Contemporary Danish Literature

The late Romantic authors of Denmark who lived on the traditions of Oehlenschlaeger's time and the aesthetical doctrines of J. L. Heiberg, have gradually been passing away; and a new generation has grown up, which, though it knows Joseph, has repudiated his doctrine. A period of stagnation followed the disappearance of the Romanticists. The Sleswick-Holstein war of 1866, and the consequent hostility to Germany, cut off the intellectual intercourse between the two countries which in the first half of the century had been lively and intimate; and as, for a while, no new ties were formed, a respectable dulness settled upon the little island kingdom. People lived for the concerns of the day, earned their bread and butter, amused themselves to the best of their ability, but troubled themselves very little about the battles of thought which were being fought upon the great arena of the world. The literary activity which now and then flared up spasmodically, like flames over a smouldering ash-heap, flickered and half-expired for want of fresh sustenance. A direfully conventional romanticist, H. F. Ewald (1821-1892), wrote voluminous modern and historical novels, the heroines of which were usually models of all the copy-book virtues, and the heroes as bloodless as their brave and loyal prototypes in "Ivanhoe" and "Waverley. " Instead of individualizing his _dramatis personae_ this feeble successor of Ingemann and Walter Scott gave them a certificate of character, vouching for their goodness or badness, and trusting the reader to take his word for it in either case. Like many another popular novelist, he varnished them with the particular tint of excellence or depravity that might suit his purpose, stuffed their heads with bran and their bellies with sawdust, but troubled himself little about what lay beneath the epidermis.

There was something _naive_ and juvenile in his view of life which appealed to the large mass of half-educated people; and the very absence of any subtle literary art tended further to increase his public. Many of his books, notably "The Youth of Valdemar Krone" (_Valdemar Krone's Ungdomshistorie_), "The Swedes at Kronborg" (_Svenskerne paa Kronborg_), have achieved an extraordinary success. The former deals with contemporary life, while the latter expurgates and embellishes history after the manner of Walter Scott. Two subsequent novels, "The Family Nordby" and "Johannes Falk," are, like all of Ewald's writings, pervaded by a robust optimism and a warm Danish sentiment, which in a large measure account for their popularity with the public of the circulating libraries.