ABSTRACT
The Dutch writer Willem Godschalk van Focquenbroch was born in Amsterdam in 1640 and probably died in 1670, on the West African Gold Coast where he had become treasurer of a settlement run by the Dutch East Indies Company after a somewhat less than successful career as a medical doctor in Amsterdam. He was a fairly prolifi c poet and playwright, as well as being the author who introduced the burlesque into Dutch literature, following the example of the French poet Scarron.
