Georg Brandes
Georg Brandes
Georg Brandes, born Morris Cohen, was a Danish critic and scholar who greatly influenced Scandinavian and European literature from the 1870s through the turn of the 20th century. He is seen as the theorist behind the "Modern Breakthrough" of Scandinavian culture. At the age of 30, Brandes formulated the principles of a new realism and naturalism, condemning hyper-aesthetic writing and also fantasy in literature. His literary goals were shared by some other authors, among them the Norwegian "realist" playwright Henrik...
NationalityDanish
ProfessionCritic
Date of Birth4 February 1842
CountryDenmark
I had an exceedingly keen eye for the ridiculous, and easily influenced as I still was, I could not content myself with a smile.
About the same time as my legal studies were thus beginning, I planned out a study of Philosophy and Aesthetics on a large scale as well.
My father, though, could run very much faster. It was impossible to compete with him on the grass. But it was astonishing how slow old people were. Some of them could not run up a hill and called it trying to climb stairs.
I was not afraid of what I did not like. To overcome dislike of a thing often satisfied one's feeling of honour.
Being gifted needs courage.
That a literature in our time is living is shown in that way that it debates problems.
What [Nietzsche] calls slave morality is to him purely spite-morality; and this spite-morality gave new names to all ideals. Thus impotence, which offers no reprisal, became goodness; craven baseness became humility; submission to him who was feared became obedience; inability to assert one's self became reluctance to assert one's self, became forgiveness, love of one's enemies. Misery became a distinction
My first experiences of academic friendship made me smile in after years when I looked back on them. But my circle of acquaintances had gradually grown so large that it was only natural new friendships should grow out of it.
It is useless to send armies against ideas.
I came into the world two months too soon, I was in such a hurry.
Just about this time, when in imagination I was so great a warrior, I had good use in real life for more strength, as I was no longer taken to school by the nurse, but instead had myself to protect my brother, two years my junior.
But when I was twelve years old I caught my first strong glimpse of one of the fundamental forces of existence, whose votary I was destined to be for life - namely, Beauty.
I became an ardent, but never a specially good, dancer.
He who does not understand a joke, he does not understand Danish.