Readings across

Literary history in practice

Readings across are written based on the writers' strong and diverse interests in Danish literature. Together, they wanted to make a book in which literary texts from before and now are put into dialogue with each other - both in ways that respect traditional chronology and in more unconventional compositions. In this way, the book can function as secondary literature when you, as a student, have to write literary history assignments, or as a catalog of ideas for teachers who are preparing to meet modern readers. The writers are of all academically active ages and come from all the country's universities, and Reading across is intended as a hopefully inspiring supplement to the usual Danish literary histories.

CONTENTS

Introduction: On criticism and love
By Jon Helt Haarder, Camilla Schwartz and Lars Handesten

PART ONE: Texts and contexts
Introduction to literary historical theory and method
By Lars Handesten and Simona Zetterberg-Nielsen

Period concepts in Danish literary history
What can they be used for?
By Lasse Horne Kjældgaard

Foot trips
(Detours) in the historical field
By Ulrik Lehrmann

SHARE PART: Reception stories
On the trail of lost time
Vølven's divination and literary history as time migration
By Torben Jelsbak

Reception stories
Three works and one author through time
By Lars Handesten

The modern collapse
Constance Ring read and inscribed from the 1800s to the present day
By Anne Birgitte Richard

A literary historical study of paratext
About the prefaces to the first Danish novels of the 18th century and new autofictional works
By Simona Zetterberg-Nielsen

Intimacy hunger and retreat attempts
Robert Walser in Danish contemporary literature as a historical case of impact
By Johanne Gormsen Schmidt

Sonnets and love across
By Louise Mønster

THIRD PART: Motifs across
The heirloom silver of the Golden Age
Romantic references in contemporary Danish nature and eco-literature
By Torsten Bøgh Thomsen

The dream of a place
Imaginations of paradise in modern literature
By Karin Esmann Knudsen

Nature calls
The forest as a romantic and modern refuge
By Malene Breunig

You Danish ghetto
The Danish literary history of concrete blocks
By Jon Helt Haarder

The inland waters
A mental image in Danish poetry
By Jørgen Aabenhus

Hysteria across
From longing for authority to adult phobia, from Skram to Lind, Nordenhof and Rasmussen
By Camilla Schwartz

Literature and the history of emotions
Apathy with Leonora Christina, Herman Bang and Theis Ørntoft
By Jens Lohfert Jørgensen

Lost paradises and inner hells
On anxiety as a thematic line in Danish literary history
By Jacob Bøggild

Poetic hugs across the centuries
A show with poems by Michael Strunge, Schack von Staffeldt, Erik Knudsen, Klaus Høeck, Edith Södergran and David Bowie
By Anne-Marie Mai