Narration and synthesis: A practical problem for the reading of history of literature. The case of Morciniec

Abstract

Two models of writing a companion to the history of Dutch literature for Non-Dutch readers are discussed here: a ‘narrative synthesis’ vs. a broader ‘study of cultural history’. They both take here into account the Renaissance perspective. The impulse for the article is a book by Norbert Morciniec, Historia literatury niderlandzkiej do końca 19. wieku (History of Dutch literature till the end of the 19th century), published in 2019. This book is compared both with a former book of Dorota & Norbert Morciniec from 1985, Historia literatury niderlandzkiej (History of Dutch Literature) and the large two-volume history of the literature from the Low Countries, Widzę rzeki szerokie… (I see broad rivers…) from 2018, edited by Jerzy Koch & Piotr Oczko. The situation in 1985 and that in 2018/19 are defi nitely varied: not many translations of Dutch literature into Polish at the beginning, and no academic centres… Today it is not so: thanks to the pioneering work of Norbert Morciniec.