Description

Book Synopsis
This book utilises the lives and friendship of the Danish literary critic George Brandes (1842-1927) and the silent film star Asta Nielsen (1881-1972) to explore questions of culture and national identity in early twentieth-century Denmark. Danish culture and politics were influenced in this period by the country''s deeply ambivalent relationship with Germany. Brandes and Nielsen, both of whom lived and worked in Germany for significant periods of time, were seen as dangerously cosmopolitan by the Danish public, even while they served as international cultural ambassadors for the very society that rejected them during their lifetimes. Allen argues that they were the prototypical representatives of a socially liberal and culturally modern Danishness (Danskhed) that Denmark itself only gradually (and later) grew into. This lively study brings its central characters to life while offering an original, thought-provoking analysis of the origins and permutations of Danish modernism and Danish national identity issues that continue to be significant in today''s multiethnic Denmark. Icons of Danish Modernity is a book about the uneasy waves that arise when celebrities take on national symbolism and about the beginnings of this formula in the early twentieth century.

Icons of Danish Modernity: Georg Brandes & Asta

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A Hardback by Julie K Allen

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    View other formats and editions of Icons of Danish Modernity: Georg Brandes & Asta by Julie K Allen

    Publisher: Museum Tusculanum Press
    Publication Date: 27/02/2013
    ISBN13: 9788763539784, 978-8763539784
    ISBN10: 8763539780

    Description

    Book Synopsis
    This book utilises the lives and friendship of the Danish literary critic George Brandes (1842-1927) and the silent film star Asta Nielsen (1881-1972) to explore questions of culture and national identity in early twentieth-century Denmark. Danish culture and politics were influenced in this period by the country''s deeply ambivalent relationship with Germany. Brandes and Nielsen, both of whom lived and worked in Germany for significant periods of time, were seen as dangerously cosmopolitan by the Danish public, even while they served as international cultural ambassadors for the very society that rejected them during their lifetimes. Allen argues that they were the prototypical representatives of a socially liberal and culturally modern Danishness (Danskhed) that Denmark itself only gradually (and later) grew into. This lively study brings its central characters to life while offering an original, thought-provoking analysis of the origins and permutations of Danish modernism and Danish national identity issues that continue to be significant in today''s multiethnic Denmark. Icons of Danish Modernity is a book about the uneasy waves that arise when celebrities take on national symbolism and about the beginnings of this formula in the early twentieth century.

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