Joost van den Vondel (1587 – 1679) was a Dutch author, poet and playwright. He is considered the most prominent Dutch poet and playwright of the 17th century. His plays are still frequently performed; his play Gijsbrecht van Aemstel (1637), for example, was performed annually on New Year's Day from 1637 to 1968, and remains one of the Netherlands most famed plays.
Vondel remained productive until a very old age. Several of his most notable plays like Lucifer (1654) - which was allegedly a source of inspiration for Milton's 'Paradise Lost' - and Adam in Exile (1664) were written when he was already over 65 years old, and his final play Noah, written at the age of eighty, is considered one of his finest.