Lynne Tatlock examines the transmission, diffusion, and literary
survival of Jane Eyre in the German-speaking territories and the
significance and effects thereof, 1848-1918. Engaging with scholarship
on the romance novel, she presents an historical case study of the
generative power and protean nature of Brontë's new romance narrative in
German translation, adaptation, and imitation as it involved multiple
agents, from writers and playwrights to readers, publishers,
illustrators, reviewers, editors, adaptors, and translators.
Jane Eyre in German Lands traces the ramifications in the paths of
transfer that testify to widespread creative investment in romance as
new ideas of women's freedom and equality topped the horizon and sought
a home, especially in the middle classes. As Tatlock outlines, the
multiple German instantiations of Brontë's novel-four translations,
three abridgments, three adaptations for general readers, nine
adaptations for younger readers, plays, farces, and particularly the
fiction of the popular German writer E. Marlitt and its many
adaptations-evince a struggle over its meaning and promise. Yet
precisely this multiplicity (repetition, redundancy, and proliferation)
combined with the romance narrative's intrinsic appeal in the decades
between the March Revolutions and women's franchise enabled the cultural
diffusion, impact, and long-term survival of Jane Eyre as German
reading.
Though its focus on the circulation of texts across linguistic
boundaries and intertwined literary markets and reading cultures, Jane
Eyre in German Lands unsettles the national paradigm of literary
history and makes a case for a fuller and inclusive account of the
German literary field.
