The present language of Denmark is derived directly from the same source
as that of Sweden, and the parent of both is the old Scandinavian (see
SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES). In Iceland this tongue, with some
modifications, has remained in use, and until about 1100 it was the
literary language of the whole of Scandinavia. The influence of Low
German first, and High German afterwards, has had the effect of drawing
modern Danish constantly farther from this early type. The difference
began to show itself in the 12th century. R. K. Rask, and after him N.
M. Petersen, have distinguished four periods in the development of the
language, The first, which has been called Oldest Danish, dating from
about 1100 and 1250, shows a slightly changed character, mainly
depending on the system of inflections. In the second period, that of
Old Danish, bringing us down to 1400, the change of the system of vowels
begins to be settled, and masculine and feminine are mingled in a common
gender. An indefinite article has been formed, and in the conjugation of
the verb a great simplicity sets in. In the third period, 1400-1530, the
influence of German upon the language is supreme, and culminates in the
Reformation. The fourth period, from 1530 to about 1680, completes the
work of development, and leaves the language as we at present find it.
The earliest work known to have been written in Denmark was a Latin
biography of Knud the Saint, written by an English monk Ælnoth, who was
attached to the church of St Alban in Odense where King Knud was
murdered. Denmark produced several Latin writers of merit. Anders
Sunesen (d. 1228) wrote a long poem in hexameters, _Hexaëmeron_,
describing the creation. Under the auspices of Archbishop Absalon the
monks of Sorö began to compile the annals of Denmark, and at the end of
the 12th century Svend Aagesen, a cleric of Lund, compiled from
Icelandic sources and oral tradition his _Compendiosa historia regum
Daniae_. The great Saxo Grammaticus (q.v.) wrote his _Historia Danica_
under the same patronage.
It was not till the 16th century that literature began to be generally
practised in the vernacular in Denmark. The oldest laws which are still
preserved date from the beginning of the 13th century, and many
different collections are in existence.[2] A single work detains us in
the 13th century, a treatise on medicine[3] by Henrik Harpestreng, who
died in 1244. The first royal edict written in Danish is dated 1386; and
the Act of Union at Kalmar, written in 1397, is the most important piece
of the vernacular of the 14th century. Between 1300 and 1500, however,
it is supposed that the _Kjaempeviser_, or Danish ballads, a large
collection of about 500 epical and lyrical poems, were originally
composed, and these form the most precious legacy of the Denmark of the
middle ages, whether judged historically or poetically. We know nothing
of the authors of these poems, which treat of the heroic adventures of
the great warriors and lovely ladies of the chivalric age in strains of
artless but often exquisite beauty. Some of the subjects are borrowed in
altered form from the old mythology, while a few derive from Christian
legend, and many deal with national history. The language in which we
receive these ballads, however, is as late as the 16th or even the 17th
century, but it is believed that they have become gradually modernized
in the course of oral tradition. The first attempt to collect the
ballads was made in 1591 by Anders Sörensen Vedel (1542-1616), who
published 100 of them. Peder Syv printed 100 more in 1695. In 1812-1814
an elaborate collection in five volumes appeared at Christiania, edited
by W. H. F. Abrahamson, R. Nyerup and K. M. Rahbek. Finally, Svend
Grundtvig produced an exhaustive edition, _Danmarks gamle Folkeviser_
(Copenhagen, 1853-1883, 5 vols.), which was supplemented (1891) by A.
Olrik.
In 1490, the first printing press was set up at Copenhagen, by Gottfried
of Gemen, who had brought it from Westphalia; and five years later the
first Danish book was printed. This was the famous _Rimkrönike_[4]; a
history of Denmark in rhymed Danish verse, attributed by its first
editor to Niels (d. 1481); a monk of the monastery of Sorö. It extends
to the death of Christian I., in 1481, which may be supposed to be
approximately the date of the poem. In 1479 the university of Copenhagen
had been founded. In 1506 the same Gottfried of Gemen published a famous
collection of proverbs, attributed to Peder Laale. Mikkel, priest of St
Alban's Church in Odense, wrote three sacred poems, _The Rose-Garland of
Maiden Mary_, _The Creation_ and _Human Life_, which came out together
in 1514, shortly before his death. The popular _Lucidarius_ also
appeared in the vulgar tongue.
These few productions appeared along with innumerable works in Latin,
and dimly heralded a Danish literature. It was the Reformation that
first awoke the living spirit in the popular tongue. Christiern Pedersen
(q.v.; 1480-1554) was the first man of letters produced in Denmark. He
edited and published, at Paris in 1514, the Latin text of the old
chronicler, Saxo Grammaticus; he worked up in their present form the
beautiful half-mythical stories of _Karl Magnus_ (Charlemagne) and
_Holger Danske_ (Ogier the Dane). He further translated the Psalms of
David and the New Testament, printed in 1529, and finally--in
conjunction with Bishop Peder Palladius--the Bible, which appeared in
1550. Hans Tausen, the bishop of Ribe (1494-1561), continued Pedersen's
work, but with far less literary talent. He may, however, be considered
as the greatest orator and teacher of the Reformation movement. He wrote
a number of popular hymns, partly original, partly translations;
translated the Pentateuch from the Hebrew; and published (1536) a
collection of sermons embodying the reformed doctrine and destined for
the use of clergy and laity.
