith in any relationship his daughter might form with a drop-out who was all too interested in literature, and Marie herself, while honored, was not swayed by the young poet's romanticism, which he expressed in poetry and in a five-act play called Herman en Martha.

He began falling away from the faith of his father, started dressing more extravagantly, and spent nights discussing life with his friends, including later writer and socialist Frank van der Goes.

His friendship with Kloos led him to write a sonnet cycle, Verzen aan een vriend ("Verses to a friend"), written with playful ease.

Though his sister Dora maintained an active correspondence with her, Jacques felt no need to see the real Mathilde again, the more divine portrayal of her in his poetry having taken her place.

When he returned Vosmaer asked him to write for Spectator, including literary criticism; he wrote the masterful poem De schim van P.C.

In the meantime his literary star was on the rise: Joseph Alberdingk Thijm and Vosmaer praised his work, the latter comparing him to Dante Alighieri.