Georg Brandes
Encyclopedia
Georg Morris Cohen Brandes (4 February 1842 – 19 February 1927) was a Danish
critic and scholar who had great influence on Scandinavia
n and European literature from the 1870s through the turn of the 20th century. He is seen as the theorist behind the "Modern Breakthrough
" of Scandinavian culture. At the age of 30, Brandes formulated the principles of a new realism
and naturalism
, condemning hyper-aesthetic writing and fantasy in literature. According to Brandes, literature should be an organ "of the great thoughts of liberty and the progress of humanity." His literary goals were shared by many authors, among them the Norwegian realist playwright Henrik Ibsen
.
When Georg Brandes held a series of lectures in 1871 with the title "Main Currents in 19th-century Literature," he defined the Modern Breakthrough
and started the movement that would become Cultural Radicalism
. In 1884 Viggo Hørup
, Georg Brandes, and his brother Edvard Brandes
started the daily newspaper Politiken
with the motto: "The paper of greater enlightenment." The paper and their political debates led to a split of the liberal party Venstre
in 1905 and created the new party Det Radikale Venstre
.
in a non-orthodox Jewish middle-class family, the elder brother of prominent Danes Ernst Brandes
and Edvard Brandes. He became a student at the University of Copenhagen
in 1859 where he first studied jurisprudence
. From this, however, his interests soon turned to philosophy
and aesthetics
. In 1862 he won the gold medal of the university for an essay on The Idea of Nemesis among the Ancients. Before this, indeed since 1858, he had shown a remarkable gift for verse-writing, the results of which, however, were not abundant enough to justify separate publication. Brandes did not collect his poems until as late as 1898. At the university, which he left in 1864, Brandes was influenced by the writings of Heiberg
in criticism and Søren Kierkegaard
in philosophy, influences which continued to leave traces on his work.
In 1866, he took part in the controversy raised by the works of Rasmus Nielsen in a treatise on "Dualism in our Recent Philosophy." From 1865 to 1871 he traveled much in Europe, acquainting himself with the condition of literature in the principal centers of learning. His first important contribution to letters was his Aesthetic Studies (1868), where his maturer method is already foreshadowed in several brief monographs on Danish poets. In 1870 he published several important volumes, The French Aesthetics of the Present Day, dealing chiefly with Hippolyte Taine
, Criticisms and Portraits, and a translation of The Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill
, whom he had met that year during a visit to England.
In the midst of these polemics, Brandes began to issue the most ambitious of his works, Main Currents in the Literature of the Nineteenth Century, of which four volumes appeared between 1872 and 1875 (English translation, 1901–1905). The brilliant novelty of this criticism of the literature of major European countries at the beginning of the 19th century, and his description of the general revolt against the pseudo-classicism of the 18th century, at once attracted attention outside Denmark. The tumult which gathered round the person of the critic increased the success of the work, and the reputation of Brandes grew apace, especially in Germany and Russia
.
In 1877 Brandes left Copenhagen and settled in Berlin, taking a considerable part in the aesthetic life of that city. His political views, however, made Prussia
uncomfortable for him, and he returned in 1883 to Copenhagen, where he found a whole new school of writers and thinkers eager to receive him as their leader. He headed the group "Det moderne Gjennembruds Mænd" (The Men of the Modern Breakthrough), composed of J.P. Jacobsen, Holger Drachmann
, Edvard Brandes, Erik Skram, Sophus Schandorph, and Norwegians Henrik Ibsen
and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
, but a conservative reaction against his "realistic" doctrines began around 1883, headed by Holger Drachmann.
(1877), on Esaias Tegnér
(1878), on Benjamin Disraeli (1878), Ferdinand Lassalle
(in German, 1877), Ludvig Holberg
(1884), on Henrik Ibsen
(1899) and on Anatole France
(1905). Brandes wrote with great depth on the main contemporary poets and novelists of Denmark and Norway, and he and his disciples were for a long time the arbiters of literary fame in the north. His Danish Poets (1877), containing studies of Carsten Hauch
, Ludvig Bødtcher
, Christian Winther
, and Paludan-Müller, his Men of the Modern Transition (1883), and his Essays (1889), are volumes essential to the proper study of modern Scandinavian literature
. He wrote an excellent book on Poland
(1888; English translation, 1903), and was one of the editors of the German version of Ibsen.