The Catholic party produced one controversialist of striking ability,
Povel Helgesen[5] (b. c. 1480), also known as Paulus Eliae. He had at
first been inclined to the party of reform, but when Luther broke
definitely with the papal authority he became a bitter opponent. His
most important polemical work is an answer (1528) to twelve questions on
the religious question propounded by Gustavus I. of Sweden. He is also
supposed to be the author of the _Skiby Chronicle_,[6] in which he does
not confine himself to the duties of a mere annalist, but records his
personal opinion of people and events. Vedel, by the edition of the
_Kjaempeviser_ which is mentioned above, gave an immense stimulus to the
progress of literature. He published an excellent translation of Saxo
Grammaticus in 1575. The first edition of a Danish _Reineke Fuchs_, by
Herman Weigere, appeared at Lübeck in 1555, and the first authorized
Psalter in 1559. Arild Huitfeld wrote _Chronicle of the Kingdom of
Denmark_, printed in ten volumes, between 1595 and 1604.
There are few traces of dramatic effort in Denmark before the
Reformation; and many of the plays of that period may be referred to the
class of school comedies. Hans Sthen, a lyrical poet, wrote a morality
entitled _Kortvending_ ("Change of Fortune"), which is really a
collection of monologues to be delivered by students. The anonymous
_Ludus de Sancto Kanuto_[7] (c. 1530) which in spite of its title, is
written in Danish, is the earliest Danish national drama. The burlesque
drama assigned to Christian Hansen, _The Faithless Wife_, is the only
one of its kind that has survived. But the best of these old dramatic
authors was a priest of Viborg, Justesen Ranch (1539-1607), who wrote
_Kong Salomons Hylding_ ("The Crowning of King Solomon") (1585),
_Samsons Faengsel_ ("The Imprisonment of Samson"), which includes
lyrical passages which have given it claims to be considered the first
Danish opera, and a farce, _Karrig Niding_ ("The Miserly Miscreant").
Beside these works Ranch wrote a famous moralizing poem, entitled "A new
song, of the nature and song of certain birds, in which many vices are
punished, and many virtues praised." Peder Clausen[8] (1545-1614), a
Norwegian by birth and education, wrote a _Description of Norway_, as
well as an admirable translation of Snorri Sturlason's _Heimskringla_,
published ten years after Clausen's death. The father of Danish poetry,
Anders Kristensen Arrebo (1587-1637), was bishop of Trondhjem, but was
deprived of his see for immorality. He was a poet of considerable
genius, which is most brilliantly shown in an imitation of Du Bartas's
_Divine Semaine_, the _Hexaëmeron_, a poem on the creation, in six
books, which did not appear till 1661. He also made a translation of the
Psalms.
He was followed by Anders Bording (1619-1677), a cheerful occasional
versifier, and by Thöger Reenberg (1656-1742), a poet of somewhat higher
gifts, who lived on into a later age. Among prose writers should be
mentioned the grammarian Peder Syv,[9] (1631-1702); Bishop Erik
Pontoppidan (1616-1678), whose _Grammatica Danica_, published in 1668,
is the first systematic analysis of the language; Birgitta Thott
(1610-1662), a lady who translated Seneca (1658); and Leonora Christina
Ulfeld, daughter of Christian IV., who has left a touching account of
her long imprisonment in her _Jammersminde_. Ole Worm (1588-1654), a
learned pedagogue and antiquarian, preserved in his _Danicorum
monumentorum libri sex_ (Copenhagen, 1643) the descriptions of many
antiquities which have since perished or been lost.
In two spiritual poets the advancement of the literature of Denmark took
a further step. Thomas Kingo[10] (1634-1703) was the first who wrote
Danish with perfect ease and grace. He was a Scot by descent, and
retained the vital energy of his ancestors as a birthright. In 1677 he
became bishop in Fünen, where he died in 1703. His _Winter Psalter_
(1689), and the so-called _Kingo's Psalter_ (1699), contained brilliant
examples of lyrical writing, and an employment of language at once
original and national. Kingo had a charming fancy, a clear sense of form
and great rapidity and variety of utterance. Some of his very best hymns
are in the little volume he published in 1681, and hence the old period
of semi-articulate Danish may be said to close with this eventful
decade, which also witnessed the birth of Holberg. The other great
hymn-writer was Hans Adolf Brorson (1694-1764), who published in 1740 a
great psalm-book at the king's command, in which he added his own to the
best of Kingo's. Both these men held high posts in the church, one being
bishop of Fünen and the other of Ribe; but Brorson was much inferior to
Kingo in genius. With these names the introductory period of Danish
literature ends. The language was now formed, and was being employed for
almost all the uses of science and philosophy.
