Outreach, Invasion, Displacement: Denmark’s Disputed Southern Borderland as Negotiated through Strategic and Affective Aspects of Space in Novels by Andersen and Bang

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter (peer-reviewed)peer-review

Abstract

The chapter discusses the representation of Danish territoriality and associated loss in three novels: Hans Christian Andersen’s De to Baronesser (The Two Baronesses, 1848) and Herman Bang’s Tine (Tina, 1889) and De uden Fædreland (Those without a Nation, 1906). The chapter explores the role of both geo-ideology and emotionalised environments, of strategic and affective use of space, in the novels. More specifically, the chapter compares the realisations of the setting of the contested Danish-German borderland as well as the roles of three different island settings in the novels. The examination of The Two Baronesses considers first to what extent the novel aligns itself with the privileging of Schleswig over Holstein in contemporary Danish geopolitics; it then goes on to document the novel’s use of a North-Frisian island environment as a transnational trope of outreach. The discussion of Tine is centred on the depiction of the invasion and violation of the novel’s sole setting, the southern Danish island of Als, which constitutes a national microcosm in the novel. Finally, the chapter approaches Bang’s follow-up novel, Those without a Nation, as a critique of a particular – binary and spatially closed – response to national loss and loss management. It is shown how this critique is formulated through the novel’s representation of the Danish borderland environment. It is furthermore argued that the novel’s imaginary island communicates not only displacement but also a more utopian idea of a nation with soft borders.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationNineteenth-Century Nationalisms and Emotions in the Baltic Sea Region
Subtitle of host publicationThe Production of Loss
EditorsAnna Bohlin, Tiina Kinnunen, Heidi Grönstrand
Place of PublicationLeiden
PublisherBrill Academic Publishers
Chapter6
Pages164-191
Number of pages28
ISBN (Electronic)9789004467323
ISBN (Print)9789004430389
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 29 Jun 2021

Publication series

NameNational Cultivation of Culture
Volume25
ISSN (Print)1876-5645

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • borderland
  • Denmark
  • Schleswig Wars
  • loss
  • 1864
  • novel
  • space
  • affect
  • modern environment,
  • Hans Christian Andersen
  • Herman Bang

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Outreach, Invasion, Displacement: Denmark’s Disputed Southern Borderland as Negotiated through Strategic and Affective Aspects of Space in Novels by Andersen and Bang'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this