Chapter 7

Woest of wild

In the Victorian Era interest in regional culture and dialect and their representation in literature increased. In Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, cultural identity is explored extensively through the representation of dialect and the manner in which the situatedness of the novel in Yorkshire largely determines the identity of the characters. This article compares six Dutch translations of Emily Brontë’s novel, examining the manner in which the translators have preserved the specific Yorkshire elements in the target text. We look for patterns of similarity and difference in translation tactics between the early and late twentieth century in the Netherlands. The analysis is focused specifically on the topics of topology and dialect as representations of cultural identity in order to examine decisive elements in the attempt to translate culture.