Willems, Jan Frans.

Born Mar. 11, 1793, in Boechout; died June 24, 1846, in Ghent. Belgian poet and philologist. Wrote in the Flemish language.

Willems was the founder and editor of the journal Belgisch Museum, vols. 1-10, 1837-46. He was the ideologist of the movement to preserve the Flemish national culture (the patriotic poem “To the Belgians,” 1818). The influence of folk poetry is evident in his verse. The heroic past of the Belgian people is extolled in the romantic narrative poem Marie of Brabant (1828). Willems prepared the satirical folk epic Reynard the Fox for publication in 1836.