The most important of his later works was his study of William Shakespeare
(1897–1898), which was translated into English by William Archer
, and was highly acclaimed. It was, perhaps, the most authoritative work on Shakespeare, not principally intended for an English-speaking audience, which had been published in any country. He was afterwards engaged on a history of modern Scandinavian literature. In his critical work, which extended over a wider field than that of any other living writer, Brandes was aided by a singularly charming style, lucid and reasonable, enthusiastic without extravagance, brilliant and colored without affectation. In 1900 he collected his works for the first time in a complete and popular edition, and began to work on a German edition, completed in 1902.
He published a Main Currents in Nineteenth, Century Literature in 1906 (six volumes). In Volume 2 he says the following about Soren Kierkegaard. "It is not merely in name that this irony bears a fundamental resemblance to Kierkegaard's, which also aristocratically "chooses to be misunderstood." The Ego of genius is the truth, if not in the sense in which Kierkegaard would have us understand his proposition, "Subjectivity is the truth," still in the sense that the Ego has every externally valid commandment and prohibition in its power; and, to the astonishment and scandal of the world, invariably expresses itself in paradoxes. Irony
is "divine audacity." In audacity thus comprehended there are endless possibilities. It is freedom from prejudice, yet it suggests the possibility of the most audacious defense of all possible kinds of prejudices. It is more easily attainable, we are told, by woman than by man. “Like the feminine garb, the feminine intellect has this advantage over the masculine, that its possessor by a single daring movement can rise above all the prejudices of civilization and bourgeois conventionality, at once transporting herself into the state of innocence and the lap of Nature." The lap of Nature! There is an echo of Rousseau
's voice even in this wanton tirade. We seem to hear the trumpet-call of revolution; what we really hear is only the proclamation of reaction. Rousseau desired to return to the state of nature, when men roamed naked through the pathless forests and lived upon acorns. Schelling
wished to turn the course of evolution back to the primeval ages, to the days before man had fallen. Schlegel blows revolutionary melodies on the great romantic “wonder-horn.""
, who wrote "Penningar" and "Fru Marianne" under the male pseudonym Ernst Ahlgren. Victoria Benedictsson committed suicide in a Copenhagen
hotel room, and the relationship with Brandes has later been blamed as the cause for the death.
In 1890, Brandes turned to concentrating on "great personalities" as the source of culture. In this period, he discovered Friedrich Nietzsche
whom he introduced to Scandinavian culture. Brandes, in an 1888 letter, wrote to Nietzsche advising him to read the works of Kierkegaard. He described Nietzsche's philosophy as "aristocratic radicalism", a description which delighted Nietzsche, and the idea of "aristocratic radicalism" influenced most of the later works of Brandes and resulted in voluminous biographies Wolfgang Goethe (1914–15), Francois de Voltaire
(1916–17), Gaius Julius Cæsar 1918 and Michelangelo
(1921).
In the 1900s, he fought the Danish political establishment on several occasions, but eventually had to curb his acidic attacks. However, his international reputation was growing. In many ways he emulated his own assessment of Voltaire
, as an author against habitual thinking, hypocrisy and the thin veneer of morality. He condemned the maltreatment of national minorities, the persecution of Dreyfus
etc. During World War I he condemned the national aggression and imperialism on both sides and his last years were dedicated to anti-religious polemic. In this late period he made new connections to intellectuals like Henri Barbusse
and Romain Rolland
when he was co-signer in the foundation of Clarté
, as well as E. D. Morel
.
. Among his supporters, Brandes' work was seen as a liberator from repressive norms, authority and hypocrisy, and he served as an inspiration for many contemporary writers. On the other hand, conservative circles condemned him as an immoral, unpatriotic and subversive blasphemer; as he became the lynchpin of criticism against modernity
in its entirety. At the same time, some socialists criticized his elitist attitudes, while some feminists have regarded his attitude of sexual equality as being inconsequential.
