Pilgrimage in Children's Land: A Travel Report of The Pilgrim's Progress in Dutch Children's Literature

Abstract

The Pilgrim’s Progress was written in turbulent times. Its author was an independent minister who was twice imprisoned on the grounds of his non-conformist ideas. In spite of its unschooled writer, it stands in a literary tradition of religious literature, allegories and travel literature. The Pilgrim’s Progress is a natural born globe-trotter. Its international journey started only a few years afters its birth, when it was welcomed in Holland as a four-year-old traveller. Today, it has reached even the most illiterate societies, thanks to missionary institutions. After some centuries of international success, it was introduced to children in the form of adaptations. One of these welcoming systems is Dutch children’s literature. The Pilgrim’s Progress was read by Dutch children since long before the first children’s edition was published, in line with the concept of ‘little adults’. This line was roughly followed until the middle of the twentieth century. The first children’s edition (an unsuccessful edition) appeared relatively late as compared to adaptations of other classics and Dutch adaptations of other classics. Since 1950, a steady stream of children’s editions of The Pilgrim’s Progress has flowed through The Netherlands. All editions mainly aimed at Christian children. The earliest editions were probably read by a wider public. Whereas The Pilgrim’s Progress started out as a highflier in Protestant children’s land that occasionally showed its face in other circles, it has disappeared into the forgotten undercurrent of originally foreign, moralistic Protestant-children’s literature, mainly due to changed views of literary critics. Dutch children’s editions often deviate from the source text on preliminary, macro and micro level, in most cases for educational reasons, to help children understand the story’s meaning and memorize it. Originally Dutch adaptations tend to offer more explanation than the originally English adaptations that have been discussed. Combined with the presence of many film versions in the English world and the absence of these from the Dutch world, this indicates an English tendency towards playing with the outside of the dream, while Dutch adaptations for children tend to offer moralistic nourishment.