Summary samenvatting
Als Pickwick in de Elzas
Dickens, Frijlink en Het Leeskabinet
Bernard Gewin and Charles Dickens
Little Dorrit
Opium and the Victorians
The narrators travel through the Alsace
searching for traces of a Baron van
Heeckeren, descendent of Maurits van
Nassau, a diplomat in St Petersburg in
the 1830s and the forster-father of
Georges Charles d'Anthès who shot
Pushkin in a duel. Had Van Heeckeren
really become a Roman Catholic, as ru
mour had it? An excursion in the noble
Pickwickian tradition, with beautiful wi
nes and foods; like Pickwick (ch.ll) the
narrators find the tomb stone, not Bill
Stumps's. but Van Heeckeren's. And yes,
he had been a Catholic. The current baron
d'Anthès provides the missing clues.
Another Dutch diplomat saved from
eternal oblivion.
Although Potgieter was Dickens's first
Dutch translator, it was Hendrik
Frijlink's literary magazine Het
Leeskabinet (The reading cabinet) that
first acquainted a large Dutch reading pu
blic with Dickens's works. Nicholas
Nickleby was presented to the Dutch re
aders as early as 1838 -9. According to
Streng, this introduction of Dickens was
not such a slow process as B. Luger alle
ges (TDD87).
B. Luger has written a post scriptum to
Streng"s article. Wheras Strengt study
covers the publication of translated frag
ments from Dickens's books in literary
magazines, he has based his (above-men
tioned) allegation on his own study, which
deals with the publication of Dickens in
book form.
Like many others, the Dutch clergyman
Bernard Gewin (1812-1873) was heavily
indebted to Dickens's when he wrote his
Travel Encounters of Joachim van
Polsbroekerwoud and his Friends (1839-
1841), but, like many others, he was but a
poor Dickens imitator.
The two-partite BBC screen adaption of
little dorrit is a waist of energy: part II
does not add anything substantial to the
first part. The two parts could have been
integrated and repetitions substituted for
more details from the novel. The one good
thing about the adaption is that it makes
one want to (re)read litte doritt again.
Hoewel het gebruik van opium, rauw of in
uiteenlopende samenstellingen, in
Victoriaans Engeland vrij alledaags en al
gemeen geaccepteerd was, verwijst
Dickens er maar in drie romans naar -
steeds in een vrij negatieve context. Toch
gebruikte hij de laatste veertien jaar van
zijn leven zelf af en toe laudanum (een
opiumtinctuur). Het artikel beschrijft hoe
zeer tolerantie ten aanzien van opiumge
bruik aan klassen gebonden was, mede
uit angst voor de dreiging die er uitging
van arbeidersbuurten.
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