Novel
Phantasterne
Not translated into English
Hans Egede Schack · 1857
Opening lines
For faa Aar siden stod der i en Egn i Sjælland et gammelt, ærværdigt Egetræ, om hvilket Egnens Beboere med en vis Stolthed pleiede at fortælle, at det var over sine tusind Aar gammelt.
A few years ago there stood in a district of Zealand an old and venerable oak, of which the local people used to relate with a certain pride that it was more than a thousand years old.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from tekster.kb.dk
Synopsis
On an estate in Zealand, three boys play at generals and princes: Conrad, nephew and heir of the owner, Christian, the pastor's son, and Thomas, who tends the animals. Conrad goes up to Copenhagen to study at the home of his aunt Therese, a young widow, and the daydreaming changes its object.
Context
The book came out at Christmas 1857, signed only with the initials E. S., and bears 1858 on its title page. Its author was then a ministry secretary, and he would publish nothing else: the novel of manners he had been writing and dictating since 1856 remained unfinished and was not printed until 1954. He saw in it a Don Quixote of his century; critics have since made it a counterpart to the book Flaubert was publishing at the same moment, and a stage between Romanticism and the modern breakthrough. The Brandes brothers reproached J. P. Jacobsen with having followed its childhood scenes too closely.
Who it is for
A novel in the first person. Know before opening it that the word in the title designates those who live on dreams, not authors of fantasy. No French or English translation.
Prizes and reception
Hailed on its release by critics and by the political world alike, and regarded ever since as one of the most original books that Denmark possesses.
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