Dutch Literature, poetry - Frederik Marriatt " The Fantom Ship"

"Indeed, Amine! who could have expected such courage and such coolness in one so young and beautiful?" exclaimed Philip, with surprise.

"'Unhappy woman!' you say?" replied she, "say rather, 'unhappy priest:' for Amine's sufferings will soon be over, while you must still endure the torments of the damned. Unhappy was the day when my husband rescued you from death. Still more unhappy the compassion which prompted him to offer you an asylum and a refuge. Unhappy the knowledge of you from thefirst day to the last. I leave you with your conscience - if conscience you retain - nor would I change this cruel death for the pangs which you in your future life will suffer. Leave me -- I die in the faith of my forefathers, and scorn a creed that warrants such a scene as this."

I decided to learn as much as possible about this city and the country, nothing is more important then literature, even the historical facts do not describe the inner core or its soul that perfectly. 

Lets start - the book that will always be a compulsory position to read in every HSchool is " The Fantom Ship" written surprisingly by non-Dutch writer known as Frederick Marryat.

He was an English Royal Navy officer, novelist, and a contemporary and acquaintance of Charles Dickens, noted today as an early pioneer of the sea story. He is now known particularly for the semi-autobiographical novel Mr Midshipman Easy and his children's novel The Children of the New Forest, and for a widely used system of maritime flag signalling, known as Marryat's Code. As lieutenant, Marryat served in the sloop HMS Espiegle and in HMS Newcastle, and was promoted to commander on 13 June 1815, just in time for peace to break out. He then pursued scientific studies, invented a lifeboat (thus earning both a gold medal from the Royal Humane Society and the nickname 'Lifeboat'). Based on his experience in the Napoleonic Wars escorting merchant ships in convoys, he developed a practical and widely used system of maritime flag signalling known as Marryat's Code.During his scientific studies he described in 1818 a new gastropod genus Cyclostrema with the type species Cyclostrema cancellatum. In 1819 he married Catherine Shairp, with whom he had four sons (of whom only the youngest, Frank, outlived him) and seven daughters (including Florence, a prolific novelist and his biographer;Emilia, a writer of moralist adventure novels in her father's vein; and Augusta, also a writer of adventure fiction). Around this time Marryat collaborated with George Cruikshank the caricaturist to produce The New Union Club, an extravagant satire against abolitionism. From 1832 to 1835 Marryat edited The Metropolitan Magazine.^[3] He kept producing novels, with his biggest success, Mr Midshipman Easy, coming in 1836. He lived in Brussels for a year, travelled in Canada and the United States, then moved to London in 1839, where he was in the literary circle of Charles Dickens and others. He was in North America in 1837 when the Rebellion of that year in Lower Canada broke out, and served with the British forces in suppressing it.He was named a Fellow of the Royal Society in recognition of his invention and other achievements. In 1843 he moved to a small farm at Manor Cottage in Norfolk, where he died in 1848. His daughter Florence Marryat later became well known as a writer and actress. His son Francis Samuel Marryat completed his late novel The Little Savage. Marryat's novels are characteristic of their time, with the concerns of family connections and social status often overshadowing the naval action, but they are interesting as fictional renditions of the author's 25 years of real-life experience at sea. These novels, much admired by men like Mark Twain, Joseph Conrad and Ernest Hemingway, were among the first sea novels. They were models for later works by C. S. Forester and Patrick O'Brian that were also set in the time of Nelson and told the stories of young men rising through the ranks through successes as naval officers. Along with his novels, Marryat was also known for his short writings on nautical subjects. These short stories, plays, pieces of travel journalism and essays appeared in The Metropolitan Magazine too, and were later published in book form as Olla Podrida. Marryat's 1839 Gothic novel The Phantom Ship contained The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains, which includes the first female werewolf in a short story.Controversy existed amongst the readers of Marryat's work; as some criticized that he wrote with carelessness. However, others admired the way he wrote about his real life experiences at sea with vivacity. His later novels were generally for the children's market, including his most famous novel for contemporary readers, The Children of the New Forest, which was published in 1847 and set in the countryside surrounding the village of Sway, Hampshire. (Wikipedia.org)

Diabolique ship 

The Phantom Ship is far more a tragedy (in the classical sense) and a morality tale than a horror novel. Compared to Marryat's other nautical works, where a great deal of good humour is apparent, The Phantom Ship shows graphically the toll of greed, religious/cultural intolerance, human brutality, in short of man's inhumanity to man. Unlike many of his other novels, The Phantom Ship does not have a happy ending. The scenes of courtship between the hero, Philip Vanderdecken, and his soon-to-be wife Amine need to be taken in their historical context.

The Phantom Ship tells of Philip Vanderdecken's promise to his mother, on her deathbed, to bring a piece of the "True Cross" to his father, captain of the Phantom Ship who is doomed to sail and torment sailors until the Judgment Day, after murdering his ship's pilot. He meets the lovely Amine, a girl of Middle Eastern origin and they are married. Philip's attempts to reach his father are unsuccessful and he is continually finding himself in the presence of the seemingly unkillable Schriften, an emaciated one-eyed gargoyle of a sailor. When Amine becomes a victim to the Inquisition, Philip breaks down, and it is only many years later that he finally meets his father and the role of Schriften is finally revealed.

What most impressed me in The Phantom Ship, particularly given the date it was written, was Marryat's strong message for religious tolerance. Given that Simon Ockley's 1708 work The History of the Saracens, a work which viciously denigrated the Moslem faith and its practitioners, would have remained the authoritative work on Islam in Marryat's time, it is pretty clear that Marryat's opinion of Moslems was one based on personal interaction and not religious or "historical" conventions. The religious persecution of his Huguenot ancestors by Roman Catholics may have contributed to his portrayal of Roman Catholics as intransigent sadists, and in particular the Inquisition as far worse than anything a follower of Islam or any ancient traditional "magic" could be. Amine's final indictment of the priest whose evidence sent her to the stake.

All this is not to say that The Phantom Ship isn't action-packed, but it certainly is not a mere piece of escapist literature. It is also not a happy novel, indeed there is a feeling of ultimate doom which hovers throughout the novel, and when the hero does discover the key to his father's redemption, he doesn't get to enjoy the fruits of a lifetime of toils, tribulations and heartbreak. If it hadn't been written 100 years before Cornell Woolrich's "Black" novels it might even have been termed a "noir" novel. Given the intercultural and inter-faith hatred of the current days it is good to think that there were men, even some 160 years ago, with sufficient life experience and independent thought to see through the religious/cultural prejudices of their time and be open to diversity. 

(http://www.sfsite.com )