Georg Brandes made literature political. Not by running for office or aligning with a party, but by treating books as instruments of societal change. He called out empty romanticism. He demanded realism. And he insisted that writers take on the world around them—inequality, repression, hypocrisy—head-on. He wasn’t a novelist or a poet. He was a critic. But in the Danish and European context of the late 19th century, that gave him power. He knew how to use it.
Early Life of Georg Brandes
Georg Morris Cohen Brandes was born in Copenhagen in 1842 to a Jewish family that valued education and ambition. His father was a merchant; his mother, deeply engaged in her children’s learning. Brandes moved easily through the city’s elite academic institutions, first Borgerdyd School, then the University of Copenhagen, where he enrolled at 17. He began studying law but shifted to philosophy and aesthetics. His master’s thesis, completed in 1864, traced the idea of tragedy across history—already signaling a shift away from legal codes and toward cultural critique.
Brandes grew up in a city caught between tradition and the stirrings of modern thought. The university still leaned conservative, but the streets were alive with debate. He absorbed it all. Early on, he read Søren Kierkegaard and John Stuart Mill. The former gave him an instinct for existential questioning; the latter gave him language for liberty, individual rights, and utilitarian reasoning.
A Danish Critic Who Went Abroad to Think
Brandes was restless in Denmark. After graduation, he left. He lived for periods in Berlin, Paris, and London, cities whose artistic and political energy far surpassed Copenhagen’s. Abroad, he met revolutionary thinkers, followed anarchist debates, and read everything from Nietzsche to Taine. His time in Berlin and Paris sharpened his political instincts; London gave him a firsthand look at both empire and poverty.
This period was not academic tourism. Brandes wasn’t collecting theories; he was sharpening his approach. In those years, he developed the critical framework that would define his career. He returned to Denmark with a mission: to import the seriousness, urgency, and relevance he had found abroad into the stagnant Danish literary scene.
Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature
In 1871, Brandes began a lecture series at the University of Copenhagen titled Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature. It was a turning point, both for him and for Danish literature. Over the course of several years, Brandes mapped the intellectual developments reshaping Europe—liberalism, socialism, secularism—and called on Danish writers to engage with them.
The “Main Currents” lectures introduced the principles of a new realism and naturalism to Danish and Scandinavian audiences. Brandes argued that literature should not retreat into fantasy or nostalgia. It should confront the real: class divisions, gender inequality, religious hypocrisy, and the crises of modern life. He wasn’t polite about it. He was urgent, polemical, and unapologetic. Many hated him for it. Many more listened.
The Modern Breakthrough
Brandes became synonymous with det moderne gennembrud—the Modern Breakthrough. It wasn’t a movement he invented, but it was one he gave structure and legitimacy. His criticism validated writers who broke with tradition and embraced realism. Among them were Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. They didn’t all agree with Brandes, but they all benefited from his influence. His reviews, lectures, and books gave their work political and philosophical grounding.
He also made enemies. The Danish establishment blocked him from a professorship, despite his qualifications. He had supporters, including Viggo Hørup and other left-leaning intellectuals, but the university held firm. Brandes stayed outside the institution, but not on the margins. His ideas spread. His essays were translated. His reputation in Germany, France, and Britain sometimes outpaced his standing in Denmark.
Realism, Naturalism, and the Fight Against Conventionality
Brandes’s writing rejected hyper-aesthetic language and symbolic obscurity. He demanded clarity, relevance, and confrontation. In his 1872 book The Emigrant Literature, he pushed for a break from inherited norms, celebrating authors who had rejected their own literary traditions. He later wrote monographs on figures like Goethe and Shakespeare, but even in those, his focus remained political and moral. Literature, for Brandes, was never just art. It was an ethical tool.
He defended naturalism—not as fatalism, but as truth-telling. He saw conventional literature as a form of denial. He believed authors had a responsibility to document the world’s inequalities and hypocrisies, and to challenge their readers to confront them.
