Internationale Neerlandistiek - Volume 54, Issue 3, 2016

The Lion of Flanders in Czech language: why that late and why trice?

The work of Hendrik Conscience has in Czech language a fairly sizeable reception dating, however, almost completely from the period before World War I. Remarkably, his most important work, De Leeuw van Vlaanderen, has been translated as late as in 1932, 1935 and 1936 into Czech, in three different translations. In the nineteenth century, Conscience has been regarded first as a fighter for Flemish equal rights. In the second half of the century, he was known rather as a popular social Catholic author. As whom Conscience was considered by Czech readers just before World War II? The contribution tries to give an answer.

Hendrik Conscience’s historical novel, The Lion of Flanders survived in the first place as an adaptation for the youth not only in the Dutch language area but also in the whole of Europe. This article examines how Conscience’s masterpiece functioned in different contexts. The article therefore focuses on the youth adaptations in Dutch, German and Hungarian. More specifically, it will give an answer to questions such as how and why this novel was published as a book for young readers and how it was adapted to the specific contexts mentioned above. The main focus of the research is the national theme, which stood central with Conscience. Attention is paid in the analyses both to the paratexts and to the adjustments of the national theme at macro- and microlevels. Finally, the results will be interpreted on the basis of the systemic contexts. The research sheds light on how different motivations can lead to very different approaches to the nationalist message.

This contribution includes an analysis of the only Italian translation of Hendrik Conscience’s De Leeuw van Vlaanderen. This novel was translated in the 1842 ‘Catholic’ version (and not in the original, less ‘pious’ version from 1838) and appeared in Italian only more than a century later, in 1945. The Italian translation was published by Società San Paolo, the Catholic publisher par excellence in Italy, and was included in a series for families and therefore for what should be considered a general readership. The translator was Maria Rita Roberti di Castelvero, who in the 1940’s, 1950’s and 1960’s regularly worked for Società San Paolo, always by translating from French. For this reason, the Italian translation is in this contribution compared not only to the Dutch original but also to Léon Wocquier’s French translation, appeared for the first time in 1862. The analysis of a selection of passages from the book clearly shows that Roberti di Castelvero had no access to the Dutch original or was not able to read it. She therefore translated from French. Most of the time, she followed Wocquier’s translation choices a-critically even though it still remains possible to ‘hear her voice’ in a certain number of passages.

Adaptations confirm the canonical status of a literary text and keep it ‘alive’ by rendering it more accessible for a new generation of readers. These ‘rewritings’ are, however, also influenced by their specific contemporary context.

A text that has stimulated manifold adaptations is De Leeuw van Vlaenderen by Hendrik Conscience (1838), which was not only translated into other languages, made into a movie, adapted for young readers and for theatre, but also – and even several times - turned into a comic strip. Between 1934 and 1994, no less than nine different comic adaptations were published, five of which appeared as album. This wide variety can be explained by different functions and different target audiences of the various comic adaptations.

This article investigates the functions of these comics and the adaptation techniques used to achieve these goals. The function will be identified on the basis of various techniques involving the reader into the story. Besides the Flemish nationality of the heroes, the focus is on visual focalization and on references to the contemporary reality of the reader, with the historical and sociocultural context being considered as well.