14 - Literary Writings

Summary

This Chapter’s objective is to present Grotius’ literary writings as an integral part of his intellectual legacy and to highlight its pertinence to the understanding of his social tenets and moral programme. It addresses this objective from two perspectives, by verifying the heavy moral and political overtones of Grotius’ literary outpourings and by falsifying claims as to the irrelevance, let alone anomaly of the literary input in his legal and political writings. To prove its point, the paper establishes the programmatic overlap of both domains throughout Grotius’ life. It closely links the literary themes from his early years, whether as a playwright or historiographer, to the political bottlenecks of the Dutch Revolt and the socio-religious riddles of the Remonstrant Troubles. It underpins its thesis with reference to Grotius’ later plays on fratricide and exile as reflecting on the pits and peaks of his dramatic personal life. Finally, it identifies the intellectual epitome of Grotius’ literary outpouring in his comprehensive programme to salvage the Greek literary tradition in the social maelstrom of his times, a fitting counterpart to his ambitions to lay down a legal framework of universal appliance and a creed to serve all Christian denominations.