Ludvig Holberg (q.v.; 1684-1754) may be called the founder of modern
Danish literature. His various works still retain their freshness and
vital attraction. As an historian his style was terse and brilliant, his
spirit philosophical, and his data singularly accurate. He united two
unusual gifts, being at the same time the most cultured man of his day,
and also in the highest degree a practical person, who clearly perceived
what would most rapidly educate and interest the uncultivated. In his
thirty-three dramas, sparkling comedies in prose, more or less in
imitation of Molière, he has left his most important positive legacy to
literature. Nor in any series of comedies in existence is decency so
rarely sacrificed to a desire for popularity or a false sense of wit.
Holberg founded no school of immediate imitators, but his stimulating
influence was rapid and general. The university of Copenhagen, which had
been destroyed by fire in 1728, was reopened in 1742, and under the
auspices of the historian Hans Gram (1685-1748), who founded the Danish
Royal Academy of Sciences, it inspired an active intellectual life. Gram
laid the foundation of critical history in Denmark. He brought to bear
on the subject a full knowledge of documents and sources. His best work
lies in his annotated editions of the older chroniclers. In 1744 Jakob
Langebek (1710-1775) founded the Society for the Improvement of the
Danish Language, which opened the field of philology. He began the great
collection of _Scriptores rerum Danicarum medii aevi_ (9 vols.,
Copenhagen, 1772-1878). In jurisprudence Andreas Höier (1690-1739)
represented the new impulse, and in zoology Erik Pontoppidan (q.v.), the
younger. This last name represents a lifelong activity in many branches
of literature. From Holberg's college of Sorö, two learned professors,
Jens Schelderup Sneedorff (1724-1764) and Jens Kraft (1720-1765),
disseminated the seeds of a wider culture. All these men were aided by
the generous and enlightened patronage of Frederick V. A little later
on, the German poet Klopstock settled in Copenhagen, bringing with him
the prestige of his great reputation, and he had a strong influence in
Germanizing Denmark. He founded, however, the Society for the Fine Arts,
and had it richly endowed. The first prize offered was won by Christian
Braumann Tullin (1728-1765) for his beautiful poem of _May-day_. Tullin,
a Norwegian by birth, represents the first accession of a study of
external nature in Danish poetry; he was an ardent disciple of the
English poet Thomson. Christian Falster (1690-1752) wrote satires of
some merit, but most of his work is in Latin. The _New Heroic Poems_ of
Jörgen Sorterup are notable as imitations of the old folk-literature.
Ambrosius Stub[11] (1705-1758) was a lyrist of great sweetness, born
before his due time, whose poems, not published till 1771, belong to a
later age than their author.
_The Lyrical Revival._--Between 1742 and 1749, that is to say, at the
very climax of the personal activity of Holberg, several poets were
born, who were destined to enrich the language with its first group of
lyrical blossoms. Of these the two eldest, Wessel and Ewald, were men of
extraordinary genius, and destined to fascinate the attention of
posterity, not only by the brilliance of their productions, but by the
suffering and brevity of their lives. Johannes Ewald (q.v.; 1743-1781)
was not only the greatest Danish lyrist of the 18th century, but he had
few rivals in the whole of Europe. As a dramatist, pure and simple, his
bird-like instinct of song carried him too often into a sphere too
exalted for the stage; but he has written nothing that is not stamped
with the exquisite quality of distinction. Johan Herman Wessel[12]
(1742-1785) excited even greater hopes in his contemporaries, but left
less that is immortal behind him. After the death of Holberg, the
affectation of Gallicism had reappeared in Denmark; and the tragedies of
Voltaire, with their stilted rhetoric, were the most popular dramas of
the day. Johan Nordahl Brun (1745-1816), a young writer who did better
things later on, gave the finishing touch to the exotic absurdity by
bringing out a wretched piece called _Zarina_, which was hailed by the
press as the first original Danish tragedy, although Ewald's exquisite
_Rolf Krage_, which truly merited that title, had appeared two years
before. Wessel, who up to that time had only been known as the president
of a club of wits, immediately wrote _Love without Stockings_ (1772), in
which a plot of the most abject triviality is worked out in strict
accordance with the rules of French tragedy, and in most pompous and
pathetic Alexandrines. The effect of this piece was magical; the Royal
Theatre ejected its cuckoo-brood of French plays, and even the Italian
opera. It was now essential that every performance should be national,
and in the Danish language. To supply the place of the opera, native
musicians, and especially J. P. E. Hartmann, set the dramas of Ewald and
others, and thus the Danish school of music originated. Johan Nordahl
Brun's best work is to be found in his patriotic songs and his hymns. He
became bishop of Bergen in 1803.
Of the other poets of the revival the most important were born in
Norway. Nordahl Brun, Claus Frimann (1746-1829), Claus Fasting
(1746-1791), who edited a brilliant aesthetic journal, _The Critical
Observer_, Christian H. Pram[13] (1756-1821), author of _Staerkodder_, a
romantic epic, based on Scandinavian legend, and Edvard Storm
(1749-1794), were associates and mainly fellow-students at Copenhagen,
where they introduced a style peculiar to themselves, and distinct from
that of the true Danes. Their lyrics celebrated the mountains and rivers
of the magnificent country they had left; and, while introducing images
and scenery unfamiliar to the inhabitants of monotonous Denmark, they
enriched the language with new words and phrases. This group of writers
is now claimed by the Norwegians as the founders of a Norwegian
literature; but their true place is certainly among the Danes, to whom
they primarily appealed. They added nothing to the development of the
drama, except in the person of N. K. Bredal (1733-1778), who became
director of the Royal Danish Theatre, and the writer of some mediocre
plays.
