Jan Frederik Helmers

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Jan Frederik Helmers (March 7, 1767 - February 26, 1813), Dutch poet, was born at Amsterdam.

His early poems, Night (1788) and Socrates (1790), were tame and sentimental, but after 1805 he determined, in company with his brother-in-law, Cornelis Loots (1765-1834), to rouse national feeling by a burst of patriotic poetry.

His Poems (2 vols, 1809-1810), but especially his great work The Dutch Nation, a poem in six cantos (1812), created great enthusiasm and enjoyed immense success.

He owed his success mainly to the integrity of his patriotism and the opportune moment at which he sounded his counter-blast to the French oppression. His posthumous poems were collected in 1815.

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This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.