Ludvig Holberg 1684 1754

Ludvig Holberg (1684–1754) was the foremost representative of the Danish-Norwegian Enlightenment and also a European figure of note. He published significant works in natural law and history, but also a very important body of moral essays and epistles. He authored several engaging autobiographies and European travelogues, a major utopian novel that was an immediate European succes, interesting satires that advocated women’s education and career, and a large number of comedies. These comedies secured Holberg’s status as the most significant playwright in Scandinavia before Ibsen and Strindberg. Through his extensive oeuvre, but especially through his plays, Holberg had a decisive influence on the formation of modern Danish as a literary language, something that was a self-conscious effort on the part of a man who saw himself as an educator of the public. Despite his contemporary impact at home and abroad and his ongoing popularity in Scandinavia, he remains little known in the wider world of enlightenment studies. It is the aim of this volume to revive Holberg as a major figure from a minor corner of the Enlightenment world by presenting the full variety of his work and giving it a European context.

Ludvig Holberg (1684–1754) was the foremost representative of the Danish-Norwegian Enlightenment and also a European figure of note. He published significant works in natural law and history, but also a very important body of moral essays and epistles. He authored several engaging autobiographies and European travelogues, a major utopian novel that was an immediate European succes, interesting satires that advocated women’s education and career, and a large number of comedies. These comedies secured Holberg’s status as the most significant playwright in Scandinavia before Ibsen and Strindberg. Through his extensive oeuvre, but especially through his plays, Holberg had a decisive influence on the formation of modern Danish as a literary language, something that was a self-conscious effort on the part of a man who saw himself as an educator of the public. Despite his contemporary impact at home and abroad and his ongoing popularity in Scandinavia, he remains little known in the wider world of enlightenment studies. It is the aim of this volume to revive Holberg as a major figure from a minor corner of the Enlightenment world by presenting the full variety of his work and giving it a European context.

KynochLudvig Holberg (1684–1754) is to Danish theatre what Shakespeare, Molière and Strindberg are to their national stages – and the world stage. During his lifetime, Holberg was a major figure in European literature and thought. In the Nordic region, his work forms the backdrop to writers such as Søren Kierkegaard, Hans Christian Andersen, Henrik Ibsen and Karen Blixen. The quality of Holberg's writings, the universality of his themes, his understanding of stage and auditorium all more than qualify him to resume his role on the international stage. This second volume in a series of new translations presents Holberg's radical defence of women's equal right to education and employment, and two of his witty plays about playing roles, the professional and the self-delusional alike, in life and in the theatre. "Zille Hans-daughter's Gynaicologia, or Defence of Womankind" is a sparkling, witty and bitingly satirical poem 'penned by' a young woman named Zille, the teenage daughter of Hans, in which she dissects the absurdity of male dominance and the patriarchal society. "Erasmus Montanus" follows the self-titled, self-delusional, city-slicker university student (real name: Rasmus Berg) on a visit to the small rural community where he grew up. His arrogant and know-all behaviour throws everyone and everything into outrageous turmoil. The play is a caustic satire about what happens when abstract, unworldly scholarship collides with real life and material needs. In "Witchcraft, or False Alarm", actors in the theatre troupe working in a dormant provincial town are rumoured to be dangerous Satanists. The entire community erupts in a frenzy of terrified conspiracy theory paranoia, reaching the brink of violence before the misunderstanding is cleared up: the overheard 'pact with the Devil' was simply an actor rehearsing his role in a play he hoped would make some money for the empty theatre coffers. "I never tire of reading Holberg's plays." (Henrik Ibsen, 1869)

Ludvig Holberg (1684-1754) is the founding father of the art of theatre in the Nordic countries. He was a satirist - and university professor - who took his main inspirations from the comedies of Moliere and from the commedia dell'arte to create a number of plays that mirrored contemporary costums and conducts in a both realistic and grotesque way. Due to the psychological and philosophical strength behind the comic mask the plays have been staged and revisited ever since. In the 18th century the were part of the European canon. They should be so now again. This book presents Holberg in a European context as a reformer in the spirit of the Enlightenment even before Goldoni, Diderot and Lessing, and at the same time as an exponent of a carnivalesque tradition.

