Danish Literature as World Literature

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 Mller-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

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.

Introduction: Danish Literature as World Literature Dan Ringgaard and Mads Rosendahl Thomsen (Aarhus University, Denmark) 1. History of the Danes: Saxo the Grammarian and Saxo the Rune Master Pernille Hermann (Aarhus University, Denmark) 2. Travelling Ballads: The Dissemination of Danish Medieval Ballads in Germany and Britain, 1760s to 1830s Lis Mller (Aarhus University, Denmark) 3. Ludvig Holberg: A Man of Transition in the 18th Century Svend Erik Larsen (Aarhus University, Denmark) 4. A Man of the World: Hans Christian Andersen Karin Sanders (University of California, Berkeley, USA) 5. Straight into the Bliss of Knowing: Sren Kierkegaard's Influence on Franz Kafka Isak Winkel Holm (University of Copenhagen, Denmark) 6. Modern Denmark: Brandes - Jacobsen - Bang Annegret Heitmann (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany) 7. Towards a New World: Johannes V. Jensen and Henrik Pontoppidan Jon Helt Haarder (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark) 8. Out of Africa, into World Literature Lasse Horne Kjldgaard (Roskilde University, Denmark) 9. Breaking New Ground Danish Poets in the Intersection Between Modernism and Postmodernism Anne-Marie Mai (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark) 10. 'A Faithful, Attentive, Tireless Following': Cultural Mobility, Crime Fiction, and Television Drama C. Claire Thomson and Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen (University College London, UK) Bibliography Index