Hans Christian Andersen and his Social Reception in Austria

This article documents Hans Christian Andersen’s gradual development from being a young unknown Danish writer to becoming socially accepted and acknowledged as an integral part of Austrian social and artistic life. The point of departure is his second novel Kun en Spillemand (Andersen, 1837/1988; Only a Fiddler) of which two chapters are set in Vienna. This process of so-called acculturation, i.e. the appropriation of various social, psychological and cultural elements of the country visited, begins with Andersen’s first stay in Austria in 1834 – the first of altogether six visits – and finds its climax in 1846, when he is invited to give a reading of his fairy tales at the imperial castle in Vienna. It is noteworthy that this process to a large degree was the result of a planned strategy on Andersen’s behalf. Before arriving in Vienna, he procured letters of recommendation and upon arrival he systematically made friends with the city’s most important artistic and intellectual personalities. Another strategic move, of course, was to choose Vienna as a partial setting for his most successful novel in the German-speaking world

Charles Darwin i dansk litteratur med særlig henblik på Johannes V. Jensens forfatterskab

Charles Darwin’s theories were already introduced in Scandinavia in the early 1860s, whereas his two major works, On the Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871), were translated by Danish writer J.P. Jacobsen in the 1870s. Jacobsen acts as an important intermediary both as a scientist and, probably, the first Danish writer whose work is influenced by Darwin’s thoughts. But also in the writings of other authors of the time, e.g. Herman Bang, at least the name ”Darwin” infrequently occurs as is also the case with the symbolist writers of the 1890s, e.g. Viggo Stuckenberg and Sophus Claussen. However, not until after 1900 does Darwin serve as an artistic inspiration and a positive role model. This happens in an overpowering manner in the fictional and essayist works of the Danish Nobel Prize-winner Johannes V. Jensen. Jensen’s Darwinism was not countered until the so-called ”livsanskuelsesdebat” – a philosophical debate – during the 1920s with the eloquent poet and dramatist Helge Rode as his acute opponent. Hereafter, Darwin’s role in Danish literature decreases significantly unless one wishes to see Peter Høeg’s novel from 1996, Kvinden og aben (The Man and the Ape) as the last example of a Darwin-influence on a literary text