![]() Jodocus introduces himself by declaring that he and his fellow rhinoceroses have come “from far-away countries.” Van Genecten is suggesting that European Jews are not true Europeans, but exotic foreigners.Įventually, the animals begin breeding with one another. The rhinoceros is also not native to Europe. The Dutch word for “rhinoceros” is “neushoorn,” meaning, “nose-horn” (van Genecten is referring to the anti-Semitic stereotype which portrays Jewish people as having large noses). ![]() ![]() However, while they debate this question, they are interrupted by the arrival of “a most peculiar animal,” Jodocus, the rhinoceros. Many do not believe he is a legitimate successor to Nobel. The animals are divided about Baldwin’s succession. Baldwin is a character in the original Reynard Cycle, but his name is probably also a jab at the Belgian Crown Prince, also named Baldwin. Instead, the donkey, Baldwin, succeeds Nobel. The legitimate heir is Lionel (the lion), but he is young, and he is unable to muster the support to take the throne. King Nobel has just died, and a bitter power struggle ensues. While in the original Reynard Cycle, Reynard is a cunning trickster who habitually deceives the other animals, in van Genecten’s Reynard, the fox is a hero who saves the kingdom by massacring the rhinoceroses. Van Genechten introduces to the tales a rhinoceros called Jodocus (the Dutch word for “Jew” is ‘Jood”), who corrupts the kingdom and exploits the other animals for financial gain. The principal characters of the Reynard Cycle are all animals: Reynard, the protagonist, is a fox. His book, which started life as a series of articles, retells the Reynard Cycle, a collection of medieval folk tales from England, Holland, Germany, and France. Recommended primarily to those interested in children's Reynard retellings (if there are any, save myself).Of Reynard the Fox is a 1941 work of anti-Semitic propaganda by the Dutch Nazi-sympathizer Robert van Genechten. Whether it is desirable or not to create the ending that the readers want, is up for debate, but the book certainly marks a new chapter in Reynard retellings, one in keeping with new developments in educational theory in the early 20th century. This is a very interesting book, from a pedagogical perspective, as it marks the first time that educators, as well as other adults involved with children's reading, thought beyond the moral messages they were seeking to inculcate with the Reynard story, and considered the views of the child reader on the subject. A primary school teacher, she gave her third grade pupils the task of writing the ending of the duel between the fox and wolf, and found that "the class, with one exception, punished the recreant Fox severely, - even cruelly, - and the majority with death." The ending here, in which the wolf is also allowed to shave and oil himself, taking away Renard's advantage in their duel, was written by an unnamed eight-year-old girl, a pupil of Ms. Told by the Pictures of Aldert Van Everdingen and David Vedder's The Story of Reynard the Fox: A New Version for earlier examples - she is the first to tie this to child development, and the child reader's own desires and instincts. Although Smythe is not the first author to amend the ending of the tale - see Felix Summerly's The Pleasant History of Reynard the Fox. Whatever the case may be, although I didn't enjoy the book personally, it was certainly of interest to me in my research for my masters dissertation, written on three centuries of children's retellings of Reynard in the Anglophone world. Perhaps it is that interest, and my knowledge of so many other editions, that was the problem. There have definitely been early readers I have found well written, but this one simply didn't appeal to me, despite my interest in the subject. Louise Smythe's Reynard the Fox quite wanting, from a textual stand point, which is not that surprising, given the intended use of the book. The ending has been changed, so that Reynard's wolf adversary defeats him in their final combat, leading to his death. The book covers all of the major incidents of the traditional tale, but in an extremely paired down manner, utilizing no more than 400 different words, many of them common in the primers of the day. Frederic Burk of the San Francisco State Normal School (a teaching college) explains in his introductory note, the book is intended to have three features helpful to the beginning reader: repetition of words, action of intrinsic interest, and a continuous story. The story of Reynard the Fox is retold for beginning readers in this American publication from 1903.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |