Letting in The Jungle: An Analysis of the Translation History of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Books and its Implications concerning Opinions on the Child and Society throughout Modern History

Abstract

Though The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling are generally known for their Disney adaptation, time and place have played essential roles in the original works, creating a world that is very unlike the plot and implications of this well-known movie. The source text features elements such as colonialism and a very specific view of the child as a reader. This classic is continuously translated throughout the twentieth and twenty-first century in all sorts of adaptations and editions, and all with different views on the aforementioned colonialism and the child reader. In this thesis, I will investigate the reception and history of The Jungle Books and perform a case study in order to research in what way time has played a significant role in the changes and shifts that can be found in the Dutch target texts regarding these parameters.