Harald Kidde

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Harald Kidde

Harald Henrik Sager Kidde (born August 14, 1878 in Vejle on Jutland , Denmark ; † November 23, 1918 in Copenhagen ) was a Danish writer , whose novel Helten ( Eng . "The Hero") is best known, whose last novel Jærnet ( Eng . "The iron") but from a literary point of view the more important.

Life

Harald Kidde was born in Vejle in 1878 as the son of a district road inspector. His sister died early of tuberculosis , and his younger brother Aage Kidde later became a conservative politician . He grew up sheltered in an educated middle-class family where music and literature were omnipresent, so that he was completely absorbed in them and gave an idea of ​​the poet-to- be. In 1898 he graduated from high school in Vejle . Because the father had also died, the mother and the two brothers moved to Copenhagen that year. Harald Kidde studied theology here and devoted himself to writing. Influenced by fellow countrymen Søren Kierkegaard and Jens Peter Jacobsen , who were critical of the church and who therefore did not follow Lutheran dogmatism, the student Kidde moved more and more away from his goal of wanting to become a theologian . Giving in to his doubts and conscience, he broke off his studies and sought distance from his fellow men.

He retired to the small island of Læsø in the northern Kattegat , where his mother was from, and worked in the house of a priest. Here he found the leisure to write. The publication of a prose sketch about a girl who, out of necessity, gave herself to a rich man was his undoing in May 1899, because a harsh newspaper criticism in which he was accused of a loose morality led to his termination of his employment. Kidde found new accommodation with one of his former schoolteachers who had become a pastor on the West Jutland Heath and continued his literary activities. The decision to turn writing into a profession had now solidified.

After a total of several of his works had been printed in magazines, Kidde published his first book in 1900 called Sindbilleder , a collection of short prose pieces in the contemporary style, which he referred to as " Parables ". In 1902 the first part of his own life-inspired double novel Aage og Else appeared , which was called Døden (Eng. "Death"). The second part, which came out the following year, was accordingly called Livet (Eng. "Life").

In 1906 Kidde became engaged to the writer Astrid Ehrencron-Müller , whom he had met in 1904 during a stay in Switzerland; they married the following year. The childless couple lived in Sweden for a long time, benefiting from the prestigious Anckerske grant ("Anckerske Legat") received in 1913. The couple stayed mainly in Värmland , where the intensive preoccupation with material collections and preliminary studies began with the ambitious material Jærnet ( Eng . "The iron") and lasted until 1918, when the book was published. Jærnet was intended as an introduction to a great epic , a tetralogy , about the industrialization of Värmland in the preceding 100 years. It should go on with “Guldet” (German “The Gold”), “Ilden” (German “The Fire”) and “Ordet” (German “The Word”). The concept did not come to fruition, and there are no fragments of the subsequent volumes either : shortly after the end of the First World War , Harald Kidde and his brother died of the Spanish flu just a few days in a row . Jærnet had only just appeared at the time.

Work and reception

Kiddes books were rarely sold - at the time, his work had a reputation for being strange and extremely serious. Helten (Eng. "The Hero") from 1912 reached - albeit after initial difficulties - a considerable edition and is today in many places his main work. Bernhard Glienke wrote in 1982 in his essay on Danish literature of the 20th century that Helten was a " novel of ideas ". The setting, the small Kattegatinsel Anholt , is a closed social system and in it the main character acts as a "tool of truth" in the sense of Kierkegaard. Hanne Marie and Werner Svendson described the influence on the population in more detail in their literary history published in 1964. It consists of Christian motivated will to sacrifice and “self-denying humility” and leads to the improvement of the people around him who appear harsh and threatening. In his lexicon of world literature, Gero von Wilpert calls the islanders described as " cynical and derailed", while the protagonist brings salvation to the island like a "witness of faith". The book is “a desperate but poignant attempt by Kidde to draw a modern figure of Christ ”. Helten strongly influenced the Danish generation of poets after the Second World War , including Martin A. Hansen ( Løgneren ). Glienke summed up that the “inclusion of neo-romanticism in neo-realism ” in Helten explains why it was rediscovered as early as 1940.

Both of Wilperts and in Glienkes representation is Järnet but no mention, though the novel was groundbreaking from today's perspective, because he led a literary collage and montage techniques with narrative and documentary elements, as well as stream of consciousness -Momenten one the one hand, the expressionist poetry and on the other hand, anticipated the essayistic novel. According to the Svendsons, the book is “the reproduction of an immense sequence of connections of thoughts” of its protagonist, of “conscious perceptions and thoughts, but also the impulses of his subconscious ”.

Instead of Jærnet , Aage og Else Døden is often cited as another important work. Meyer's Encyclopedic Lexicon then refers to it as Kiddes “main work” alongside Helten . Von Wilpert states that Kidde deals with "his main theme of fear of life and death longing for a folk song ". Hanne Marie and Werner Svendson commented: "The author's preference is obviously for the young hero who is still in puberty and is so painfully uncompromising in his fear of life, but the woman is also drawn with deepest understanding."

