Volume 44, Issue 2

It is commonly acknowledged within Karen Blixen scholarship that some of Blixen’s tales are literary responses to other works from world literature. In this paper I will argue that the tale “The Poet” from Seven Gothic Tales (1934) should be included in this line-up of responses as a literary response to Søren Kierkegaard’s Gjentagelsen ( Repetition ) from 1843. Through juxtapositions of quotes and analysis of plot development and character constellations, I will show how Blixen redevelops the plot and reverses the characters from Kierkegaard’s Gjentagelsen . I will pay particular attention to a reoccurring character in Kierkegaard’s production: the elderly bachelor esthete (Constantin Constantius), whom Blixen in “The Poet” exposes as a demonic, yet comical character. I will conclude by pointing out that repetition should be acknowledged as an integral part of Blixen’s poetics, since she consistently repeats archetypal plots and characters from world literature in her works that at the same time are completely new and original, following the dialectics of repetition.

In this article the author considers two Norwegian fictionalizations of the historical figure Henrik Ibsen. Building on theories of biographical fiction and biographical theater, the author examines how contemporary writers Atle Næss and Niels Fredrik Dahl represent Ibsen’s body in the novel Sensommer (1987) and the play Henrik og Emilie (2006) respectively, and explores the implications of how this focus on Ibsen's corporeality affects his reception and canonization. The author finds that both authors employ a discourse of impotence and intimacy, which reinforces the more speculative elements of ostensibly factual biographical writing about Ibsen.

This essay argues that Knut Faldbakkens novel Maude danser (1971) can be classified as a text, in which characteristics of the grotesque and the fantastic overlap. The grotesque is based on disproportion, on techniques of distortion, exaggeration, reversal/degradation and the mixture of incompatible elements creating effects of monstrosity and ambivalence. Unreliable and distorted perception, loss of reality and descent into madness constitute the field, in which the grotesque and the fantastic intersect. The analysis combines such important theoretical approaches to the grotesque by Wolfgang Kayser, Michail Bachtin, Peter Fuß and Philip Thomsen as well as Uwe Durst’s extension of Tzvetan Todorov’s and Thomas Wörtche’s concept of the fantastic based on the principle of hesitation between natural and supernatural explanation of events. Furthermore, related to the issue of the grotesque, the essay aims to show how comic reversal and caricature of such fairytales as “The Sleeping Beauty” and “The Frog Prince” turn Maude danser into a fairytale travesty. The analysis includes psychoanalytical approaches with regard to sexual imagery of flowers, plants and animals and processes of repression.

Germany versus Denmark in the years 1864 and 1940. Nationalistic and military confrontations reflected in Danish literature. Border violations as catalysts for self-reflection in relation to nationality and existence. The purpose of this article is to throw light on nationalistic and military confrontations acting as literary catalysts for self-reflection in relation to Danish nationality and existence. Highlighted in this article are two major discourses of this, both originating in the 19th century. One of these is rooted in an idealistic, universal romanticism, and the other is characterized by an existentialistic discourse of modernity. The analysis demonstrates how the first mentioned, idealistic and national-romantic school of thought builds on the identity-creative elements of history, nature, language and national character. These factors form a common ideological frame of reference for two of the most influential writers during the World War 2 German occupation of Denmark: Valdemar Rørdam and Kaj Munk, who nevertheless ended up on either side of the table; the former advocating the national-socialistic ideology, and the latter as an uncompromising critic and opponent of the occupational power. The existentialistic discourse of modernity – of which the author Herman Bang is one of the most significant representatives during the last part of the 19th century – has shown to be the most vigorous and viable, and even to-day it is forming an artistic and ideological background for a critical, existential and national self-reflection which up to now has left its mark on the rich Danish war literature.

Although Baggesen lived in France for a long time and despite of Claude Fauriel’s French translation of the Parthenais his success as an author remained rather limited in this country. Fauriel translated the Parthenais , a hybrid literary imitation mixing up seriousness and humour which also can be regarded as a critical response to Rousseau and following works of early French Romanticism, as an example for his idea of a cultural European continuity surviving any barbarism. But this kind of literature as well as the international cultural point of view shared by the author and his translator were not appreciated by the large French public, especially not after 1815.

Within a classical context, citations from Antique authors often appear as signs of affinity, but without quotation marks. Danish playwright Ludvig Holberg is a case in point. The Romantic idea of originality puts an end to this kind of mutual borrowing. By thoroughly examining different, but more or less obvious and more or less hidden citations in Jens Baggesen’s sentimental travelogue Labyrinten (The Labyrinth, 1792–93) it is argued, that this late Eighteenth Century book wavers between addressing anonymous readers on a liberal market and even very particular friends, benefactors and patrons. In addition, it is demonstrated how Baggesen’s famous ascent of the Strasbourg Cathedral is a textual montage of extensive but hidden borrowings from a contemporary guidebook.

This article traces the marks Jens Baggesen has left in German literature and its history. It depicts Baggesen’s relations and strong bounds to his contempories around 1800, the feud with the Romantic poet Achim von Arnim and the gradual shift into oblivion in the progress of the 19th century, and at last the enigmatic glimpse that is given in R.M. Rilkes Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge . Moreover it asks for reasons why Baggesen fell through the cracks of literary history, which can be explained through the rising nationalism and the according formation of strict national philologies, to which the bilingual Baggesen emerged as a figure of neither-nor.

The Swedish poet Bengt Lidner (1757‒1793) studied in Göttingen in 1780‒1781. A spatial analysis of the poet’s global biography and his poetical geography points to Enlightenment universalism as well as to the poetical ideals expressed in Göttingen – the Göttinger Hain, Göttinger Musenalmanach, and the teachings of Professor Christian Gottlob Heyne. Even Lidner’s opera libretto Medea displays connections to Göttingen, through Heyne’s focus on Greek tragedy and Lidner’s expressed source of inspiration, Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter. However, Lidner’s transcultural poetry failed in the Swedish context, lacking a proper literary market. In an attempt to create an audience in Stockholm, Lidner turned to female readers in his forewords and other paratexts. In fact, Lidner transformed the Medea character into a representation of his female Swedish reader, the ideal mother and spouse. The spatial analysis, including space both literally and in an imaginary sense, leads to the conclusion that Lidner’s sentimental mode of writing displayed transcultural traits interacting with – and even colliding with – local conditions.

Ulf Timmermann: Føroysk-týsk orðabók (Christer Lindqvist: Greifswald, E-Mail: lindqvis@uni-greifswald.de) Christine Mertzlufft: Nähe und Distanz im Kontrast (Maria Bonner: Sønderborg, E-Mail: mb@sdu.dk) Arne Nedkvitne: Ære, Lov og Religion i Norge gjennom tusen År (Martin Krieger: Kiel, E-Mail: krieger@email.uni-kiel.de) Ralph Nilsson: Pilsnerfilm (Martin Abraham: Kiel, E-Mail: martin@martinabraham.de) Paw Kåre Pedersen: Unge Lau. Historien om filmmanden Lau Lauritzen junior og ASA Film. 1.Del. 1910–1945 – Paw Kåre Pedersen: Direktør Lau Lauritzen. 2. Del af historien om filmmanden Laurituen junior og ASA Film (Martin Abraham: Kiel, E-Mail: martin@martinabraham.de)