Leseprobe_Holm_Holberg Plays Volume I

PREFACE
Four factors led to the launch and timing of this project.
In 2018 Ludvig Holberg, a Danish Playwright on the European Stage (written by
Bent Holm, translated by Gaye Kynoch) was published by Hollitzer Verlag. The
book provides an overall introduction to the writer and thinker Ludvig Holberg
(1684–1754), his work for the theatre, his literary output, his influence, the
historical contexts – culminating in comprehensive analyses of six of his plays.
The next step was then obvious: to give the international audience direct access
to the world of Holberg via new translations of these six plays – a process that is
now underway.
Also in 2018, the online edition of Holberg’s collected writings – his output
was, by the way, enormous – was completed. The project has been a Danish-
Norwegian collaboration between Det Danske Sprog- og Litteraturselskab (Society
for Danish Language and Literature) and the University of Bergen. This critical
edition of the texts then formed the basis for our work in presenting Holberg’s
stage world to an international audience.
Timing again comes into play: 2022 marks the 300th anniversary of the
founding of a professional Danish-language stage, upon which Holberg was
initially the dominant dramatist and thus a pioneer of Nordic drama. No Ibsen
without Holberg, it is tempting to say (and Ibsen did indeed declare Holberg to be
his favourite writer). When Strindberg planned his Intima Teatern in Stockholm,
he put Holberg’s Jeppe på Bjerget (Jeppe of The Hill) on the repertoire; to his
mind, it had the character of a ‘dreamplay’ in line with, for example, Lope de
Vega’s La vida es sueño (Life Is a Dream). The new translations will be issued in
three consecutive volumes, publication of which is timed so that the current sixplay
project will be rounded off in the anniversary year. In this first volume, we
present two plays that, although very different from one another, both deal with
themes of power and illusion. We are also including a new translation of Holberg’s
preface to the first published volume of his plays (1723), which took the form of
his reflections on the art of theatre.
Finally, the principle reason: the value of the works. In his day, Holberg was
part of the European literary canon. In terms of the quality of his writing, his
understanding of stage and auditorium, his choice and exploration of themes, he
should take up this place again.
The text as meaning, music and choreography
The translation project is thus an extension of the Holberg monograph and the
online edition of his writings, and it focusses on Danish theatre in an international
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