His brother Edvard (1847–1931), also a well-known critic, was the author of a number of plays, and of two psychological novels: A Politician (1889), and Young Blood (1899). He became an outstanding political figure of the party Det Radikale Venstre
.
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
critic and scholar who had great influence on Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
n and European literature from the 1870s through the turn of the 20th century. He is seen as the theorist behind the "Modern Breakthrough
Modern Breakthrough
The Modern Breakthrough is the normal name of the strong movement of naturalism and debating literature of Scandinavia near the end of the 19th century which replaced romanticism....
" of Scandinavian culture. At the age of 30, Brandes formulated the principles of a new realism
Literary realism
Literary realism most often refers to the trend, beginning with certain works of nineteenth-century French literature and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors in various countries, towards depictions of contemporary life and society "as they were." In the spirit of...
and naturalism
Naturalism (literature)
Naturalism was a literary movement taking place from the 1880s to 1940s that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character...
, condemning hyper-aesthetic writing and fantasy in literature. According to Brandes, literature should be an organ "of the great thoughts of liberty and the progress of humanity." His literary goals were shared by many authors, among them the Norwegian realist playwright Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
.
When Georg Brandes held a series of lectures in 1871 with the title "Main Currents in 19th-century Literature," he defined the Modern Breakthrough
Modern Breakthrough
The Modern Breakthrough is the normal name of the strong movement of naturalism and debating literature of Scandinavia near the end of the 19th century which replaced romanticism....
and started the movement that would become Cultural Radicalism
Cultural radicalism
Cultural Radicalism was a movement in Danish culture. It was particular strong in the Interwar Period, but its philosophy has its origin in the 1870s and a great deal of modern social commentary still refer to it....
. In 1884 Viggo Hørup
Viggo Hørup
Viggo Lauritz Bentheim Hørup , was a Danish politician, journalist and agitator.He was the father to Ellen Hørup .One of the most influential politicians of the Danish non-Socialist left wing....
, Georg Brandes, and his brother Edvard Brandes
Edvard Brandes
Carl Edvard Cohen Brandes was a Danish politician, critic and author, and the younger brother of Georg Brandes and Ernst Brandes. He was a Ph.D. in eastern philology....
started the daily newspaper Politiken
Politiken
Politiken is a Danish daily broadsheet newspaper, published by JP/Politikens Hus.The newspaper comes third among Danish newspapers in terms of both number of readers and circulated copies ....
with the motto: "The paper of greater enlightenment." The paper and their political debates led to a split of the liberal party Venstre
Venstre (Denmark)
VenstreThe party name is officially not translated into any other language, but is in English often referred to as the Liberal Party. Similar rules apply for the name of the party's youth wing Venstres Ungdom. , full name Venstre, Danmarks Liberale Parti , is the largest political party in Denmark...
in 1905 and created the new party Det Radikale Venstre
Det Radikale Venstre
The Danish Social Liberal Party is a social liberal political party in Denmark. The party is a member of Liberal International and the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party.-Origin:...
.
Youth
Georg Brandes was born in CopenhagenCopenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
in a non-orthodox Jewish middle-class family, the elder brother of prominent Danes Ernst Brandes
Ernst Immanuel Cohen Brandes
Ernst Immanuel Cohen Brandes was a Danish economist, writer, and newspaper editor best known for editing the Kjøbenhavns Børs-Tidende, which published articles written by leading Danish men of letters, including future Nobel Prize winner Henrik Pontoppidan, during a period later hailed as the...
and Edvard Brandes. He became a student at the University of Copenhagen
University of Copenhagen
The University of Copenhagen is the oldest and largest university and research institution in Denmark. Founded in 1479, it has more than 37,000 students, the majority of whom are female , and more than 7,000 employees. The university has several campuses located in and around Copenhagen, with the...
in 1859 where he first studied jurisprudence
Jurisprudence
Jurisprudence is the theory and philosophy of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, or legal theorists , hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institutions...