To the same period belong a few prose writers of eminence. Werner
Abrahamson (1744-1812) was the first aesthetic critic Denmark produced.
Johan Clemens Tode (1736-1806) was eminent in many branches of science,
but especially as a medical writer. Ove Mailing (1746-1829) was an
untiring collector of historical data, which he annotated in a lively
style. Two historians of more definite claim on our attention are Peter
Frederik Suhm (1728-1798), whose _History of Denmark_ (11 vols.,
Copenhagen, 1782-1812) contains a mass of original material, and Ove
Guldberg (1731-1808). In theology Christian Bastholm (1740-1819) and
Nicolai Edinger Balle (1744-1816), bishop of Zealand, a Norwegian by
birth, demand a reference. But the only really great prose-writer of the
period was the Norwegian, Niels Treschow (1751-1833), whose
philosophical works are composed in an admirably lucid style, and are
distinguished for their depth and originality.
The poetical revival sank in the next generation to a more mechanical
level. The number of writers of some talent was very great, but genius
was wanting. Two intimate friends, Jonas Rein (1760-1821) and Jens
Zetlitz (1761-1821), attempted, with indifferent success, to continue
the tradition of the Norwegian group. Thomas Thaarup (1749-1821) was a
fluent and eloquent writer of occasional poems, and of homely dramatic
idylls. The early death of Ole Samsöe (1759-1796) prevented the
development of a dramatic talent that gave rare promise. But while
poetry languished, prose, for the first time, began to flourish in
Denmark. Knud Lyne Rahbek (1760-1830) was a pleasing novelist, a
dramatist of some merit, a pathetic elegist, and a witty song-writer; he
was also a man full of the literary instinct, and through a long life he
never ceased to busy himself with editing the works of the older poets,
and spreading among the people a knowledge of Danish literature through
his magazine, _Minerva_, edited in conjunction with C. H. Pram. Peter
Andreas Heiberg (1758-1841) was a political and aesthetic critic of
note. He was exiled from Denmark in company with another sympathizer
with the principles of the French Revolution, Malte Conrad Brunn
(1775-1826), who settled in Paris, and attained a world-wide reputation
as a geographer. O. C. Olufsen (1764-1827) was a writer on geography,
zoology and political economy. Rasmus Nyerup (1759-1829) expended an
immense energy in the compilation of admirable works on the history of
language and literature. From 1778 to his death he exercised a great
power in the statistical and critical departments of letters. The best
historian of this period, however, was Engelstoft (1774-1850), and the
most brilliant theologian Bishop Mynster (1775-1854). In the annals of
modern science Hans Christian Oersted (1777-1851) is a name universally
honoured. He explained his inventions and described his discoveries in
language so lucid and so characteristic that he claims an honoured place
in the literature of the country of whose culture, in other branches, he
is one of the most distinguished ornaments.
On the threshold of the romantic movement occurs the name of Jens
Baggesen (q.v.; 1764-1826), a man of great genius, whose work was
entirely independent of the influences around him. Jens Baggesen is the
greatest comic poet that Denmark has produced; and as a satirist and
witty lyrist he has no rival among the Danes. In his hands the
difficulties of the language disappear; he performs with the utmost ease
extraordinary _tours de force_ of style. His astonishing talents were
wasted on trifling themes and in a fruitless resistance to the modern
spirit in literature.
_Romanticism._--With the beginning of the 19th century the new light in
philosophy and poetry, which radiated from Germany through all parts of
Europe, found its way into Denmark also. In scarcely any country was the
result so rapid or so brilliant. There arose in Denmark a school of
poets who created for themselves a reputation in all parts of Europe,
and would have done honour to any nation or any age. The splendid
cultivation of metrical art threw other branches into the shade; and the
epoch of which we are about to speak is eminent above all for mastery
over verse. The swallow who heralded the summer was a German by birth,
Adolph Wilhelm Schack von Staffeldt[14] (1769-1826), who came over to
Copenhagen from Pomerania, and prepared the way for the new movement.
Since Ewald no one had written Danish lyrical verse so exquisitely as
Schack von Staffeldt, and the depth and scientific precision of his
thought won him a title which he has preserved, of being the first
philosophic poet of Denmark. The writings of this man are the deepest
and most serious which Denmark had produced, and at his best he yields
to no one in choice and skilful use of expression. This sweet song of
Schack von Staffeldt's, however, was early silenced by the louder choir
that one by one broke into music around him. It was Adam Gottlob
Öhlenschläger (q.v.; 1779-1850), the greatest poet of Denmark, who was
to bring about the new romantic movement. In 1802 he happened to meet
the young Norwegian Henrik Steffens (1773-1845), who had just returned
from a scientific tour in Germany, full of the doctrines of Schelling.
