Ludvig Holberg (1684-1754) : Learning and Literature in the Nordic Enlightenment

This is the most comprehensive treatment of the great Danish-Norwegian polymath of the early Enlightenment, Ludvig Holberg (1684-1754). His famous plays are considered along with his natural law theory, his vast historical works, satires, moral essays, utopian novel, autobiographies, and more. The book aims to revive Holberg as a significant figure from a corner of the Enlightenment world. Written for a non-Scandinavian audience, the book deals with all the main areas of Holberg’s work and emphasises the wider European Enlightenment context.

Ludvig Holberg (1684–1754) was the foremost representative of the Danish-Norwegian Enlightenment and also a European figure of note. He published significant works in natural law and history, but also a very important body of moral essays and epistles. He authored several engaging autobiographies and European travelogues, a major utopian novel that was an immediate European succes, interesting satires that advocated women’s education and career, and a large number of comedies. These comedies secured Holberg’s status as the most significant playwright in Scandinavia before Ibsen and Strindberg. Through his extensive oeuvre, but especially through his plays, Holberg had a decisive influence on the formation of modern Danish as a literary language, something that was a self-conscious effort on the part of a man who saw himself as an educator of the public. Despite his contemporary impact at home and abroad and his ongoing popularity in Scandinavia, he remains little known in the wider world of enlightenment studies. It is the aim of this volume to revive Holberg as a major figure from a minor corner of the Enlightenment world by presenting the full variety of his work and giving it a European context.