Danish Literature as World Literature

Description

Despite being a minor language, Danish literature is one of the world's most actively translated, and the Scandinavian country is the home of a number of significant writers. Hans Christian Andersen remains one of the most translated authors in the world, philosopher Soren Kierkegaard inspired modern Existentialism, Karen Blixen chronicled her life in colonial Kenya as well as writing imaginary, cosmopolitan tales, and the writers among the circles of literary critic Georg Brandes in the late 19th century were especially important to the further development of European Modernism. Danish Literature as World Literature introduces key figures from 800 years of Danish literature and their impact on world literature. It includes chapters devoted to post-1945 literature on beat and systemic poetry as well as the Scandinavia noir vogue that includes both crime fiction and cinema and is enjoying worldwide popularity.

Mads Rosendahl Thomsen is Professor with Special Responsibilities in Comparative Literature at Aarhus University, Denmark. He is the author of Mapping World Literature: International Canonization and Transnational Literature (2008), The New Human in Literature: Posthuman Visions of Changes in Body, Mind and Society (2013), and the editor of several volumes, including World Literature: A Reader (2012) and The Posthuman Condition: Ethics, Aesthetics and Politics of Biotechnological Challenges (2012). He is a member of the Academia Europaea and an advisory board member of the Institute for World Literature. Dan Ringgaard is Professor in Scandinavian Literature at Aarhus University, Denmark.

A well-written and excellently researched volume, which grants nuanced insights into canonical Danish literature, making a fascinating read for students and scholars alike. * Modern Language Review * This is an impressive collection of articles on Danish literature of a very high scholarly quality, and a must for everyone interest in Danish literary history, whether they live, teach or study in Denmark or abroad. The authors are all leading experts in the their field, the book is very well written ... It should be on everyone's bookshelves. * Scandinavica * Each of the ten essays in this collection centers on one or more Danish authors or subgenres. The contributors are prominent Danish literary scholars, and the volume can be read as a greatest hits of Danish literary history. Because the volume is part of the 'Literatures as World Literature' series, the primary intent is to examine the ways in which Danish literature reacts to and interacts with the world. Most of the arguments are compelling and clearly written, and there is a welcome underlying discussion about what 'world literature' even means. Noteworthy are discussions of whether Saxo's 13th-century History of the Danes is Danish or world literature, the attraction of Danish ballads outside Denmark, Ludvig Holberg as a 'world citizen' or as a Dane seeking to engage the world, and Hans Christian Andersen's avid traveling and how his articulation of the local and the global within the same work contributed to his unparalleled global success. The essay on Karen Blixen reverses a bit by exploring why as a prominent global author she is also uncontested in the Danish canon. A welcome addition to the literature on Scandinavianism. Summing Up: Recommended. * CHOICE * The volume serves as a brilliant introduction to a number of Danish writers and literary works also highlighting lesser known writers such as Ludvig Holberg, Steen Steensen Blicher and Johannes V. Jensen and placing them in the context of World Literature. The quality of the meticulously researched and well-written contributions is first-class and makes the volume indispensable for students and scholars alike. * Sven Hakon Rossel, Professor of Scandinavian Literature, University of Vienna, Austria * In one of his studies the famous Danish literary critic Georg Brandes talks about a peculiar optical instrument to illustrate the strategy of comparative literary studies. He compares the effects of these studies with the impacts of a telescope where one end magnifies and the other reduces. Due to Brandes the comparative approach has a similar dual nature as such a telescope: On the one hand it brings us closer to what is foreign to us, on the other it distances us from what is familiar to us. The volume Danish Literature as World Literature fulfills this approach in brilliant manner. Well-known experts in the field present the history of Danish Literature for foreign readers. But in relating this literary history to its global context they also deliver an unfamiliar, surprising and fresh look on Hamlet, Andersen, Kierkegaard, Brandes and other representatives of the Danish World Literature. * Klaus Muller-Wille, Professor of Nordic Philology, University of Zurich, Switzerland * Danish Literature as World Literature offers essentially the best of two worlds: the cream of the crop in Danish literary history, and a highly informed and challenging discussion - by an outstanding group of scholars - of how this literature, through the centuries, has engaged with the world at large. It is a welcome contribution to the debate on how literature in general always has negotiated between local traditions and literary cultures and their global trends and developments. This book is a wonderfully rich depository of stories - ranging from medieval times to today - about texts, ideas and authors travelling in space and time. Sometimes these narratives transmute and disseminate in completely different forms and media - like the recent wave of "nordic noir" - showing that Danish literary and cultural products have become truly global commodities that never deny their origin. * Henk A. van der Liet, Chair of Scandinavian Studies, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands * By reframing Danish literature in terms of its reciprocal movement between the local and the global, the excellent essays in this collection make a significant contribution to the field of post-national literary historiography. The fact that the authors and texts chosen as analytic test cases primarily for their interstitial, mediating qualities are in many cases also familiar canonical Danish examples simply underscores the inherent transnational flux and mobility of "national" literary activity. A striking impression of Danish literature's mixture of local receptiveness and global impact, of significant literary activity at home and abroad, emerges collectively from these essays in all its historical variation. * Mark B. Sandberg, Professor of Film & Media and Scandinavian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, USA * [T]he individual chapters succeed admirably at amplifying influential, articulate Danish voices in a centuries-long global conversation about life, literature, and the pursuit of meaning. * Recherche Litteraire *