Under the immediate direction of Steffens, Öhlenschläger began an
entirely new poetic style, and destroyed all his earlier verses. A new
epoch in the language began, and the rapidity and matchless facility of
the new poetry was the wonder of Steffens himself. The old Scandinavian
mythology lived in the hands of Öhlenschläger exactly as the classical
Greek religion was born again in Keats. He aroused in his people the
slumbering sense of their Scandinavian nationality.
The retirement of Öhlenschläger comparatively early in life, left the
way open for the development of his younger contemporaries, among whom
several had genius little inferior to his own. Steen Steensen Blicher
(1782-1848) was a Jutlander, and preserved all through life the
characteristics of his sterile and sombre fatherland. After a struggling
youth of great poverty, he published, in 1807-1809, a translation of
Ossian; in 1814 a volume of lyrical poems; and in 1817 he attracted
considerable attention by his descriptive poem of _The Tour in Jutland_.
His real genius, however, did not lie in the direction of verse; and his
first signal success was with a story, _A Village Sexton's Diary_, in
1824, which was rapidly followed by other tales, descriptive of village
life in Jutland, for the next twelve years. These were collected in five
volumes (1833-1836). His masterpiece is a collection of short stories,
called _The Spinning Room_. He also produced many national lyrics of
great beauty. But it was Blicher's use of _patois_ which delighted his
countrymen with a sense of freshness and strength. They felt as though
they heard Danish for the first time spoken in its fulness. The poet
Aarestrup (in 1848) declared that Blicher had raised the Danish language
to the dignity of Icelandic. Blicher is a stern realist, in many points
akin to Crabbe, and takes a singular position among the romantic
idealists of the period, being like them, however, in the love of
precise and choice language, and hatred of the mere commonplaces of
imaginative writing.[15]
Nikolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig (q.v.; 1783-1872), like
Öhlenschläger, learned the principles of the German romanticism from the
lips of Steffens. He adopted the idea of introducing the Old
Scandinavian element into art, and even into life, still more earnestly
than the older poet. Bernhard Severin Ingemann (q.v.; 1789-1862)
contributed to Danish literature historical romances in the style of Sir
Walter Scott. Johannes Carsten Hauch (q.v.; 1790-1872) first
distinguished himself as a disciple of Öhlenschläger, and fought under
him in the strife against the old school and Baggesen. But the master
misunderstood the disciple; and the harsh repulse of Öhlenschläger
silenced Hauch for many years. He possessed, however, a strong and
fluent genius, which eventually made itself heard in a multitude of
volumes, poems, dramas and novels. All that Hauch wrote is marked by
great qualities, and by distinction; he had a native bias towards the
mystical, which, however, he learned to keep in abeyance.
Johan Ludvig Heiberg (q.v.; 1791-1860) was a critic who ruled the world
of Danish taste for many years. His mother, the Baroness
Gyllembourg-Ehrensvärd (q.v.; 1773-1856), wrote a large number of
anonymous novels. Her knowledge of life, her sparkling wit and her
almost faultless style, make these short stories masterpieces of their
kind.
Christian Hviid Bredahl (1784-1860) produced six volumes of _Dramatic
Scenes_[16] (1819-1833) which, in spite of their many brilliant
qualities, were little appreciated at the time. Bredahl gave up
literature in despair to become a peasant farmer, and died in poverty.
Ludvig Adolf Bödtcher (1793-1874) wrote a single volume of lyrical
poems, which he gradually enlarged in succeeding editions. He was a
consummate artist in verse, and his impressions are given with the most
delicate exactitude of phrase, and in a very fine strain of imagination.
He was a quietist and an epicurean, and the closest parallel to Horner
in the literature of the North. Most of Bödtcher's poems deal with
Italian life, which he learned to know thoroughly during a long
residence in Rome. He was secretary to Thorwaldsen for a considerable
time.
Christian Winther (q.v.; 1796-1876) made the island of Zealand his
loving study, and that province of Denmark belongs to him no less
thoroughly than the Cumberland lakes belong to Wordsworth. Between the
latter poet and Winther there was much resemblance. He was, without
compeer, the greatest pastoral lyrist of Denmark. His exquisite strains,
in which pure imagination is blended with most accurate and realistic
descriptions of scenery and rural life, have an extraordinary charm not
easily described.
The youngest of the great poets born during the last twenty years of the
18th century was Henrik Hertz (q.v.; 1797-1870). As a satirist and comic
poet he followed Baggesen, and in all branches of the poetic art stood a
little aside out of the main current of romanticism. He introduced into
the Danish literature of his time inestimable elements of lucidity and
purity. In his best pieces Hertz is the most modern and most
cosmopolitan of the Danish writers of his time.