Ludvig Holberg (1684-1754) is to Danish theatre what playwrights such as Shakespeare, Molière, Ibsen, Strindberg are to their national stages – and the world stage. During his lifetime, Holberg was a major figure in European literature and thought. In Denmark, his work forms the backdrop to writers such as Søren Kierkegaard, Hans Christian Andersen, Karen Blixen. The quality of Holberg's writing, the universality of his themes, his understanding of stage and auditorium, more than qualify him to resume his place on the international stage. This third volume in a series of new translations presents Holberg's philosophical essay on the popular (but not with the authorities) masked entertainment of his day, the masquerade. Two plays then wittily expose and explore subtle negotiations around identity, gender, class, generation, each with particular focus on the mask as means of unmasking codes and conventions. Epistle 347 is a philosophical take on the carnivalesque masquerade as being 'truer' than the social roleplays, under the paradoxical maxim that "strictly speaking we are not truly masked except when bare faced". In the play Masquerade, a patriarchal master of his house sees his hierarchical world order under threat from the young generation – and even his own wife! – enjoying 'useless' masked amusements. At the other end of the scale, the servant pays no heed to rules and hierarchies. Ultimately, however, they are all but pawns in a game of chance. In the ironic harlequinade The Invisibles, a young gentleman falls in love with an 'invisible' (masked) lady. This noble case of amour causes the servant – Harlequin – to reassess his own wholesome, sensual relationship to his sweetheart – Columbine – and he finds their amour sadly lacking any sophistication. His ensuing high-flown attempts at imitating aristocratic courtesy cast an ambiguous light on the cultured protocols. It is up to female intelligence to remove the mask from the illusion. "I never tire of reading Holberg's plays." (Henrik Ibsen, 1869)

Ludvig Holberg (1684–1754) is to the Danish stage what Shakespeare, Molière and Strindberg are to their national stages – and the world. In his day, Holberg was part of the European literary canon; in the Nordic region, his work forms the backdrop to writers such as Søren Kierkegaard, Hans Christian Andersen, Henrik Ibsen and Karen Blixen. The quality of Holberg's writing, the universality of his themes, his understanding of stage and auditorium, more than qualify him to resume his place on the international stage. This first volume in a trilogy of new translations starts by presenting Holberg's 'poetics of dramaturgy' in the short treatise Just Justesen's Ref lections on Theatre, followed by two of his robust comedies dealing with power, illusion and dreams of greatness. Jeppe of The Hill depicts the lowly peasant who is momentarily elevated to a position of splendour. Clad in the trappings of his new and powerful status, he is soon well on the way to upending the established social order. But, alas, it was all a stage-managed trick, exposing the fundamental dilemma of (his) existence: "Am I dreaming, or am I awake?" Ulysses von Ithacia is essentially a surreal harlequinade about self-delusion, craving for empire and the heroic roles played in corridors of power. A metatheatrical play exposing the absurdity of war and stripping this pompous ruler of his 'new clothes'. "I never tire of reading Holberg's plays." Henrik Ibsen, 1869

The author discusses how religious groups, especially Jews, Mormons and Jesuits, were labeled as foreign and constructed as political, moral and national threats in Scandinavia in different periods between c. 1790 and 1960. Key questions are who articulated such opinions, how was the threat depicted, and to what extent did it influence state policies towards these groups. A special focus is given to Norway, because the Constitution of 1814 included a ban against Jews (repelled in 1851) and Jesuits (repelled in 1956), and because Mormons were denied the status of a legal religion until freedom of religion was codified in the Constitution in 1964. The author emphasizes how the construction of religious minorities as perils of society influenced the definition of national identities in all Scandinavia, from the late 18th Century until well after WWII. The argument is that Jews, Mormons and Jesuits all were constructed as "anti-citizens", as opposites of what it meant to be "good" citizens of the nation. The discourse that framed the need for national protection against foreign religious groups was transboundary. Consequently, transnational stereotypes contributed significantly in defining national identities.