Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde

Frans-Willem Korsten

Twee nieuwe Vondels, of te oude?
Overwegingen aangaande Vondel en diens taal naar aanleiding van twee uitgaven in de Delta-reeks

Abstract -- The gap between modern and seventeenth-century Dutch and, say, modern and seventeenth-century English is probably equally wide. Yet, Holland has not known something that resembles the way in which, for instance, Shakespeare has been kept alive, culturally, in the Anglo-Saxon world. The result is an ironic twist. Seventeenth-century Dutch was an every day language that was created at the time, with all the social vitality that comes with such a process, whereas it now sounds as if it is completely stiff, official, and archaic. This is why it does not suffice to reprint the texts of Joost van den Vondel in modernized spelling. The texts need radical translation in order to get closer to the feel and effect they had in the seventeenth century. Analogous to this process of radical translation, Vondel’s texts need new readings that use modern theory in order to see more clearly the potential of these texts.

TNTL 121-4 (december 2005), 349-355