From politics to existence: tendencies in the contemporary Danish-Nordic literature

Abstract

During the last two decades, Danish and Scandinavian literature was preoccupied with a broad variety of social and political themes. At the time of writing, however, a shift seems to be taking place. Under the influence of other contemporary Nordic authors, a number of Danish writers have started to show a growing interest in various existential subjects, which are often left out of sight or even despised by their politically motivated colleagues. In this paper, I will shed light on these new tendencies by touching upon works of a number of contemporary Danish-Nordic authors, namely those of Karl Ove Knausgård, Sara Stridsberg, Christina Hagen, Signe Gjessing, Christina Hesselholdt, Peter Adolphsen, Jesper Wung Sung, and Niels Frank. Moreover, I will compare these works with the so-called existential turn in the Danish literary history when a group of young poets, most important Søren Ulrik Thomsen, confronted the predominant Marxist’s understanding of literature back in the early eighties. Finally, I will attempt to situate this whole discussion within a broader philosophical context, pointing out that the existential literature of today is not as unworldly and escapist as one may be tempted to think. On the contrary, this new literature can be said to carry on the tradition of the philosophers Immanuel Kant and Søren Kierkegaard who brought about a fruitful understanding of modernity and stressed the importance of notions such as subjectivity and autonomy. In addition to that, this new existential awakening can be said to restore Isiah Berlin’s famous concept of negative liberty that most contemporary literature and literary criticism, until now, have disregarded.