. From this, however, his interests soon turned to philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
and aesthetics
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
. In 1862 he won the gold medal of the university for an essay on The Idea of Nemesis among the Ancients. Before this, indeed since 1858, he had shown a remarkable gift for verse-writing, the results of which, however, were not abundant enough to justify separate publication. Brandes did not collect his poems until as late as 1898. At the university, which he left in 1864, Brandes was influenced by the writings of Heiberg
Johan Ludvig Heiberg (poet)
Johan Ludvig Heiberg , Danish poet and critic, son of the political writer Peter Andreas Heiberg , and of the novelist, afterwards the Baroness Gyllembourg-Ehrensvärd, was born in Copenhagen....
in criticism and Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a Danish Christian philosopher, theologian and religious author. He was a critic of idealist intellectuals and philosophers of his time, such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel...
in philosophy, influences which continued to leave traces on his work.
In 1866, he took part in the controversy raised by the works of Rasmus Nielsen in a treatise on "Dualism in our Recent Philosophy." From 1865 to 1871 he traveled much in Europe, acquainting himself with the condition of literature in the principal centers of learning. His first important contribution to letters was his Aesthetic Studies (1868), where his maturer method is already foreshadowed in several brief monographs on Danish poets. In 1870 he published several important volumes, The French Aesthetics of the Present Day, dealing chiefly with Hippolyte Taine
Hippolyte Taine
Hippolyte Adolphe Taine was a French critic and historian. He was the chief theoretical influence of French naturalism, a major proponent of sociological positivism, and one of the first practitioners of historicist criticism. Literary historicism as a critical movement has been said to originate...
, Criticisms and Portraits, and a translation of The Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...
, whom he had met that year during a visit to England.
The Modern Breakthrough
Brandes now took his place as the leading northern European critic, applying to local conditions and habits of thought the methods of Taine. He became docent or reader in Belles Lettres at the University of Copenhagen, where his lectures were a great success and gathered huge audiences. His famous opening lecture on 3 November 1871, Hovedstrømninger i det 19de Aarhundredes Litteratur (Main Currents in the Literature of the Nineteenth Century), signalled the beginning of his life-long struggle to modernize Danish literature. On the professorship of Aesthetics becoming vacant in 1872, it was taken as a matter of course that Brandes would be appointed. But the young critic had offended many sensibilities by his ardent advocacy of modern ideas; he was known to be a Jew, his convictions were Radical, he was suspected of being an atheist. The authorities refused to elect him, but his fitness for the post was so obvious that the chair of Aesthetics remained vacant, no one else daring to place himself in comparison with Brandes.In the midst of these polemics, Brandes began to issue the most ambitious of his works, Main Currents in the Literature of the Nineteenth Century, of which four volumes appeared between 1872 and 1875 (English translation, 1901–1905). The brilliant novelty of this criticism of the literature of major European countries at the beginning of the 19th century, and his description of the general revolt against the pseudo-classicism of the 18th century, at once attracted attention outside Denmark. The tumult which gathered round the person of the critic increased the success of the work, and the reputation of Brandes grew apace, especially in Germany and Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
.
In 1877 Brandes left Copenhagen and settled in Berlin, taking a considerable part in the aesthetic life of that city. His political views, however, made Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
uncomfortable for him, and he returned in 1883 to Copenhagen, where he found a whole new school of writers and thinkers eager to receive him as their leader. He headed the group "Det moderne Gjennembruds Mænd" (The Men of the Modern Breakthrough), composed of J.P. Jacobsen, Holger Drachmann
Holger Drachmann
Holger Henrik Herholdt Drachmann , was a Danish poet and dramatist. He is an outstanding figure of the Modern Break-Through....
, Edvard Brandes, Erik Skram, Sophus Schandorph, and Norwegians Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnson was a Norwegian writer and the 1903 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. Bjørnson is considered as one of The Four Greats Norwegian writers; the others being Henrik Ibsen, Jonas Lie, and Alexander Kielland...
, but a conservative reaction against his "realistic" doctrines began around 1883, headed by Holger Drachmann.
