A Glimpse of Danish Literature [Part 7]

We would like to introduce some representative authors to help readers gain more information and understanding about Danish literature.

Beautiful flowers in the garden

To provide readers with more information and understanding of Danish literature, we are pleased to introduce some of its representative authors.

ABELL Kjeld (1901-1961) was a playwright. His father worked in education . He was a reformer of Danish theater, rebelling against the stereotypes of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie. Later in his career, he increasingly tended to incorporate symbolic elements into his plays, leading to an abstract humanism (particularly influenced by existentialism).

The play Melodien der Blev Voek (1935) criticized the stagnant capitalist society. The play Anna Sophie Edvig (1939) expressed an anti-fascist humanism. The play Days on a Cloud (Dage paa en Sky, 1947) questioned the responsibility of science in the atomic age.

The writer Hans Christian Andersen.

Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was a writer, the son of a poor shoemaker. He received little formal education, grew up self-taught, and was reserved by nature, maintaining a bourgeois character throughout his life, which inevitably created a sense of unease when interacting with artists and aristocrats. From the age of 14, he moved to the capital, where he received help from some aristocrats and studied abroad several times. At 17, he had already published books. His first successes were with his travelogues and the book " Picture Book Without Pictures" (Billedoog uden Billeder, 1840). Andersen also wrote poetry, plays, and novels with a romantic flavor and a petty-bourgeois humanist character, which are rarely appreciated today.

The work that made Andersen famous worldwide for generations is his collection of stories for children (Eventyr, Fortalte for Born, 1835-1841), which includes over one hundred and fifty stories. Andersen borrowed plots from myths, fairy tales, folk tales, and history, adding fictional elements based on everyday life.

The stories were written for children, but adults also enjoyed reading them, due to their poetic yet realistic nature, profound philosophical meaning, moralistic themes, and critique of societal vices. Andersen even recounted his own life as an ancient tale in his book * The Tale of My Life* (Mit livs Eventyr, 1855).

The writer Hans Christian Andersen is perhaps a rare literary phenomenon in the world. Usually, countries choose monumental buildings, heroic figures, outstanding politicians, brilliant generals, etc., as symbols. Denmark, however, chose a writer – Andersen.

Denmark calls itself the land of Andersen, of "The Little Mermaid." A country with just over five million inhabitants, it boasts a writer that nations with hundreds of millions of people do not have the honor of possessing. Andersen often incorporated his unfulfilled ambitions, hopeless love, compassion for the unfortunate, the struggle to overcome one's circumstances, and solace in dreams and God's grace into his stories. Typical examples include The Little Mermaid, The Little Match Girl, and The Ugly Duckling…

In 2005, the world celebrated the 200th anniversary of the birth of Andersen, perhaps the most translated and widely read author globally. In Vietnam alone, from 1926 to the present, over one million translated copies of his works have been published, transcending space and time.

Andersen Nexoe Martin (1869-1954) was a Danish writer. He was born in Copenhagen and died in Dresden, Germany. He was the son of a stonemason. He suffered hardship from a young age, working as a servant, shoemaker, teacher, and journalist. He was primarily self-taught. In 1841, when Denmark was occupied by Germany, Andersen Nexoe was captured and fled to Sweden and the Soviet Union. From the age of 82, he lived in the German Democratic Republic until his death.

Andersen Nexoge was a proletarian writer, representing the socialist realist movement in Northern Europe, always siding with peace and progress, and defending communism. In his early creative period (1893-1903), he centered his works on the working people, but had not yet completely escaped bourgeois liberal thought and decadent literary tendencies; for example, his travelogue * Soldage * (1903), written after visits to Italy and Spain.

Andersen Nexoes became increasingly class-conscious, particularly due to his understanding of the plight of the Spanish proletariat (1902) and his grasp of the significance of the 1905 Russian revolution. Between 1906 and 1910, he published the world-famous novel *Pelle Erbreren*, the Conqueror. This work celebrates class consciousness, solidarity among the exploited, and reflects his belief in the ultimate triumph of social justice.

After the Russian October Revolution, Andersen Nexoe joined the Danish Communist Party and wrote the novel *Ditte, Daughter of the People* (Ditte Menneskebarn, 1917-1921), praising the kindness of proletarian women; an epic about the Danish proletariat.

In his four-volume memoir (Erindringer, 1932-1939), the author recounts his life.

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