Danish Literature as World Literature

by Rosendahl Thomsen, Mads; Ringgaard, Dan; Beebee, Thomas Oliver

• ISBN13: 9781501310010
• ISBN10: 1501310011
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2017-02-09
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

Despite being a minor language, Danish literature is one of the world's most actively translated, and the Scandinavian state is the home of a number of significant writers. Hans Christian Andersen remains one of the most translated authors in the world, philosopher Søren 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 in both crime fiction and cinema.

Author Biography

Mads Rosendahl Thomsen is Associate Professor 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 Associate Professor in the Department of Aesthetics and Communication at Aarhus University, Denmark.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Mads Rosendahl Thomsen and Dan Ringgaard, Aarhus University, Denmark

1. The Origins of Hamlet: Saxo Grammaticus
Pernille Hermann, Aarhus University, Denmark

2. Enlightenment Comedy and Fantasy: Ludvig Holberg
Svend Erik Larsen, University College London, UK

2. Hans Christian Andersen
Karin Sanders, University of California, Berkeley, USA

3. Søren Kierkegaard
Isak Winkel-Holm, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

4. Nordic Decadence and Naturalism: Jens Peter Jacobsen, Herman Bang and Georg Brandes
Annegret Heitmann, Ludwig-Maximilian-University Munich, Germany

5. Towards a New World: Johannes V. Jensen and Henrik Pontoppidan
Jon Helt Haarder, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark

6. A Transnational Writer: Karen Blixen
Lasse Horne Kjældgaard, Director of the Danish Society for Language and Literature, Denmark

7. Postmodernists: Dan Turèll, Peter Laugesen, Inger Christensen, and Klaus Høeck
Tania Ørum, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

8. Greenland as the New Authentic
Kirsten Thisted, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

9. Crime Fiction, Television Series, and the Idea of the Cool, Modern Nordic
Claire Thomson, University College London, UK

Bibliography
Index