Later authorship
Among his later writings must be mentioned the monographs on Søren KierkegaardSøren Kierkegaard
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a Danish Christian philosopher, theologian and religious author. He was a critic of idealist intellectuals and philosophers of his time, such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel...
(1877), on Esaias Tegnér
Esaias Tegnér
Esaias Tegnér , was a Swedish writer, professor of Greek language, and bishop. He was during the 19th century regarded as the father of modern poetry in Sweden, mainly through the national romantic epos Frithjof's Saga. He has been called Sweden's first modern man...
(1878), on Benjamin Disraeli (1878), Ferdinand Lassalle
Ferdinand Lassalle
Ferdinand Lassalle was a German-Jewish jurist and socialist political activist.-Early life:Ferdinand Lassalle was born on 11 April 1825 in Breslau , Silesia to a prosperous Jewish family descending from Upper Silesian Loslau...
(in German, 1877), Ludvig Holberg
Ludvig Holberg
Ludvig Holberg, Baron of Holberg was a writer, essayist, philosopher, historian and playwright born in Bergen, Norway, during the time of the Dano-Norwegian double monarchy, who spent most of his adult life in Denmark. He was influenced by Humanism, the Enlightenment and the Baroque...
(1884), on Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
(1899) and on Anatole France
Anatole France
Anatole France , born François-Anatole Thibault, , was a French poet, journalist, and novelist. He was born in Paris, and died in Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire. He was a successful novelist, with several best-sellers. Ironic and skeptical, he was considered in his day the ideal French man of letters...
(1905). Brandes wrote with great depth on the main contemporary poets and novelists of Denmark and Norway, and he and his disciples were for a long time the arbiters of literary fame in the north. His Danish Poets (1877), containing studies of Carsten Hauch
Johannes Carsten Hauch
Johannes Carsten Hauch was a Danish poet.-Biography:Hauch was born of Danish parents residing at Frederikshald in Norway. In 1802 he lost his mother, and in 1803 returned with his father to Denmark. In 1807 he fought as a volunteer against the English invasion. He entered the university of...
, Ludvig Bødtcher
Ludvig Bødtcher
Ludvig Adolph Bødtcher was a Danish lyric poet.He was born in Copenhagen. Thanks to an inheritance, he lived in Italy from 1824 for about ten years, where he acted as confidante and guide to the Danish writers Hans Christian Andersen and Henrik Hertz...
, Christian Winther
Christian Winther
Rasmus Villads Christian Ferdinand Winther , was a Danish lyric poet.He was born at Fensmark near Næstved, where his father was the vicar. He went to the University of Copenhagen in 1815, and studied theology, taking his degree in 1824. He began to publish verse in 1819, but no collected volume...
, and Paludan-Müller, his Men of the Modern Transition (1883), and his Essays (1889), are volumes essential to the proper study of modern Scandinavian literature
Scandinavian literature
Scandinavia literature or Nordic literature is the literature in the languages of the Nordic countries of Northern Europe. The Nordic countries include Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway , Sweden and associated autonomous territories .The majority of these nations and regions use North Germanic...
. He wrote an excellent book on Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
(1888; English translation, 1903), and was one of the editors of the German version of Ibsen.
The most important of his later works was his study of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
(1897–1898), which was translated into English by William Archer
William Archer (critic)
William Archer , Scottish critic, was born in Perth, and was educated at the University of Edinburgh, where he received the degree of M.A. in 1876. He was the son of Thomas Archer....
, and was highly acclaimed. It was, perhaps, the most authoritative work on Shakespeare, not principally intended for an English-speaking audience, which had been published in any country. He was afterwards engaged on a history of modern Scandinavian literature. In his critical work, which extended over a wider field than that of any other living writer, Brandes was aided by a singularly charming style, lucid and reasonable, enthusiastic without extravagance, brilliant and colored without affectation. In 1900 he collected his works for the first time in a complete and popular edition, and began to work on a German edition, completed in 1902.
