Internationale Neerlandistiek - Volume 62, Issue 1, 2024

This article proposes a comparative analysis of a corpus of 173 catalogues of private libraries sold during the period 1790 – 1830 in the Netherlands, France, and the British Isles, which have been made searchable in an Open Access database, MEDIATE. The library catalogues demonstrate the existence of an integrated, transnational literary system in which Dutch, French and British readers largely consumed the same works and authors. Alongside Latin, French remained the central language in the European language system, and relations between (semi-)peripheral regions often passed through French as an intermediate language. Works by German- and English-speaking authors, which were mostly read in the Dutch Republic in (French) translation, could thus paradoxically further strengthen the central position of French. The library auction catalogues further confirm the view that Dutch readers were more open toward the outer world, as reflected by their avid consumption of travel literature, than readers elsewhere. At the same time, library auction catalogues add to our understanding of the positioning of the Netherlands in the European literary polysystem. Because library auction catalogues drew on eighteenth-century ideals surrounding both cultural and economic capital, they provide a rich, layered picture of the various, interlocking elements in the European literary system.

Patriotic lyrical poetry in the 18th-century Netherlands flourished under the influence of the work of German examples such as Klosptock, Gleim and Lavater. This contribution discusses that exchange as a ‘dialogue’ between authors from the Dutch and German language areas. The concept is borrowed from the reception theory of Jauß and Gadamer, who consider reception as an ongoing transhistorical dialogue with these texts in confrontation with our own ‘horizon of expectations’. The article will focus on the reception of Prussian and Swiss patriot poetry by Jacobus Bellamy and minor poets Kleijn & Ockerse. The intertextual analysis of this transnational literary exchange shows that the patriotic poets also entered into dialogue with a broader political and military discourse that reveals striking faultlines in the texts. The tension between political freedom and military subjection shows this most clearly. This field of tension also potentially connects the 18th-century theme of ‘patriotic self-sacrifice’ with the contemporary horizon of expectations that is determined more and more by a creeping militarisation of Dutch society.

The publication of Bernhard Kellermann’s Der Tunnel (1913) was the start of the heyday of German speculative fiction. In this period several German speculative fiction novels were also published in Dutch translation. These translations introduced an alternative discourse in the Netherlands. This article describes the ideological development of German speculative fiction with analyses of Bernhard Kellermann’s De Tunnel and Hans Dominik’s Het jaar 2100 (1923) and juxtaposes this with the dominant discourse in Dutch speculative fiction. Subsequently, the article analyses the reception of translated German speculative fiction novels. The reception of Hans Dominik’s representative work and Hanns Gobsch’ diverging Wahn-Europa 1934 (1931) form the basis for this analysis.

The transnational character of nineteenth-century novel and stage production can be illustrated by the reception of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre in the Netherlands and surrounding countries. The novel was translated into Dutch almost immediately after its English publication, but its critical reception went largely through French critics. The fact that the novel remained in the spotlight was initially also mainly due to the success of the stage adaptation by a German author: Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer. Her Die Waise aus Lowood was a great success throughout Europe and in the Netherlands, both in German and in translation. That the Dutch reception of the English novel Jane Eyre went via German and French detours is, above all, a symptom of a shared cultural taste in nineteenth-century Europe. Both the novel and the drama were carriers of the ideology and taste of a Western bourgeois class.

This contribution delves into how the field of Dutch studies can be enriched through the interplay between Translation Studies and Memory Studies. Literature is recognized as a significant medium for cultural memory – the collective cultural practices of a community, shaping and expressing its relationship with the past in the present. Literature is also a tool to facilitate the creation of shared memories across cultures, notably through translation. I examine this premise with regards to Adam Hochschild’s book, King Leopold’s Ghost (1998), and its impact on Flemish colonial memory. The book swiftly attained canonical status upon its release, canonized as the work that awakened Belgians to their own history. It remains an indispensable reference in discussions and publications on colonialism. Hochschild’s mention that colonization was responsible for 10 million fewer Congolese citizens is the most frequently cited in this regard. While the facts Hochschild presents are not novel, his narrative style imbued them with lasting resonance, perhaps amplified by the fact that the author is not Belgian. When the book is mentioned, ‘forgetting’ is often also thematized, the book steers away from oblivion and towards remembrance. Examining the role of translated literature in cultural memory thus allows for a transnational perspective on Dutch-language reading culture. Literature contributes to shaping the cultural memory of a society, and in doing so, it is meaningful not only to focus on ‘native’ literature but also to broaden the horizon to encompass the full array of texts circulating within a society.