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DICKENS' INFLUENCE ON DUTCHE LITERATURE
By Ian F.Finlay, M.A, P.I.L.
The affairs of the Netherland and England have often overlapp
ed during the past three hundred years or so, and Both coun
tries owe much to one another, particularly in the fields of
painting and literature,
Influences in the field of literature have experienced many
outstanding phases, including the possible influence exerted by
Joost van den Vondel's play Lucifer 1654) on Milton's Paradise
Lost (1658-64)5 the founding of De Hollandsche Spectator by
Justus van Effen in 1731, which was modelled on Addison's and
Steele's work» the entry of the middle-class into the Dutch
novel in the works of Betje Wolff and Aagje Deken, who were
greatly influenced by Samuel Richardson and who likewise wrote
their best-known work Sara Burgerhart (1782) in letterform^the
influence of the historical novels of Walter Scott on such
writers as van Lennep, Bosboom-Toussaint and Oltmansj and
finally the influence of Byron and Shelley on the group of
writers who flourished in Holland in the 1880's, e.g., Kloos,
Verwey and van Eeden, and known as "De Tachtigers". The lack
of Dutch influence on our own literature is, unfortunately, in
part due to the fact that so few Dutch works have been trans
lated into English, whereas virtually all the English "classics"
are known in Holland, either in the original or in the form of
translations
In the present article, I intend discussing some of the works
in nineteenth century Dutch literature which owed their birth
directly or indirectly, to the writings of Charles Dickens who,
of all our great novelists, has not only kept his place of
honour and popularity in his own country, but has also become
a favourite in most other countries of the world throug the me
dium of translations and motion pictures (over sixty films have
been made of his novels and stories!)
Dickens' direct influence on Dutch literature was almost en
tirely by way of his two earliest works, the collected Sketches
by Boz which appeared in 1836, and Pickwick Papers which ap-
appeared in monthly parts form 1837 to 1839, having originally
been intended, on a much smaller scale, as the letterpress for