Ludwig Holberg: A european Writer

Rossel, Sven H.

doi:10.1163/9789004651258

Cited by 4 publications

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“…Although strongly influenced by and influential himself in the eighteenth‐century European cosmopolitan, cultural landscape (Rossel, 1994), today Holberg is relatively unknown internationally, although quite a few of his comedies have been translated into English and French and more (Holberg, 2003, 2020; Holberg et al, 1955; Holberg et al, 2003). Holberg's comedies are considered part of the Danish and Norwegian cultural and educational canon and many theatre‐goers will have encountered his works in performance as Holberg is often performed as ‘the classical play’ in Danish and Norwegian repertoires.…”

Section: Ludvig Holberg's Comediesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Levels of presence in the drama text: Between close and distant reading¹

Kallenbach

Lawaetz

2023

Orbis Litterarum

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Digital studies of drama have tended to emphasise the written text and network analyses. As theatre scholars, we have approached the field from a different perspective by focusing on levels of presence. This includes the embodied presence of not only the speaking characters, but also the non‐speaking characters and the imagined characters mentioned by characters present on stage. This in turn includes another embodied presence, namely that of the audience, which actively engages with the text in performance and gives presence to these imagined characters. We also emphasise the implicit performance, the spatiality of the play and the maintenance of the temporal dramaturgical structure. The study is based on the 37 plays of the Danish‐Norwegian playwright Ludvig Holberg (1684–1754), published during the period 1723–1754. Holberg's comedies were heavily influenced by Italian commedia dell'arte and stock characters, or masks, were central to his plays. In this article, we discuss the question of how we can analyse levels of presence in drama texts via digital drama analysis, both from a historical and dramaturgical point of view. Our article points to a number of potentials as well as shortcomings of digital drama analysis and to the necessary synergy of close and distant reading.

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Section: Ludvig Holberg's Comediesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Levels of presence in the drama text: Between close and distant reading¹

Kallenbach

Lawaetz

2023

Orbis Litterarum

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Bookending the Enlightenment: Scandinavia’s first novel and the Anthropocene condemnation of its TV adaptation

Larsen

2020

Journal of European Studies

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Niels Klim’s Underground Travels (1741) was the European breakthrough for the Norwegian Enlightenment polymath Ludvig Holberg. The emerging novel format inspired Holberg to trust his readers to use their own rationality to decide on the contentious issues of their era. The intellectual contrarian had always been sceptical of his contemporaries’ ability to reason, but he died content that his writings had made a positive impact. Over two centuries later, a Danish TV adaptation of Niels Klim casts a more misanthropic verdict. The mini-series concludes that humanity lacks reason and is an environmentally disastrous mistake. This article compares narrative and thematic argument in these two works to explore the evolution of Western views on rationality, nationality, gender, and environmentalism. If it is the case that, as the TV adaptation and many modern critics suggest, human reason is unlikely to solve the twenty-first-century’s existential threats, what is the alternative for humanity?

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Historicist Cosmopolitanism from Scandinavia’s First Novel

Larsen

2022

Comparative Literature

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Today’s political despondency is informed by how Western populations no longer believe in the cosmopolitan stories that underpinned the modern world. Before Kantian universalism became hegemonic, the eighteenth century offered a variety of perspectives, like those of outpost philosophers Giambattista Vico and Johann Gottfried Herder. The scholarly and dramatic works of another thinker from the European periphery, Ludvig Holberg, have recently received new attention for their historicist themes. The ornery Norwegian polymath is praised for having anticipated the transnational cosmopolitanism that has reemerged in the past decades. Holberg was Scandinavia’s preeminent Enlightenment figure and is still beloved for his stage comedies. His only European success, Niels Klim’s Underground Travels (1741), argues for a cosmopolitanism situated in history, geography, and local culture. This article analyzes how the novel subverts its conte philosophique form to criticize common Enlightenment views on reason, universalism, and colonialism. Holberg’s philosophical “agonism of difference,” inferred from Niels Klim’s themes, is then used to evaluate four contemporary cosmopolitanisms: Appiah’s “universality plus difference” (2006), Tully’s “agonistic dialogue” (2008), and Habermas’s “legal order” (1997) and “postmetaphysical reason” (2019). What emerges suggests that Holberg anticipated a cultural collapse similar to what we experience today.

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Ludwig Holberg: A european Writer

Cited by 4 publications

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Levels of presence in the drama text: Between close and distant reading¹

Levels of presence in the drama text: Between close and distant reading¹

Bookending the Enlightenment: Scandinavia’s first novel and the Anthropocene condemnation of its TV adaptation

Historicist Cosmopolitanism from Scandinavia’s First Novel

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Ludwig Holberg: A european Writer

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

Levels of presence in the drama text: Between close and distant reading1

Levels of presence in the drama text: Between close and distant reading1

Bookending the Enlightenment: Scandinavia’s first novel and the Anthropocene condemnation of its TV adaptation

Historicist Cosmopolitanism from Scandinavia’s First Novel

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Levels of presence in the drama text: Between close and distant reading¹

Levels of presence in the drama text: Between close and distant reading¹