Ludvig Holberg: (1684-1754)

As mentioned on Monday, the mid 17^th century brought structural changes to the Danish state. War and a bad economy brought the establishment of an absolute monarchy , which in turn re-structured the traditional balance between the estates (clergy, farmers, burgers, and the aristocracy). These changes manifested as the old aristocracy lost the their tax-free status and a new aristocracy was established from the burger class by Christian V in 1671. The members of the new aristocracy were given the titles of count and baron, and outranked the older aristocracy. Their personal loyalty to the king was paramount in this decision.

Leonora Christine is a representative of the old nobility. If you recall, I posited that her Memoirs informed us about a deeply held Lutheran fatalism which provided the framework for the establishment of her conception of self. The self assertiveness of her writing reveals the notion of how the sense of a personal relationship with God necessitated (at least in her mind) an active engagement with suffering and an acceptance of circumstance as the playing field on which the notion of the self in the world was constructed.

Meanwhile cultural life in Denmark was slowly changing. In the 17^th century, only about 5% of all printed material was literary. The print industry was dominated by pamphlets and books on Theological and political subjects. By the beginning of the 18^th century the # of literary works increased to 20%. You can say that the 18^th century marked the beginnings of a Danish literary culture in the venacular and drama dominated the literary production. The leading figure of this emerging national literature was the Norwegian born Ludvig Holberg.

Holberg was born in 1684 in Bergen and moved to Copenhagen in 1702 (to study at the University of Copenhagen—there was no Norwegian University until 1811). During his student years, he traveled extensively to the Netherlands (1704), to England (Oxford, 1706-8) and later on the France and Italy. He became well acquainted with the emerging Enlightenment culture on the continent and this strongly colored his own work. He later became a professor of history at the University of Copenhagen. In the pieces that we have read, we can see a convergence of these social conditions: the establishment of an absolute state power with the support of the rise of a new aristocracy and the infiltration of the ideas of the enlightenment into Danish culture.

Let’s look at6 Holberg’s career—In 1722, the Kungliga Teatre was established on the direction of the Frenchman, Rene de Montague. The early repoitoire was dominated by French comedy (Moliere) , but the king saw the need for an indigenous Danish repitoire and Holberg was drafted. In between 1722-5 he wrote 24 comedies. Jeppe paa Berget was one of them. It is in this play we see a class consciousness previously absent from Danish Literature and the manifestation of a commentary on the rise of the new nobility.

Holberg was also an essayist. His Moralistiske Tanker was published in 1744 as an elaboration of his epigrams published in 1737. In our selections, the notion of the influence of education on the development of a human being is sketched out. Let’s turn to the works.