(1846-)
[Illustration: HOLGER DRACHMANN]
Holger Drachmann, born in Copenhagen October 9th, 1846, belongs to the
writers characterized by Georg Brandes as "the men of the new era."
Danish literature had stood high during the first half of the
nineteenth century. In 1850 Oehlenschlaeger died. In 1870 there was
practically no Danish literature. The reason for this may have been
that after the new political life of 1848-9 and the granting of the
Danish Constitution, politics absorbed all young talent, and men of
literary tastes put themselves at the service of the daily press.
In 1872 Georg Brandes gave his lectures on 'Main Currents in the
Literature of the Nineteenth Century' at the University of Copenhagen.
That same year Drachmann published his first collection of 'Poems,'
and so began his extraordinary productivity of poems, dramas, and
novels. Of these, his lyric poems are undoubtedly of the greatest
value. His is a distinctly lyric temperament. The new school had
chosen for its guide Brandes's teaching that "Literature, to be of
significance, should discuss problems." In view of this fact it is
somewhat hard to understand why Drachmann should be called a man of
the new era. He never discusses problems. He always gives himself up
unreservedly to the subject which at that special moment claims his
sympathy. Taken as a whole, therefore, his writings present a certain
inconsistency. He has shown himself alternately as socialist and
royalist, realist and romanticist, freethinker and believer,
cosmopolitan and national, according to the lyric enthusiasm of the
moment. Independent of these changes, the one thing to be admired and
enjoyed is his lyric feeling and the often exquisite form in which he
presents it. His larger compositions, novels, and dramas do not show
the same power over his subject.
If Drachmann discusses any problem, it is the problem Drachmann. He
does this sometimes with what Brandes calls "a light and joking
self-irony," in a most sympathetic way. Brandes quotes one of
Drachmann's early stories, where it is said of the hero:--"His name
was really Palnatoke Olsen; a continually repeated discord of two
tones, as he used to say." Olsen is one of the most commonplace Danish
names. Palnatoke is the name of one of the fiercest warriors of
heathen antiquity, who, like a veritable Valhalla god, dared to oppose
the terrible Danish king Harald Blaatand. When Olsen's parents gave
him this name they unwittingly described their son, "forever drawn by
two poles: one the plain Olsen, the other the hot-headed fiery
Viking." With this in mind, and considering Drachmann's literary works
as a whole, one is irresistibly reminded of his friend and
contemporary in Norway, Bjoernsterne Bjoernson. There is this difference
between them, however, that if the irony of Palnatoke Olsen may be
applied to both, one might for Drachmann use the abbreviation P. Olsen
and for Bjoernson undoubtedly Palnatoke O.
It might be said of Drachmann, as Sauer said of the Italian poet
Monti:--"Like a master in the art of appreciation, he knew how to give
himself up to great time-stirring ideas; somewhat as a gifted actor
throws himself into his part, with the full strength of his art, with
an enthusiasm carrying all before it, and in the most expressive way;
then when the part is played, lays it quietly aside and takes hold of
something else."
When a young man, Drachmann studied at the Academy of Arts in
Copenhagen, and met with considerable success as a marine painter. His
love for the Northern seas shows itself in his poetry and prose, and
his descriptions of the sea and the life of the sailor and fisherman
are of the truest and best yielded by his pen. He is the author of no
less than forty-six volumes of poems, dramas, novels, short stories,
and sketches, and of two unpublished dramas. His most important work
is 'Forskrevet' (Condemned), which is largely autobiographical; his
most attractive though not his strongest production is the opera 'Der
Var Engang' (Once Upon a Time), founded on Andersen's 'The Swineherd,'
with music by Sange Mueller; his best poems and tales are those dealing
with the sea.
At present he lives in Hamburg, where on October 10th, 1896,
he celebrated his fiftieth birthday and his twenty-fifth
"Author-Jubilee," as the Danes call it. Among the features of the
celebration were the sending of an enormous number of telegrams from
Drachmann's admirers in Europe and America, and the performance of two
of his plays,--one at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, the other at
the Stadt Theatre in Altona.