JACOBSENIANA - J. P. Jacobsen Selskabet - Aarhus Universitet

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are brought up for debate, and particulary the following four statements: 1) that J.P. Jacobsen is an outstanding example of the Danish or Scandinavian ‘Naturalism’, 2) that Jacobsen is a key figure of the socalled “Modern Breakthrough” in Danish and Scandinavian literary history beginning in the 1870es, and thus a combatant of Georg Brandes’ group of radical artists and intellec- tuals, 3) that Jacobsen was primarily an athiestic and Darwinistic writer even when writing fiction, and 4) that Jacobsen was thus to a certain extent an unsuccessful naturalistic author with an outstanding and somewhat exaggerated sense for stylistic patterns and for subjects of decadence or even perversion. As an editor and scholar of J.P. Jacobsen’s oeuvre and its sig- nificance for contemporary criticism and literary theory, I cannot agree with any of these four statements. In my opinion they are but ideological constructions made especially by Vilhelm Ander- sen and Paul V. Rubow during the first decades of the 20th cen- tury. In my portrait of Jacobsen on the website www.adl.dk I argue briefly for all of this. I shall extend these arguments in a book on Jacobsen which I am presently working on. In light of the prob- lems associated with the aforementioned perspectives, I offer the following remarks on Jacobsen’s concept of “the nature of man” – “Menneskenaturen” – in an attempt to revise this part of Danish literary history. 6
J.P. JACOBSEN’S POETICAL MANIFESTO In a March 1880 letter to Edvard Brandes J.P. Jacobsen antici- pates the critical reception of his second novel Niels Lyhne. The novel was published 9 months later. His first novel Fru Marie Grubbe came out in 1876 and instantly raised a debate, especially focusing on the indelicate portrait of the main figure, Marie Grubbe. Whereas the style of the novel was very much acclaimed, it raised some harsh criticism relative to the composition and the missing coherence and logical causality in the treatment of the protagonist’s descent from an attractive and seductive young no- belwoman to a poor outcast and ferry woman. The novel was con- sidered a bit of a failure due to the surprising and nearly arrogant way of disobeying the laws of the naturalistic novel concerning heredity and environment. Still, though, the novel Fru Marie Grubbe was praised as being very promising, it attracted a lot of attention and was immediately sold out. The contemporary critics expected J.P. Jacobsen’s next novel to be a more coherent and straight forward naturalistic presentation of crucial subjects brought up for discussion and embedded in an eminent style. The critics, including the critics among the Brandes group and Georg Brandes himself, were utterly disappointed. The novel Niels Ly- hne (1880) was much more disobedient relative to the genre than the former novel ever was. The vague historical background, the 7
Page 1 and 2: Ny skriftserie Turistlyrik Jørn Er
Page 3 and 4: NY SKRIFTSERIE Det er med stor glæ
Page 5 and 6: TURISTLYRIK Mangen berømt forfatte
Page 7: Jørn Erslev Andersen J.P. JACOBSEN
Page 11 and 12: eaders and not, anxiously and caref
Page 13 and 14: of nature will bear any kind of fru
Page 15 and 16: or that kind of ‘organic’ think
Page 17 and 18: “scenery”, “setting” or “
Page 19 and 20: and that in its turn by another, an
Page 21 and 22: the novel Niels Lyhne. Especially N
Page 23 and 24: tered with a sluggish, violent and
Page 25 and 26: that is, in the mind. Thus, the pro
Page 27 and 28: Jacobsen, J.P. (2003/1989): Fru Mar
Page 29 and 30: ary historical fate with another fa
Page 31 and 32: fluential literary historian (or co
Page 33 and 34: in an interesting way, and on the o
Page 35 and 36: nature and an idealised person, but
Page 37 and 38: ack her sleeves, and laid her bare
Page 39 and 40: ture by using very loose wordstroke
Page 41 and 42: when reading Jacobsen, and on the o
Page 43: seum tlf. 9792 0577 (mandag-fredag

JACOBSENIANA - J. P. Jacobsen Selskabet - Aarhus Universitet

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