He published a Main Currents in Nineteenth, Century Literature in 1906 (six volumes). In Volume 2 he says the following about Soren Kierkegaard. "It is not merely in name that this irony bears a fundamental resemblance to Kierkegaard's, which also aristocratically "chooses to be misunderstood." The Ego of genius is the truth, if not in the sense in which Kierkegaard would have us understand his proposition, "Subjectivity is the truth," still in the sense that the Ego has every externally valid commandment and prohibition in its power; and, to the astonishment and scandal of the world, invariably expresses itself in paradoxes. Irony
Irony
Irony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions...
is "divine audacity." In audacity thus comprehended there are endless possibilities. It is freedom from prejudice, yet it suggests the possibility of the most audacious defense of all possible kinds of prejudices. It is more easily attainable, we are told, by woman than by man. “Like the feminine garb, the feminine intellect has this advantage over the masculine, that its possessor by a single daring movement can rise above all the prejudices of civilization and bourgeois conventionality, at once transporting herself into the state of innocence and the lap of Nature." The lap of Nature! There is an echo of Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...
's voice even in this wanton tirade. We seem to hear the trumpet-call of revolution; what we really hear is only the proclamation of reaction. Rousseau desired to return to the state of nature, when men roamed naked through the pathless forests and lived upon acorns. Schelling
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling , later von Schelling, was a German philosopher. Standard histories of philosophy make him the midpoint in the development of German idealism, situating him between Fichte, his mentor prior to 1800, and Hegel, his former university roommate and erstwhile friend...
wished to turn the course of evolution back to the primeval ages, to the days before man had fallen. Schlegel blows revolutionary melodies on the great romantic “wonder-horn.""
Personal life and last years
In the late 1880s, Brandes fought against what he saw as the hypocrisy of prudish sexuality, which caused a rift with Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. Between the years of 1886 and 1888 Brandes was engaged in a relationship with the Swedish authoress Victoria BenedictssonVictoria Benedictsson
Victoria Benedictsson was a Swedish author. She was born as Victoria Maria Bruzelius in Domme, a village in the province of Skåne. She wrote under the pen name Ernst Ahlgren....
, who wrote "Penningar" and "Fru Marianne" under the male pseudonym Ernst Ahlgren. Victoria Benedictsson committed suicide in a Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
hotel room, and the relationship with Brandes has later been blamed as the cause for the death.
In 1890, Brandes turned to concentrating on "great personalities" as the source of culture. In this period, he discovered Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
whom he introduced to Scandinavian culture. Brandes, in an 1888 letter, wrote to Nietzsche advising him to read the works of Kierkegaard. He described Nietzsche's philosophy as "aristocratic radicalism", a description which delighted Nietzsche, and the idea of "aristocratic radicalism" influenced most of the later works of Brandes and resulted in voluminous biographies Wolfgang Goethe (1914–15), Francois de Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
(1916–17), Gaius Julius Cæsar 1918 and Michelangelo
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...
(1921).
In the 1900s, he fought the Danish political establishment on several occasions, but eventually had to curb his acidic attacks. However, his international reputation was growing. In many ways he emulated his own assessment of Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
, as an author against habitual thinking, hypocrisy and the thin veneer of morality. He condemned the maltreatment of national minorities, the persecution of Dreyfus
Dreyfus
Dreyfus may refer to:* The Dreyfus affair, a French political scandal* Dreyfus, a 1930 German film on the Dreyfus affair* Louis Dreyfus Group, a company* Dreyfus Corporation, a Mellon Financial Corporation subsidiary...
etc. During World War I he condemned the national aggression and imperialism on both sides and his last years were dedicated to anti-religious polemic. In this late period he made new connections to intellectuals like Henri Barbusse
Henri Barbusse
Henri Barbusse was a French novelist and a member of the French Communist Party.-Life:...
and Romain Rolland
Romain Rolland
Romain Rolland was a French dramatist, novelist, essayist, art historian and mystic who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915.-Biography:...
when he was co-signer in the foundation of Clarté
Clarté
Clarté is a non-partisan socialist students' organisation in Sweden. It publishes a periodical with the same name. Clarté was established in 1921, and was in its first years notable for its resolute opposition to Fascism...
