Dutch literature: in-depth study of an author [ LGERM2836 ]

In-depth analysis of an author that has marked Dutch literature. In-depth reading of the secondary literature about the author. Analysis of the author's literary texts.

The aim of the course is to acquire a deeper insight into the works of an author that has marked Dutch literature (e.g.: Hugo Claus, Hella S. Haasse, Guido Gezelle, Hendrik Marsman). The students will find out how these works are situated in a historical, sociological and cultural context and how they are related to other European literatures and artistic fields. This approach is a continuation of the courses on history of literature and civilisation of the bachelor programme, and makes use of previously acquired insights into literary theory. It aims to increase the students' literary knowledge and to develop a critical attitude towards the interpretation of literary texts in their adequate context. This approach also aims to teach the students how to write a critical essay in the studied field.

Continuous assessment. Active participation in the course or seminar (oral presentation, discussions and workshops) is required. Final evaluation based on an oral exam (the students are expected to write an essay based on the course).

This interactive class will make use of a variety of multimedia teaching tools. Ex-cathedra introduction, analytical readings by the students, critical discussions, comparative and textual analysis.

Writers-translators : the case of Hugo Claus.

If the Belgian Dutch-speaking author Hugo Claus (1929-2008) is a key literary figure in literatures in Dutch, his work as a translator has only recently been discovered.

This module will examine using Hugo Claus’s work the case of writers-translators in Dutch-speaking literatures. We will consider how these two authorial positions, differently assumed, create distinct reading contracts and have an influence on the construction of the author’s image. Through close textual analysis, we will attempt to understand whether the translation exercises are, in Claus’s case for example, isolated from the original creative « native » work or not.  The question is: where does the translator’s work end and where does the writer’s creative adaptation begin?   How do these two aesthetic activities that produce meaning and play with language relate to one another? What does translation put at stake in those cases?   And what kind of choices and reading attitudes does it bring?  In order to explore what we could define as a poetics of translation in Claus’s oeuvre, we will consider a corpus of poems translated by Claus from the French (Charles d’Orléans, Baudelaire, as well as the collection of poems, Dichterbij, published in 2009 under the name of Hugo Claus). This class will highlight, via the issue of translation, interactive cultural processes that will be approached within a comparative framework.

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Teaching material: texts, handouts, documents on i-campus.