Abstract
The Brabantian poet Jan van der Noot (1539-95?) wrote in both Dutch and French, and composed several works in both languages. Sometimes the two versions were published separately: the Dutch collection Het Theatre and its French counterpart, Le Theatre, were each printed in London in 1568. More often, the versions appeared alongside each other in bilingual editions: Cort begryp der XII boeken Olympiados / Abregé des douze livres Olympiades (1579), Lofsang van Braband / Hymne de Braband (1580), and various short pieces reproduced in anthologies of Van der Noot’s poetry (1580-95). The present study contends that Van der Noot’s self-translations should be read as translations from Dutch to French, rather than from French to Dutch as scholars have commonly assumed. It examines Van der Noot’s self-translational strategies, focusing in particular on his handling of form and versification, and the role played by paratext and illustrations. In doing so, it offers an alternative perspective on a figure whose translational activity is generally considered to have operated in the opposite direction, introducing innovations into Dutch poetry by imitating the work of Ronsard and the Pléiade.
Highlights
The Brabantian poet Jan van der Noot (1539-95?) wrote in both Dutch and French.1 In itself, this practice was not unusual for early modern poets from the Low Countries (Van de Haar 2019: 69-72)
On that basis I examine his translational strategies in various compositions, focusing on his handling of form and versification, and on the role played by paratext and illustrations
Though the German poem was published before the Cort begryp/Abregé, Van der Noot appears to have based it on the French text, at least for the portions that coincide across the different versions (Zaalberg 1954: 74-101, 239-46)
Summary
The Brabantian poet Jan van der Noot (1539-95?) wrote in both Dutch and French. In itself, this practice was not unusual for early modern poets from the Low Countries (Van de Haar 2019: 69-72). Van der Noot is generally considered to have channelled elements of French literary culture into the Low Countries, introducing innovations into Dutch poetry by imitating the work of Ronsard and the Pléiade (Brachin 1959; Keizer-Richardson 2012: 12-13). For this reason, he is often thought to have composed the French versions of his bilingual pieces first, before translating them into Dutch. On that basis I examine his translational strategies in various compositions, focusing on his handling of form and versification, and on the role played by paratext and illustrations
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