The Heibergs and the Theater: Between Vaudeville, Romantic Comedy, and National Drama ed. by Jon Stewart (review)

Published by Museum Tusculanum Press and distributed by The University of Chicago Press, The Heibergs and the Theater: Between Vaudeville, Romantic Comedy, and National Drama is Volume 7 in the Danish Golden Age Series, under the auspices of the Søren Kierkegaard Research Center and the University of Copenhagen. The series itself is dedicated to research on figures and works from the Danish Golden Age, and this volume is the second of two devoted to J. L. Heiberg, the pontifex maximus of Danish letters, as P. M. Mitchell once called him. The title of this volume promises to address not just Johan Ludvig’s significance for the theater, but the other Heibergs as well: in this case, Thomasine Gyllembourg, the mother of Johan Ludvig, and Johanne Luise Heiberg, Johan Ludvig’s wife. Despite this inclusive dimension, the focus is clearly on J. L. Heiberg. Whereas the first volume takes a more general approach to the contributions of Heiberg in the fields of philosophy, literature, aesthetics, theater, and politics, this volume’s more focused purpose is to treat Heiberg’s substantial contributions to the theater.¹ As Jon Stewart and Klaus Müller-Wille note in their introduction, there is “no single monograph or anthology that deals exclusively with Heiberg’s relation to theater” (p. 11). In filling this absence, the volume’s purpose is likewise to provide a richer and more complex picture of the Danish Golden Age.

Studies of the Golden Age have generally focused on the two more globally famous Danes, Hans Christian Andersen and Søren Kierkegaard. Importantly, however, Andersen and Kierkegaard did not write in a vacuum, and their work is best understood in relation to the historical, cultural, and philosophical circumstances in which they found themselves. While the significance of Heiberg is rather diminished today and has received too little scholarly attention, his stature as the leading man of letters during the Danish Golden Age went unquestioned during his lifetime. His significance for the theater during the Golden Age was likewise unparalleled, though only a few of his plays continue to be performed today. Heiberg wrote a number of dramatic works, several of which were the most successful plays performed at the Royal Theater. Heiberg also wrote several aesthetic essays; often providing the dramatic works he wrote with a philosophical and aesthetic justification for the theater as he conceived of it. Although the title suggests a focus on Heiberg’s theatrical engagement, the volume has a much broader goal of situating Heiberg in his multifaceted oeuvre.

The articles comprising the volume were originally papers presented at the Zwischen Vaudeville, romantischer Komödie und National Drama. Die Heibergs und das Theater conference, held at the University of Zürich during the summer of 2009. The conference was organized by Klaus Müller-Wille, Jon Stewart, and Kirsten Wechsel. The volume is divided into three sections, with the introduction to the volume and a biographical/historical sketch written by the late Finn Hauberg Mortensen situated outside the tripartite structure. The three sections are titled “Theater and Politics,” “Theater and Philosophy,” and “Theater and the Economy of Gender,” with three articles under each heading. Klaus Müller-Wille and Jon Stewart provide an important if brief history on the scholarly reception of Heiberg in the introduction to the volume, from the initial publication of collected works shortly after Heiberg’s death in 1860 to an assessment of the present interest in Heiberg. They note that the most substantive scholarship has taken place only in the last twenty or so years, and much of this has been spurred by an interest in Kierkegaard and the broader cultural context in which he worked. It can be claimed now, however, that Heiberg has become a significant figure in his own right. Hauberg Mortensen’s contribution, “Johan Ludvig Heiberg and the Theater: In Oehlenschläger’s Limelight,” functions almost like a second introduction to...