‘From now on we speak civilized Dutch’: the authors of Flanders, the language of the Netherlands, and the readers of A. Manteau

Abstract

Subjugated to the linguistic and literary norms of the Netherlands and, at the same time, confined to the borders of the multilingual state of Belgium, Flemish authors have always had to struggle hard to legitimize their cultural identity. After the Second World War, however, Flemish literature suffered from an existential crisis due to the fact that a small but prominent part of the Flemish Movement had collaborated with the German occupiers. Publishers therefore had to explore new ways in which to turn Flemish literature into a commercially and artistically successful commodity in Flanders and the Netherlands. Introducing a theoretical framework that was conceived of by Pierre Bourdieu and further elaborated on by Pascale Casanova in The World Republic of Letters, this article will discuss and interpret the ways in which Flemish publishers have edited, designed, and marketed literary texts, and explore the positive and negative effects which strategies of assimilation and differentiation have had on the reception of those texts. The reading practices engaged in by literary gatekeepers, both in Belgium and in the Netherlands, are shown to have been a profoundly influential force in the history of Flemish literature.

Reader response research in stylistics

“…NSR emphasises reading as a social practice, carried out discursively in particular interactional contexts, including: reading groups (Benwell, 2009; Peplow, 2011, 2016; Peplow et al, 2016; Proctor and Benwell, 2015; Swann and Allington, 2009); social media platforms (Peplow et al, 2016; Rehberg Sedo, 2011); classrooms (e.g. Barajas, 2015; Barajas and Aronsson, 2009); mass reading events (Fuller and Rehberg Sedo, 2013) and historically through diaries, letters and publication records (Absillis, 2009; Halsey, 2009; Jardine and Grafton, 1990). NSR typically takes an ethnographic approach to data collection and employs qualitative methods of data analysis.…”

Literatuurwetenschap en uitgeverijonderzoek

“…Absillis 2009a: 92-93) is er weinig aandacht voor de beoordeling van nieuwe manuscripten. Susanne Janssen signaleerde deze lacune al meer dan tien jaar geleden (2000: 78), maar op enkele aanzetten na is er niet echt veel gebeurd Absillis 2009b). Ik vermoed dat dit twee oorzaken heeft.…”

The year’s work in stylistics 2009

“…Swann and Allington's (2009b) article is preceded by Katie Halsey's absorbing and contextualising discussion of the history of reading in the period 1800 -1945, in which she demonstrates how empirical evidence of reading practice suggests that real readers are entirely unlike implied or ideal readers. Kevin Absillis's (2009) article focuses on how Flemish publishers have edited and marketed literary texts, and the effect that this has had on their reception, while Katarina Eriksson Barajas and Karin Aronsson ( 2009) discuss children's reading practices, noting that their findings suggest that speed of reading does not necessarily equate with a passion for it. Like Allington (2009b), Bethan Benwell (2009) also analyses reading group discourse, focusing particularly on the shared norms of such groups, and how their inherent social order is constructed linguistically.…”