Georg Brandes

Georg Morris Cohen Brandes (4 February 1842 - 19 February 1927) was a Danish critic and scholar who had great influence on Scandinavian and European literature from the 1870s through the turn of the 20th century. Normally he is seen as the theorist behind "the Modern Break-through" 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 dramatist Henrik Ibsen.

Georg Brandes is widely understood to have inspired the intellectual leftist movement of the inter-war period known as Cultural Leftism.

Biography

He was born in Copenhagen in a non-orthodox Jewish middle-class family and 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 travelled much in Europe, acquainting himself with the condition of literature in the principal centres 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 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.

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 the sensation for the time.Fact|date=June 2007 His famous opening lecture, on 3 November 1871, is often considered the gateway of modern Danish literature.Fact|date=June 2007 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 susceptibilities 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 the critic 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. Among his later writings must be mentioned the monographs on Søren Kierkegaard (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 his own country and of 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.

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. The most important of his recent works has been his study of 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.Fact|date=September 2007

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 coloured without affectation. His influence on the Scandinavian writers of the 1880s was very great, but a reaction, headed by Holger Drachmann, against his "realistic" doctrines, began in 1885. 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.

Between the years of 1886 and 1888 Brandes was engaged in a relationship with the Swedish authoress Victoria Benedictsson (who was known under the male pseudonym Ernst Ahlgren and who wrote "Penningar" and Fru "Marianne"). Victoria Benedictsson sliced her throat, due to her unhappy love affair and a demeaning recencion by Brandes' brother, in a hotel room in Denmark.Fact|date=September 2007

After 1890, Brandes partly turned away from the direct fight, concentrating around "great personalities" who enlightened the life of their mediocre contemporaries. In this period, he discovered Friedrich Nietzsche whom he introduced to Scandinavian culture. Brandes, in an 1888 letter, wrote to Nietzsche asking 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). These books must be considered less original or valid though often written with a dazzling stylistic mastery.

The influence of Brandes faded somewhat after 1900 but he was still considered a leading figure of Danish literary life and his international reputation was growing. In many ways he became a modern Scandinavian Voltaire with a great moral authority, condemning 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, Romain Rolland and E. D. Morel.

Today, Brandes still stands as one of the most influential inspirations of Danish literature, an equal of Holberg and Grundtvig. This has not prevented him from being criticized. The right wing has condemned him as an unpatriotic and subversive blasphemer and fornicator.Fact|date=June 2007 Left wing socialists have criticized his elitist attitudes, while the feminist movement has often regarded his positive attitude of sexual equality as being inconsequential.Fact|date=June 2007 Nonetheless his influence in Danish cultural history is still far-ranging.

His brother Edvard Brandes (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.

Georg Brandes and contemporary Danish politics

Georg Brandes influence continues until today, and has for long inspired politicians, writers and given birth to a strong cultural and critical tradition within the liberal and social movements in Denmark. Georg Brandes is also remembered by the right wing of Danish politics, and Dansk Folkeparti's prominent parliament member, Søren Krarup, is using him as an example of how radicalism, liberalism etc. is being promoted by people foreign to the soul of what is described as "the pure Danish people". The Modern Break-through us described as raping the Danish culture and Søren Krarup describes how Georg Brandes "...på grund af sit jødiske blod var han uden pietet for og samhørighed med landets fortid." which translates to: that Georg Brandes because of his Jewish blood was without feelings for and solidarity with the past of the country (Denmark)".

Quotes

* Being gifted needs courage (1869)
* That a literature in our time is living is shown in that way that it debates problems. (1871)" [needs correction?] "
* 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

Literature

* Bertil Nolin: "Georg Brandes." Gloucester, Mass., 1976.
* 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

*gutenberg author|id=Georg_Brandes|name=Georg Brandes