From the “Root Children” to “Soil Folks”. The Case of Sibylle von Olfers’ Picturebooks Reception in Poland Cover Image

Od „korzeniowych dzieci” do „ziemnych ludków”
From the “Root Children” to “Soil Folks”. The Case of Sibylle von Olfers’ Picturebooks Reception in Poland

Author(s): Marta Woszczak
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Keywords: children’s literature and book from the beginning of twentieth century; art nouveau; picturebook; plagiarism

Summary/Abstract: The case of direct relation between Maria Konopnicka’s Na jagody! and Elsa Beskow’s Puttes äventyr i blåbärsskogen is well known and widely discussed in literature. Unfortunately, none of the researchers did not pay attention to the fact that in the case of picturebooks, separating the text from the images change the sense and reception of the work. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, printers and publishers of children’s literature often modified the foreign texts without giving the name of the author and original title of the book. According to this issue I analysed the relation between Sibylle von Olfers’ Etwas von den Wurzelkindern and Julian Ejsmond’s Baśń o ziemnych ludkach. I focused on the German work. Shorter and simpler text, turned out to be extremely rich and giving great scope for interpretation. In this article I proved that books of Sibylle von Olfers were integrally designed, and that meaning is generated simultaneously from written word, visual images and overall design. Not only words and images, but also cover and endpapers are significant. That is why separating images from words and using them with different text should never have happened.

  • Issue Year: 2015
  • Issue No: 23
  • Page Range: 57-76
  • Page Count: 20
  • Language: Polish