It is noticeable that all the great poets of the romantic period lived
to an advanced age. Their prolonged literary activity--for some of them,
like Grundtvig, were busy to the last--had a slightly damping influence
on their younger contemporaries, but certain names in the next
generation have special prominence. Hans Christian Andersen (q.v.;
1805-1875) was the greatest of modern fabulists. In 1835 there appeared
the first collection of his _Fairy Tales_, and won him a world-wide
reputation. Almost every year from this time forward until near his
death he published about Christmas time one or two of these unique
stories, so delicate in their humour and pathos, and so masterly in
their simplicity. Carl Christian Bagger (1807-1846) published volumes in
1834 and 1836 which gave promise of a great future,--a promise broken by
his early death. Frederik Paludan-Müller (q.v.; 1809-1876) developed, as
a poet, a magnificent career, which contrasted in its abundance with his
solitary and silent life as a man. His mythological or pastoral dramas,
his great satiric epos of _Adam Homo_ (1841-1848), his comedies, his
lyrics, and above all his noble philosophic tragedy of _Kalanus_, prove
the immense breadth of his compass, and the inexhaustible riches of his
imagination. C. L. Emil Aarestrup (1800-1856) published in 1838 a volume
of vivid erotic poetry, but its quality was only appreciated after his
death. Edvard Lembcke (1815-1897) made himself famous as the admirable
translator of Shakespeare, but the incidents of 1864 produced from him
some volumes of direct and manly patriotic verse.
The poets completely ruled the literature of Denmark during this period.
There were, however, eminent men in other departments of letters, and
especially in philology. Rasmus Christian Rask (1787-1832) was one of
the most original and gifted linguists of his age. His grammars of Old
Frisian, Icelandic and Anglo-Saxon were unapproached in his own time,
and are still admirable. Niels Matthias Petersen (1791-1862), a disciple
of Rask, was the author of an admirable _History of Denmark in the
Heathen_ _Antiquity_, and the translator of many of the sagas. Martin
Frederik Arendt (1773-1823), the botanist and archaeologist, did much
for the study of old Scandinavian records. Christian Molbech (1783-1857)
was a laborious lexicographer, author of the first good Danish
dictionary, published in 1833. In Joachim Frederik Schouw (1789-1852),
Denmark produced a very eminent botanist, author of an exhaustive
_Geography of Plants_. In later years he threw himself with zeal into
politics. His botanical researches were carried on by Frederik Liebmann
(1813-1856). The most famous zoologist contemporary with these men was
Salomon Dreier (1813-1842).
The romanticists found their philosopher in a most remarkable man, Sören
Aaby Kierkegaard (1813-1855), one of the most subtle thinkers of
Scandinavia, and the author of some brilliant philosophical and
polemical works. A learned philosophical writer, not to be compared,
however, for genius or originality to Kierkegaard, was Frederik
Christian Sibbern (1785-1872). He wrote a dissertation _On Poetry and
Art_ (3 vols., 1853-1869) and _The Contents of a MS. from the Year 2135_
(3 vols., 1858-1872).
Among novelists who were not also poets was Andreas Nikolai de
Saint-Aubain (1798-1865), who, under the pseudonym of Carl Bernhard,
wrote a series of charming romances. Mention must also be made of two
dramatists, Peter Thun Feorsom (1777-1817), who produced an excellent
translation of Shakespeare (1807-1816), and Thomas Overskou (1798-1873),
author of a long series of successful comedies, and of a history of the
Danish theatre (5 vols., Copenhagen, 1854-1864).
Other writers whose names connect the age of romanticism with a later
period were Meyer Aron Goldschmidt (1819-1887), author of novels and
tales; Herman Frederik Ewald (1821-1908), who wrote a long series of
historical novels; Jens Christian Hostrup (1818-1892), a writer of
exquisite comedies; and the miscellaneous writer Erik Bögh (1822-1899).
In zoology, J. J. S. Steenstrup (1813-1898); in philology, J. N. Madvig
(1804-1886) and his disciple V. Thomsen (b. 1842); in antiquarianism, C.
J. Thomsen (1788-1865) and J. J. Asmussen Worsaae (1821-1885); and in
philosophy, Rasmus Nielsen (1809-1884) and Hans Bröchner (1820-1875),
deserve mention.
The development of imaginative literature in Denmark became very closely
defined during the latter half of the 19th century. The romantic
movement culminated in several poets of great eminence, whose deaths
prepared the way for a new school. In 1874 Bödtcher passed away, in 1875
Hans Christian Andersen, in the last week of 1876 Winther, and the
greatest of all, Frederik Paludan-Müller. The field was therefore left
open to the successors of those idealists, and in 1877 the reaction
began to be felt. The eminent critic, Dr Georg Brandes (q.v.), had long
foreseen the decline of pure romanticism, and had advocated a more
objective and more exact treatment of literary phenomena. Accordingly,
as soon as all the great planets had disappeared, a new constellation
was perceived to have risen, and all the stars in it had been lighted by
the enthusiasm of Brandes. The new writers were what he called
Naturalists, and their sympathies were with the latest forms of exotic,
but particularly of French literature. Among these fresh forces three
immediately took place as leaders--Jacobsen, Drachmann and Schandorph.