In various summaries it is said that in Kiddes works there was melancholy (or in another word: melancholy), skepticism (or depth of thought or simply brooding ) as well as an obsession with ideas . Furthermore, biblical and mythological motifs or mystical pietism can be found. Søren Kierkegaard's own influence was ideologically and stylistically by Jens Peter Jacobsen, Johannes Jørgensen , Henrik Ibsen and the Danish Romanticism.

Despite the importance of Harald Kidde, which is sometimes emphasized, he is usually not taken into account in Scandinavian literary histories .

archive

In the Municipal Archives Vejle there is an extensive Kidde archive.

Works

Novels
  • Aage and Else Døden , 1902.
  • Aage and Else. Livet , 1902.
  • De Blinde , 1906.
  • Loven , 1908.
  • The Andes , 1909.
  • De Salige , 1910.
  • Helten , 1912. ( The hero. Novel , Safari-Verlag, Berlin, 1927.)
  • Jærnet. Novel om Järnbärland , 1918.
Short stories and other prose
  • Sindbilleder , 1900.
  • Mennesker , 1901.
  • Tilskueren , 1901, Harald Kidde, Menneskenes Søn.
  • Luftslotte , 1904. ( Castles in the air , JCC Bruns, Minden 1905.)
  • Tilskueren , 1904, Harald Kidde, Smertens Vej.
  • Tilskueren , 1905, Harald Kidde, Drømmerier.
  • Aften , 1908. (Special edition by Ord och Bild , Volume 17, No. 5, printed in Stockholm.)
  • Mødet Nytårsnat. En Krønike from Anholt , 1917.
  • Vandringer , 1920.
  • Dinkelsbühl , 1931.
  • Under de Blomstrende Frugttræer , 1942.
  • Parabler , 1948.
  • Krageskrigene , 1953.

literature

  • Astrid Ehrencron-Kidde: Hvem Kalder? , 1960.
  • Alfons Höger: Form and content of the novels and smaller stories Harald Kiddes , Munich 1969 (dissertation).
  • Jens Marinus Jensen: Harald Kidde. Article and certificate .
  • Jens Marinus Jensen: Harald Kidde. Bidrag til en Biografi .
  • Niels Jeppesen: Harald Kidde and Hans Digtning .
  • Iver Kjær og others: Danske Studier 1992 .
  • Niels Kofoed: The nostalgic dimension. En Værkgennemgang af Harald Kidde's novel 'Helten' .
  • Ingeborg Kuke: Harald Kidde. His life and work , Jena 1940 (dissertation, printed 1942).
  • Laurits Nielsen: Catalog over Danske og Norske Digteres Originalmanuskripter i Det Kongelige Bibliotek .
  • Villy Sørensen: Digtere og Dæmoner. Fortolkninger and Vurderinger .
  • Otto Asmus Thomsen: Harald Kidde, Den vidt Berejste Hjemmeføding .
  • Cai M. Woel: Harald Kidde. Biografisk Fortegnelse .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Henrik Schovsbo: Harald Henrik Sager Kidde. Forfatterportræt skrevet af Henrik Schovsbo. In: adl.dk. Retrieved June 1, 2019 (Danish).
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Gero von Wilpert (ed.): Lexicon of world literature . tape 1 . Kröner Verlag, Stuttgart 1975, ISBN 3-520-80702-5 , Kidde, p. 853 f .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h Meyer's Encyclopedic Lexicon . With special contributions by Axel Freiherr von Campenhausen , Karl Larenz , Heinz-Rolf Lückert , Helge Pross . Ninth, completely new edition for the 150th anniversary of the publisher. With 100 signed special articles. tape 13 : J – Kn and 4th addendum. Bibliographical Institute, Mannheim / Vienna / Zurich 1975, Kidde, p. 654 .
  4. ↑ Ejgil Søholm (alias "ESoehs"): Harald Kidde. In: denstoredanske.dk. Retrieved June 1, 2019 (Danish).
  5. ^ A b Bernhard Glienke: Danish literature in the 20th century. Between the breakthroughs: 1900–1940 . In: Fritz Paul (Ed.): Fundamentals of the newer Scandinavian literatures . With contributions by Alken Bruns, Wolfgang Butt , Wilhelm Friese , Bernhard Glienke, Gert Kreutzer , Otto Oberholzer and Fritz Paul (=  basic features . Volume 41 ). Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1982, ISBN 3-534-08047-5 , Die neue Außenwelt, pp. 216–222 , here p. 217 ( fyrkrans.info [PDF; 1,3 MB ; accessed on June 1, 2019] Internet information: Compiled on June 16, 2014).
  6. ↑ a b c d e Hanne Marie Svendsen, Werner Svendsen: History of Danish literature . Karl Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster / Glydendal / Copenhagen 1964, the 19th century. The spiritual breakthrough, p. 377-379 .
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g Brockhaus. The encyclopedia in twenty-four volumes . 20th, revised and updated edition. Eleventh volume IST – KIP. FA Brockhaus, Leipzig / Mannheim 1997, ISBN 3-7653-3111-2 , Kidde, p. 706 .
  8. ↑ a b c d Harald Kidde. Biography. In: whoswho. Retrieved June 1, 2019 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kidde, Harald
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kidde, Harald Henrik Sager (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish writer
DATE OF BIRTH August 14, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Vejle , Denmark
DATE OF DEATH November 23, 1918
Place of death Copenhagen