TRAVELING COMPANIONS: BICENTENARY LITERARY ADAPTATIONS OF H. C. ANDERSEN TALES

Abstract

Adaptation is broadly defined, encompassing the re-working of virtually any kind of text into virtually any other kind of text. Moreover, it frequently involves the re-mediation of texts into entirely new forms. Even so, seemingly simple text-totext adaptation of texts already frequently subject to adaptation can challenge both traditional and theoretical concepts of adaptation. Such was the case with a major Danish literary project undertaken in 2005. Danish State Railways, Dansk statsbaner (DSB) commissioned a series of adaptations of Hans Christian Andersen tales to be published in the DSB onboard magazine Ud & Se [Out & See] to commemorate the two-hundredth anniversary of H. C. Andersen’s birth. Resulting from the project were twelve original stories by twelve Danish authors: Pia Juul, Jan Sonnergaard, Ib Michael, Iselin Hermann, Preben Major Sørensen, Suzanne Brøgger, Bent Vinn Nielsen, Peter Laugesen, Kristian Ditlev Jensen, Lars Frost, Erling Jepsen, and Naja Marie Aidt. Each author adapted a different Andersen work, ranging from classics including “Den grimme ælling” [The Ugly Duckling], “Den lille havfrue” [The Little Mermaid], and “Kejserens nye klæder” [The Emperor’s New Clothes], to more obscure works such as “Dandse, dandse dukke min!” [Dance, Dance, My Doll!]. Issued in book form as Reisekammeraten og andre H. C. Andersen-historier i nye klæder [The Traveling Companion and Other H. C. Andersen Tales in New Clothes] (Copenhagen, 2005), the collection demonstrates a wide range of approaches to adaptation that seem to stretch the definition of adaptation to its limits.