In J. P. Jacobsen (q.v.; 1847-1885) Denmark was now taught to welcome
the greatest artist in prose which she has ever possessed; his romance
of _Marie Grubbe_ led off the new school with a production of unexampled
beauty. But Jacobsen died young, and the work was really carried out by
his two companions. Holger Drachmann (q.v.; 1846-1908) began life as a
marine painter; and a first little volume of poems, which he published
in 1872, attracted slight attention. In 1877 he came forward again with
one volume of verse, another of fiction, a third of travel; in each he
displayed great vigour and freshness of touch, and he rose at one leap
to the highest position among men of promise. Drachmann retained his
place, without rival, as the leading imaginative writer in Denmark. For
many years he made the aspects of life at sea his particular theme, and
he contrived to rouse the patriotic enthusiasm of the Danish public as
it had never been roused before. His various and unceasing
productiveness, his freshness and vigour, and the inexhaustible
richness of his lyric versatility, early brought Drachmann to the front
and kept him there. Meanwhile prose imaginative literature was ably
supported by Sophus Schandorph (1836-1901), who had been entirely out of
sympathy with the idealists, and had taken no step while that school was
in the ascendant. In 1876, in his fortieth year, he was encouraged by
the change in taste to publish a volume of realistic stories, _Country
Life_, and in 1878 a novel, _Without a Centre_. He has some relation
with Guy de Maupassant as a close analyst of modern types of character,
but he has more humour. He has been compared with such Dutch painters of
low life as Teniers. His talent reached its height in the novel called
_Little Folk_ (1880), a most admirable study of lower middle-class life
in Copenhagen. He was for a while, without doubt, the leading living
novelist, and he went on producing works of great force, in which,
however, a certain monotony is apparent. The three leaders had meanwhile
been joined by certain younger men who took a prominent position. Among
these Karl Gjellerup and Erik Skram were the earliest. Gjellerup (b.
1857), whose first works of importance date from 1878, was long
uncertain as to the direction of his powers; he was poet, novelist,
moralist and biologist in one; at length he settled down into line with
the new realistic school, and produced in 1882 a satirical novel of
manners which had a great success, _The Disciple of the Teutons_. Erik
Skram (b. 1847) had in 1879 written a solitary novel, _Gertrude
Coldbjörnsen_, which created a sensation, and was hailed by Brandes as
exactly representing the "naturalism" which he desired to see
encouraged; but Skram has written little else of importance. Other
writers of reputation in the naturalistic school were Edvard Brandes (b.
1847), and Herman Bang (b. 1858). Peter Nansen (b. 1861) has come into
wide notoriety as the author, in particularly beautiful Danish, of a
series of stories of a pronouncedly sexual type, among which _Maria_
(1894) has been the most successful. Meanwhile, several of the elder
generation, unaffected by the movement of realism, continued to please
the public. Three lyrical poets, H. V. Kaalund (1818-1885), Carl Ploug
(1813-1894) and Christian Richardt (1831-1892), of very great talent,
were not yet silent, and among the veteran novelists were still active
H. F. Ewald and Thomas Lange (1829-1887). Ewald's son Carl (1856-1908)
achieved a great name as a novelist, but did his most characteristic
work in a series of books for children, in which he used the fairy tale,
in the manner of Hans Andersen, as a vehicle for satire and a theory of
morals. During the whole of this period the most popular writer of
Denmark was J. C. C. Brosböll (1816-1900), who wrote, under the
pseudonym Carit Etlar, a vast number of tales. Another popular novelist
was Vilhelm Bergsöe (b. 1835), author of _In the Sabine Mountains_
(1871), and other romances. Sophus Bauditz (b. 1850) persevered in
composing novels which attain a wide general popularity. Mention must be
made also of the dramatist Christian Molbech (1821-1888).
Between 1885 and 1892 there was a transitional period in Danish
literature. Up to that time all the leaders had been united in accepting
the naturalistic formula, which was combined with an individualist and a
radical tendency. In 1885, however, Drachmann, already the recognized
first poet of the country, threw off his allegiance to Brandes,
denounced the exotic tradition, declared himself a Conservative, and
took up a national and patriotic attitude. He was joined a little later
by Gjellerup, while Schandorph remained stanchly by the side of Brandes.
The camp was thus divided. New writers began to make their appearance,
and, while some of these were stanch to Brandes, others were inclined to
hold rather with Drachmann. Of the authors who came forward during this
period of transition, the strongest novelist proved to be Hendrik
Pontoppidan (b. 1857). In some of his books he reminds the reader of
Turgeniev. Pontoppidan published in 1898 the first volume of a great
novel entitled _Lykke-Per_, the biography of a typical Jutlander named
Per Sidenius, a work to be completed in eight volumes. From 1893 to 1909
no great features of a fresh kind revealed themselves. The Danish
public, grown tired of realism, and satiated with pathological
phenomena, returned to a fresh study of their own national
characteristics. The cultivation of verse, which was greatly
discouraged in the eighties, returned. Drachmann was supported by
excellent younger poets of his school. J. J. Jörgensen (b. 1866), a
Catholic decadent, was very prolific. Otto C. Fönss (b. 1853) published
seven little volumes of graceful lyrical poems in praise of gardens and
of farm-life. Andreas Dolleris (b. 1850), of Vejle, showed himself an
occasional poet of merit. Alfred Ipsen (b. 1852) must also be mentioned
as a poet and critic. Valdemar Rördam, whose _The Danish Tongue_ was the
lyrical success of 1901, may also be named. Some attempts were made to
transplant the theories of the symbolists to Denmark, but without signal
success. On the other hand, something of a revival of naturalism is to
be observed in the powerful studies of low life admirably written by
Karl Larsen (b. 1860).