Nietzsche and the Broader European Landscape
Brandes was among the first to introduce Friedrich Nietzsche to a broader European readership. His 1890 book Friedrich Nietzsche – seine Persönlichkeit und sein System helped shape Nietzsche’s early reputation. The two men corresponded, though they never met. Brandes identified in Nietzsche what he called “aristocratic radicalism”—an uncompromising rejection of herd morality that fascinated him, even if he didn’t fully endorse it.
His international reach extended beyond Nietzsche. Brandes was read and published across the continent. He settled in Berlin for a period and maintained an active correspondence with writers, scholars, and activists. His influence, while often contested in Denmark, was firmly established in the broader European intellectual tradition.
Conclusion and FAQs About Georg Brandes
Conclusion
In the last decades of his life, Brandes focused increasingly on anti-religious polemic. He wrote critically about Christianity, Judaism, and the historical foundations of religious belief. His later writings included works on the historicity of Jesus, which were widely read and fiercely criticized. He never softened his stance, never retreated from his belief that intellectuals should confront dogma, not accommodate it.
When Georg Brandes died in 1927, he left behind over 30 books and countless essays, and a legacy that advanced Danish literary criticism. His enemies accused him of arrogance. His supporters called him fearless. Both were right. He was never neutral. He believed literature should provoke, not soothe. And for over fifty years, he used his voice to make sure it did.
Summary
- Early life: Born in 1842 in Copenhagen to a Jewish merchant family, Brandes studied philosophy and aesthetics at the University of Copenhagen, where he shifted focus from law to cultural criticism.
- Education abroad: He lived in Berlin, Paris, and London after graduation, engaging with radical thinkers and developing the political and literary ideas that would define his career.
- Career breakthrough: His 1871 lecture series Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature urged Danish writers to engage with social realities like inequality and repression, launching the Modern Breakthrough.
- Critical influence: Though denied a professorship, Brandes became one of Europe’s most influential critics, promoting realism, naturalism, and political engagement in literature.
- Writers supported: He elevated figures like Ibsen and Strindberg, giving legitimacy to those breaking with romantic conventions.
- Writing style: Brandes opposed escapism in literature, demanding clarity and relevance. He championed literature as an ethical and social force.
- International role: He introduced Nietzsche to a wider European audience and maintained intellectual ties across the continent, even when Denmark’s establishment resisted him.
- Later work: In his final years, Brandes focused on anti-religious writings and critiques of dogma, never softening his critical stance.
- Legacy: When he died in 1927, Brandes left behind over 30 books and a transformed literary culture.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Who was Georg Brandes, and what was his role in Scandinavian literature?
Georg Brandes was a Danish literary critic who played a central role in pushing Scandinavian literature into the modern era. Starting around 1870, he challenged writers to abandon romantic nationalism and focus instead on the political, social, and psychological realities of their time. He didn’t write fiction, but his criticism helped define what serious literature would look like for the next generation.
2. What did Brandes argue for in his famous lecture series?
In 1871, Brandes launched his Main Currents in Nineteenth-Century Literature lectures at the University of Copenhagen. The series of lectures ran through 1877. He argued that literature should address real problems—poverty, gender inequality, political repression—instead of retreating into historical nostalgia or moral fables. He introduced Danish audiences to the radical currents moving through European literature from the 1870s onward and called on local writers to respond.
3. Did Brandes ever become a professor at the university?
No. Though Brandes was easily qualified, the University of Copenhagen denied him a professorship of aesthetics. His open rejection of Christianity and his outspoken politics made him too controversial. He continued lecturing and writing anyway, with far more reach than most of his academic rivals.
4. How did Brandes influence other writers?
Brandes influenced a number of major Scandinavian authors—not through personal mentorship, but through his ideas. Among them: the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, Jonas Lie, and J.P. Jacobsen. While their styles differed, their literary goals were shared: to break with convention and make literature answer to the real world.
