Knut Hamsun: The Dark Side of Literary Brilliance: The Dark Side of Literary Brilliance (New Directions in Scandinavian Studies) - Rilegato

Zagar, Monika

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0295989459 ISBN 13: 9780295989457

Casa editrice: Univ of Washington Pr, 2009

Riassunto

Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1920, Knut Hamsun (1859–1952) was a towering figure of Norwegian letters. He was also a Nazi sympathizer and supporter of the German occupation of Norway during the Second World War. In 1943, Hamsun sent his Nobel medal to Third-Reich propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels as a token of his admiration and authored a reverential obituary for Hitler in May 1945. For decades, scholars have wrestled with the dichotomy between Hamsun’s merits as a writer and his infamous ties to Nazism.

In her incisive study of Hamsun, Monika Zagar refuses to separate his political and cultural ideas from an analysis of his highly regarded writing. Her analysis reveals the ways in which messages of racism and sexism appear in plays, fiction, and none-too-subtle nonfiction produced by a prolific author over the course of his long career. In the process, Zagar illuminates Norway’s changing social relations and long history of interaction with other peoples.

Focusing on selected masterpieces as well as writings hitherto largely ignored, Zagar demonstrates that Hamsun did not arrive at his notions of race and gender late in life. Rather, his ideas were rooted in a mindset that idealized Norwegian rural life, embraced racial hierarchy, and tightly defined the acceptable notion of women in society. Making the case that Hamsun’s support of Nazi political ideals was a natural outgrowth of his reactionary aversion to modernity, Knut Hamsun serves as a corrective to scholarship treating Hamsun’s Nazi ties as unpleasant but peripheral details in a life of literary achievement.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

" agar makes a strong case for the importance of discussing Hamsun's views on modernity, race, genetics, eugenics, and gender to understand his 'repugnant politics.'" --Anne Sabo, associate professor of Norwegian, St. Olaf College

"Knut Hamsun is a very important contribution not only to the study of Knut Hamsun's oeuvre, but also to the general study of literature. By asking the question of how Hamsun's works have been affected by his political and social attitudes, agar offers an instructive example of how crucial it is not to separate literary works from the context that enabled them." --Jan Sjavik, professor of Scandinavian studies, University of Washington

L'autore:

Monika Zagar is associate professor of Scandinavian studies at the University of Minnesota.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Univ of Washington Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0295989459
• ISBN 13: 9780295989457
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 343