, as well as E. D. Morel
E. D. Morel
Edmund Dene Morel, originally Georges Eduard Pierre Achille Morel de Ville was a British journalist, author and socialist politician. In collaboration with Roger Casement, the Congo Reform Association and others, Morel, in newspapers such as his West African Mail, led a campaign against slavery...
.
Legacy
Brandes stands as one of the most influential inspirations of Danish culture, an equal of Holberg, Grundtvig, and AnsgarAnsgar
Saint Ansgar, Anskar or Oscar, was an Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen. The see of Hamburg was designated a "Mission to bring Christianity to the North", and Ansgar became known as the "Apostle of the North".-Life:After his mother’s early death Ansgar was brought up in Corbie Abbey, and made rapid...
. Among his supporters, Brandes' work was seen as a liberator from repressive norms, authority and hypocrisy, and he served as an inspiration for many contemporary writers. On the other hand, conservative circles condemned him as an immoral, unpatriotic and subversive blasphemer; as he became the lynchpin of criticism against modernity
Modernity
Modernity typically refers to a post-traditional, post-medieval historical period, one marked by the move from feudalism toward capitalism, industrialization, secularization, rationalization, the nation-state and its constituent institutions and forms of surveillance...
in its entirety. At the same time, some socialists criticized his elitist attitudes, while some feminists have regarded his attitude of sexual equality as being inconsequential.
His brother Edvard (1847–1931), also a well-known critic, was the author of a number of plays, and of two psychological novels: A Politician (1889), and Young Blood (1899). He became an outstanding political figure of the party Det Radikale Venstre
Det Radikale Venstre
The Danish Social Liberal Party is a social liberal political party in Denmark. The party is a member of Liberal International and the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party.-Origin:...
.
Quotations
- Being gifted requires courage (1869)
- That a literature in our time is living is shown in that way that it debates problems. (1871)
- Poor is the power of the lead that becomes bullets compared to the power of the hot metal that becomes types. (1900)
- He who does not understand a joke, he does not understand Danish (1906)
- The Danish glee: the national version of cheerfulness. (1909)
- The stream of time sweeps away errors, and leaves the truth for the inheritance of humanity
- It would be as impossible for me to attack Christianity as it would be impossible for me to attack werewolves.
Further reading
- Some Modern History-Makers of Scandanavia III, Jonas Lie and George Brandes, Self culture , Volume 11, by Winfred Lee Wendell p. 434-440, Werner Co., 1900
- The Most Influential of Living Critics, Current literature, Volume 40, edited by Edward Jewitt Wheeler, Edward Jewitt Wheeler - 1906 p. 616-618
- Bertil Nolin: Georg Brandes. Gloucester, Mass., 1976. retrieved 2011-05-02
- Hans Hertel (ed.): The Activist Critic. A Symposium on the Political Ideas, Literary Methods and International Reception of Georg Brandes. Copenhagen, 1980.
- Doris R. Asmundsson: Georg Brandes. Aristocratic Radical. N. Y., 1981.
- W. Glyn Jones (ed.): Georg Brandes. Selected Letters. Norvik Press, 1990.
External links
- The Atlantic Monthly, Vol 37, 1876
- Georg Brandes, 1880
- Georg Brandes, 1886
- Georg Brandes, 1879
- Georg Brandes, 1899
- Georg Brandes, 1889
- Georg Brandes, 1898
- Georg Brandes, 1898
- Georg Brandes, 1898
- Georg Brandes, 1906
- Georg Brandes, 1906
- Georg Brandes, 1906
- Georg Brandes, 1906
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- Georg Brandes, 1908
- Georg Brandes, 1915
- Georg Brandes, 1915
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- Georg Brandes, 1917
- Georg Brandes, 1915
- Georg Brandes, 1915
- Georg Brandes, 1915
- Georg Brandes, 1908
- Georg Brandes, 1898
- Georg Brandes, 1898
- Georg Brandes, 1898
- Georg Brandes, 1886