5. What kind of literature did Brandes oppose?
He took aim at writing that prized style over substance. He was especially critical of fantasy in literature when it served as a way to avoid uncomfortable truths. He dismissed what he saw as decorative or escapist—what he called the literature of evasion—and instead promoted realism and moral clarity.
6. What was Brandes doing by the age of 30?
By 30, Brandes had completed his academic work, studied jurisprudence briefly, traveled through Europe, and returned to Denmark with a clear critical agenda. His lecture series had begun. He had already published significant essays, and his campaign to modernize Danish and Scandinavian literature was underway.
7. How did Brandes become known outside Denmark?
Brandes gained a reputation across Europe through his writing and correspondence. He published a German edition of Main Currents, wrote about figures like Goethe and Shakespeare, and introduced thinkers such as Friedrich Nietzsche to Scandinavian audiences. He wrote in multiple languages and was read in Berlin, Paris, and London.
8. Was Brandes involved in political debates in Denmark?
Yes. Brandes was a prominent voice in the cultural battles of his time. In 1884, Viggo Hørup and Edvard Brandes co-founded Politiken, a newspaper aligned with Brandes’s liberal views. He wasn’t a politician, but his criticism regularly crossed into political territory. His attacks on the Danish church, monarchy, and literary establishment kept him at the center of public life.
9. What did Brandes write in his later years?
His last years were dedicated to anti-religious polemic. He wrote a series of works that argued against the historicity of Jesus and rejected the authority of religious doctrine. These writings were blunt and controversial, and they cemented his reputation as a critic who refused to soften with age.
10. Who else influenced Brandes’s thinking?
Brandes drew on the work of several European intellectuals, including Hippolyte Taine, John Stuart Mill, and Ferdinand Lassalle. He was also in conversation with the ideas of Renan, and he critiqued Danish figures like Grundtvig, Heiberg, and Rasmus Nielsen. His work was steeped in continental philosophy, but his tone was always his own.
11. Did Brandes write about William Shakespeare?
Yes. Brandes wrote a monograph on Shakespeare, interpreting him through a realist lens. It wasn’t a scholarly exercise—Brandes used Shakespeare as part of his larger argument for literature that speaks to power, politics, and human motivation.
12. Where does Brandes fit in the broader literary timeline?
Brandes was active from the 1870s through the turn of the 20th century. His influence peaked in the late 1880s, but he kept writing well into the 1920s. He helped define what modern literary criticism could be, and in doing so, he helped pull Scandinavian culture into alignment with the rest of Europe.
13. Was Brandes ever acknowledged in major reference works?
Yes. His work and life were profiled in publications such as the Jewish Encyclopedia, edited by Isidore Singer. He was widely recognized during his lifetime and remains a reference point in any serious study of Danish literary history.
14. What was Georg Brandes doing in 1889?
In 1889, the Danish critic and scholar published a book on Friedrich Nietzsche—Friedrich Nietzsche – seine Persönlichkeit und sein System. He was one of the first critics to take Nietzsche seriously, presenting him not as a fringe figure but as a major voice in European thought.
15. How did Brandes view Danish poets?
Brandes didn’t hold back when it came to Danish poets. He had little patience for lyricism that ignored the world outside the self. Poets who stuck to personal sentiment or national nostalgia came in for criticism. What he wanted was moral weight, not decorative language. If a poem couldn’t engage with the political or ethical tensions of the time, he saw it as irrelevant.
16. Did Brandes ever write about Ludvig Holberg?
Yes, but not reverently. Brandes wrote about Holberg as part of his broader effort to reassess the literary canon. He recognized Holberg’s historical role in Danish literature but treated him as a figure of the Enlightenment—useful in his time, less so in the present. Brandes wasn’t interested in preserving reputations. He was interested in whether a writer still mattered. In Holberg’s case, the answer was: maybe, but not enough.
