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Reviewed by:
  • LitteraturDK
  • Karin Sanders
Brian Andreasen, Mette Jørgensen, Svend Erik Larsen, and Dan Ringgaard. LitteraturDK. Ed. Benedicte Kieler. L&R Uddannelse, 2011. 344 pages.

On the back cover of LitteraturDK, H.C. Andersen’s famous mother duck tells her newly hatched ducklings about the big wide world; it stretches all the way into the local pastor’s field, she quacks, although she confesses that she has never been there. One of her offspring, the ugly one, as we know, escapes the confines of his birthplace and—like his author—expands his horizon and finds himself elsewhere. As suggested by the acronym DK—which brings associations to both Internet domain addresses and to Danish automobile stickers signaling nationality while driving in other countries—LitteraturDK wants to nudge students (in this case high school students) away from the local “duck yard” so that they can contextualize Danish literature vis-à-vis other cultures and open the horizon to a global world in critical ways.

This is a commendable and timely undertaking, a refreshing alternative to traditional literary histories. The borders around Denmark are and always have been shifting, we learn, and Danish literature should be seen as part of a dynamic that resonates outside of nation-building constructs. The perspective is global, the texts are local: “Litteraturen giver os adgang til et fælles kulturelt rum, der er større end de lokale sprog og steder” (13) [Literature offers access to a common cultural space that is larger than local languages and places].

To carry out this ambitious task, LitteraturDK opts for a theme-organized model. It consists of six parts: “Oppe & nede” [Up & Down], “Hjemme & ude” [Home & Away], “Fantasi & virkelighed” [Fantasy & Reality], “Jeg, mig & de andre” [I, Me, & the Others], “Krop & omverden” [Body & Environment], and finally “Os & det Andet” [Us & the Other]. Each of the six thematic parts is subdivided into six periods determined by key social, political, religious, or technological events: from the Viking age to the Reformation (800–1536), from the Reformation to the Battle of Copenhagen [Slaget på Reden] (1536–1801), from the Battle of Copenhagen to The Constitutional Act of Denmark (1801–1849), from The Constitutional Act of Denmark to World War I (1849–1914), from World War I to the first man on the moon (1914–1969), and finally from the first man on the moon to the publication date of the book (1969–2009). These historical periods are selected in order to allow for interdisciplinary examination between literature and other historical fields of study relevant to high school students.

Throughout, the authors take pains to cover important genres by offering selected close readings of novels (I.P. Jacobsen’s Fru Marie Grubbe), short stories (Karen Blixen’s “Den udødelige historie”), poems (Klaus Rifbjerg’s [End Page 222] Konfrontation), essays (Johannes V. Jensen’s Den gotiske Renaissance) and drama (in this case Molière’s Don Juan eller Stengæsten is selected as part of the volume’s effort to include examples from world literature).

Each thematic section moves through the six periods with changing foci. In “Oppe & nede,” for example, the concentration is on power relations: rich and poor, knowledge and ignorance, men and women, and Danes and foreigners. Starting with folklore (in the form of Esben Askepuster’s defiance of authority) and the honor system in saga literature (Gisli Sursson’s Saga), we move quickly to the translation of the Bible from Latin to the vernacular and on to Thomas Kingo’s defense of the destitute in “De fattige udj Odensee Hospital” (1683) and further on to Denmark’s colonial politics as represented by Thomas Thaarup’s play Peters Bryllup (1793). We then shift from P.A. Heiberg’s challenge of the authorities about the loss of national power in the early nineteenth century and the articulation of national romanticism by Poul Martin Møller, N.F.S. Grundtvig, and B.S. Ingemann. Aron Meïr Goldsmith defied what it meant to be Danish, and H.C. Andersen continued to show how poverty and suffering had ethical facets. The social power struggles after the Constitution through the modern breakthrough and up until World War I take us from Henrik Pontoppidan, I.P...

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