Jeppe Aakjær

Jeppe Aakjær; actually Jeppe Jensen ( born September 10, 1866 in Aakjær in the parish Fly Sogn, in today's municipality of Viborg in Skive, † April 22, 1930 on the farm Jenle at Skive ) was a Danish writer.

Life

Aakjær, the son of a poor moorland farmers, felt from attracted early on to the world of books. He attended community college and took 1884 on an exam course to the average maturity in Copenhagen part. There he became an active member of the socialist and atheist circles. Aakjær, enrolled member of the Social Democratic Party, remained all his life socially and politically active. His literary debut was not a work of fiction, but a polemic against the Inner Mission.

Even as a young man he held agitational carryforwards for which he had to go to prison for seventeen days in 1887. Formative affected him reading the works of Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Georg Brandes and Charles Darwin, whose ideas propagated Aakjær in his novels. Various short-term jobs followed as a community college teacher ( dismissal for konfessionsübergreifendem education) and social democratic journalist. In 1895 he began the study of history in Copenhagen. In 1893 he married the later writer Marie Bregendahl ( the marriage was divorced in 1900 ).

After economically difficult years he made his debut as a poet and prose writer in 1899. Since then he has worked as a freelance writer and became one of the most important of the so-called " folk realists". 1906 Aakjær traveled in the footsteps of Robert Burns, whom he admired, by Scotland. From 1907 he managed together with his second wife the homestead Jenle ( jütländisch for "solitary, secluded " ), on which he used his native folklore and until his death scene big of Jutland festivals has been held annually, as well as his role model Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson organized.

Today the farm is Jenle, were buried in the Aakjær and his wife, a museum. Since 1980 Aakjærs tradition of annual festivals, where there was always also speeches and musical performances resumed.

Works

Poetry

Aakjærs lyrical work is of central importance for the Danish home literature. His theme is the Heath and the Heath -sufficient farmers, the simple, hard, but also beautiful life in the country. Sange Before the poetry book Rugens he sat as a motto a telling quote from the biblical book of Amos: I am no prophet and no prophet's son, but I am a herdsman and a man who collects wild mulberries. ( 7:14) Many of his poems are always singable held jütländischem written in dialect.

Aakjær began as a socialist agitator with battle songs like Tyendesangen ( servants' song) and Kommer i snart ( Will you come quickly ). Throughout his life he wrote repeatedly political poetry, such as the song Her commercial fra Dybet the mørke Armé! ( This comes from the deep dark army ). However, most of his poetry is about a quite idyllic seen pre-industrial world in which man lives in harmony with nature.

Formally, it is based on the folk song tradition and the poems of Thomas Kingo and Steen Steno Blicher (via the Aakjær wrote a biography ), but also on the poetry of Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Henrik Ibsen and Holger Drachmann. Particular importance was for him Robert Burns, from which he translated poems ( including the famous Auld Lang Syne ) into Danish. Burns poems were for Aakjær model for poetry, nature bliss put close to the people, but was also open to social indignation.

To ensure that his poetry always remained vertonbar and singable, Aakjær used a self-developed melody template. Typical stylistic characteristics include the use of multiple repetitions and artful use rhyme. Many of his poems were set to music, some of Carl Nielsen. These songs guaranteed Aakjærs verses spread throughout Denmark. They are there until today to solid song inventory.

Novels

Also Aakjærs novels and stories deal with the world of farmers and farm workers. He writes with often sharp sozialagitatorischer tendency and expresses its profound indignation over any kind of oppression and disenfranchisement, whether. Church or by state, unmistakable expression So already Aakjærs shows earlier, semi-autobiographical novel bonding søn Christianity as an obstacle on the path to inner freedom.

Aakjærs most important novel is Vredens Børn. In it, he realized the intention of modern realism, which explains the shaping of individuals by their social environment, and combines it with traditional storytelling, lively dialogues and very plastic, documentary - authentic representation of the rural world. In no other work of Danish literature, the inhumane conditions to which the servants were exposed in the country, so heavily criticized. The book had a tremendous political impact and contributed to that far-reaching reforms were put in place, but against fierce resistance: In more than 1000 letters to the editor and newspaper articles were protesting against the depiction of rural life by Aakjær.

Ironically, Aakjærs struggle for reforms to the fact that the old Jutland world he loved, was irrevocably destroyed: The "Danish Heath Society" supported the poor cottagers is to convert the heathen in farmland. In later prose works Aakjær warned against the industrialization of agriculture ( glæde about in Arbejdets ).

Works

Swell

  • William Friese: Nordic literatures in the 20th century. Stuttgart 1971
  • Kindler's New Glossary Literature Volume 1 A- Az Munich 1988
  • Encyclopedia of World Literature, Volume 1 AK Munich 3rd edition 1988
  • Nordic literary history. Volume 2 From 1860 to the present. Munich 1984
  • Hanne Marie Svendsen, Werner Svendsen: History of Danish literature. Neumünster 1964
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