Hauch not
infrequently seeks his poetic themes in Germany, as do Nodier and Gerard
de Nerval. Ingemann's weak historical novels correspond to the French
imitations of Sir Walter Scott (Alfred de Vigny's _Cinq-Mars_,
Dumas' _Musketeers_). Oehlenschlaeger's tragedies correspond to the
dramas of Victor Hugo. With the Danes, as with the French, hatred of
intelligence, as cold; only that the Danes glorify imagination and
enthusiasm, the French, passion. Romanticism lasts in Denmark (without
Revolutions and Restorations) until about 1848, as in France.
II. The _School of Common Sense_ is in Denmark partly a worship of
the sound sense of the people, partly a moralising tendency. Grundtvig,
with his popular manner, his appreciation of the unsophisticated peasant
nature, had points of contact with the pupils of Rousseau. Moralising
works are Heiberg's _A Soul after Death_, Paludan-Mueller's _Adam
Homo_, and Kierkegaard's _Either-Or_. The funny thing about the
defence of marriage contained in this last book is that it defends what
no one in Denmark attacks. It can only be understood from the
contemporary movement in the intellectual life of Europe, which is now
asserting the universal validity of morality, as it formerly did the
right of passion. Its defence of Protestantism corresponds to Octave
Feuillet's defence of Catholicism, only that Feuillet is conciliatory,
Kierkegaard vehement.
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