The drama has long flourished in Denmark. The principal theatres are
liberally open to fresh dramatic talent of every kind, and the great
fondness of the Danes for this form of entertainment gives unusual scope
for experiments in halls or private theatres; nothing is too eccentric
to hope to obtain somewhere a fair hearing. Drachmann produced with very
great success several romantic dramas founded on the national legends.
Most of the novelists and poets already mentioned also essayed the
stage, and to those names should be added these of Einar Christiansen
(b. 1861), Ernst von der Recke (b. 1848), Oskar Benzon (b. 1856) and
Gustav Wied (b. 1858).
In theology no names were as eminent as in the preceding generation, in
which such writers as H. N. Clausen (1793-1877), and still more Hans
Lassen Martensen (1808-1884), lifted the prestige of Danish divinity to
a high point. But in history the Danes have been very active. Karl
Ferdinand Allen (1811-1871) began a comprehensive history of the
Scandinavian kingdoms (5 vols., 1864-1872). Jens Peter Trap (1810-1885)
concluded his great statistical account of Denmark in 1879. The 16th
century was made the subject of the investigations of Troels Lund
(q.v.). About 1880 several of the younger historians formed the plan of
combining to investigate and publish the sources of Danish history; in
this the indefatigable Johannes Steenstrup (b. 1844) was prominent. The
domestic history of the country began, about 1885, to occupy the
attention of Edvard Holm (b. 1833), O. Nielsen and the veteran P.
Frederik Barfod (1811-1896). The naval histories of G. Lütken attracted
much notice. Besides the names already mentioned, A. D. Jörgensen
(1840-1897), J. Fredericia (b. 1849), Christian Erslev (b. 1852) and
Vilhelm Mollerup have all distinguished themselves in the excellent
school of Danish historians. In 1896 an elaborate composite history of
Denmark was undertaken by some leading historians (pub. 1897-1905). In
philosophy nothing has recently been published of the highest value.
Martensen's _Jakob Böhme_ (1881) belongs to an earlier period. H.
Höffding (b. 1843) has been the most prominent contributor to
psychology. His _Problems of Philosophy_ and his _Philosophy of
Religion_ were translated into English in 1906. Alfred Lehmann (b. 1858)
has, since 1896, attracted a great deal of attention by his sceptical
investigation of psychical phenomena. F. Rönning has written on the
history of thought in Denmark. In the criticism of art, Julius Lange
(1838-1896), and later Karl Madsen, have done excellent service. In
literary criticism Dr Georg Brandes is notable for the long period
during which he remained predominant. His was a steady and stimulating
presence, ever pointing to the best in art and thought, and his
influence on his age was greater than that of any other Dane.
AUTHORITIES.--R. Nyerup, _Den danske Digtekunsts Historie_
(1800-1808), and _Almindeligt Literaturlexikon_ (1818-1820); N. M.
Petersen, _Literaturhistorie_ (2nd ed., 1867-1871, 5 vols.);
Overskou, _Den danske Skueplads_ (1854-1866, 5 vols.), with a
continuation (2 vols., 1873-1876) by E Collin; Chr. Bruun,
_Bibliotheca Danica_ (3 vols., 1872-1896); Bricka, _Dansk biografisk
Lexikon_ (1887-1901); J. Paludan, _Danmarks Literatur i
Middelalderen_ (Copenhagen, 1896); P. Hansen, _Illustreret Dansk
Literaturhistorie_ (3 vols., 1901-1902); F. W. Horn, _History of the
Scandinavian North from the most ancient times to the present_
(English translation by Rasmus B. Anderson (Chicago, 1884), with
bibliographical appendix by Thorwald Solberg); Ph. Schweitzer,
_Geschichte der Skandinavischen Litteratur_ (3 pts., Leipzig,
1886-1889), forming vol. viii. of the _Geschichte der
Weltlitteratur_. See also Brandes, _Kritiker og Portraiter_ (1870);
Brandes, _Danske Ditgere_ (1877); Marie Herzfeld, _Die Skandinavische
Litteratur und ihre Tendenzen_ (Berlin and Leipzig, 1898); Hjalmar
Hjorth Boyesen, _Essays on Scandinavian Literature_ (London, 1895);
Edmund Gosse, _Studies in the Literature of Northern Europe_ (new
ed., London, 1883); Vilhelm Andersen, _Litteraturbilleder_
(Copenhagen, 1903); A. P. J. Schener, _Kortfattet Indledning til
Romantikkus Periode i Danmarks Litteratur_ (Copenhagen, 1894).
(E. G.)