Reproduction of the original: Comedies By Holberg by Ludvig Holberg

This book presents English translations of eight of the comedies Holberg wrote for the Lille Grønnegade Theatre in Copenhagen in the 1720s. The most extensive collection of Holberg plays available in English, the translation and other materials are based on research materials not available to earlier translators and are thus more accurate.

This book features three domestic comedies of character by Ludvig Holberg, including "Jeppe of the Hill," "The Political Tinker," and "Erasmus Montanus." These plays are a satirical exploration of human foibles and social manners in eighteenth-century Denmark. With uncompromising realism and a keen eye for detail, Holberg uses vivid and humorous characters to depict prevalent social conditions of his time in a way that remains relevant and entertaining today.

Ludvig Holberg is the most important man of letters in eighteenth-century Denmark-Norway and is often referred to as the father of Danish and Norwegian Literature, the Molière of the North, the founder of Scandinavian drama, or even as the first Scandinavian feminist. In all his writings - apart from being a dramatist in his own right - he excelled as a satirist, historian and essayist, Holberg is a true child of the Enlightenment advocating tolerance and moderation. At the same time, however, he transgressed its parameters. He introduced a series of classical genres but also violated their rules; he generally supported absolute monarchy but criticized its deficiencies, sometimes with subtlety, sometimes openly and relentlessly when, for instance, aiming his satire at the outdated educational system. Above all, Holberg was a towering cosmopolitan figure in eighteenth-century intellectual life, extremely well-read not only in the classics but also in contemporary literature. Furthermore, he was one of the most avid travelers of his time. He saw himself foremost as a European writer, attacking provincialism and narrow-mindedness wherever he encountered it. Holberg was strongly influenced by the European intellectual tradition and, in return also impacted literary trends abroad. This volume, written by experts from various countries, attempts to place Holberg in this international context. It highlights both the European influence on him and the influence he exerted in his own time as well as the fascination he holds to this very day because of his probing, critical mind, complex personality and, above all, because of the purely artistic quality and modernity found particularly in his immortal comedies.

These short plays by the great Danish-Norwegian playwright Ludvig Holberg reveal, in brilliant and sparking miniature, his genius for comedy. The plays are here translated into English for the first time, with an introduction by Svend Kragh-Jacobsen, well-known Danish theater critic. In these social comedies Holberg pricks the vanity of snobbery and the worship of riches, deals with the world of the philosophers, and has fun with the theme of common sense. A talkative barber, a scientific charlatan, and an ignorant farmer boy come in for sharp characterization. Originally published in 1950. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Ludvig Holberg (1684–1754) was the foremost representative of the Danish-Norwegian Enlightenment and also a European figure of note. He published significant works in natural law and history, but also a very important body of moral essays and epistles. He authored several engaging autobiographies and European travelogues, a major utopian novel that was an immediate European succes, interesting satires that advocated women’s education and career, and a large number of comedies. These comedies secured Holberg’s status as the most significant playwright in Scandinavia before Ibsen and Strindberg. Through his extensive oeuvre, but especially through his plays, Holberg had a decisive influence on the formation of modern Danish as a literary language, something that was a self-conscious effort on the part of a man who saw himself as an educator of the public. Despite his contemporary impact at home and abroad and his ongoing popularity in Scandinavia, he remains little known in the wider world of enlightenment studies. It is the aim of this volume to revive Holberg as a major figure from a minor corner of the Enlightenment world by presenting the full variety of his work and giving it a European context.

Often designated “The Molière of the North” and “The Father of Scandinavian Theatre,” Ludvig Holberg through the con­tinued popularity of his comedies has domi­nated the Danish National Theatre for more than two hundred years. Of Norwegian birth, Holberg is claimed by Norway as their own great comic genius. Both the Danish and the Norwegian National Theatres are fronted by statues of Holberg overlooking their entrances. This book presents the first introduction to and analysis of Holberg’s thirty-three comedies in English and is the first book in any language to explain why they continue to be the most popular comedies in Scan­dinavia. After introducing Holberg and dis­cussing how and why he could write such lively works, Argetsinger divides the plays into six general types: comedies of character, comedies of intrigue, comedies of special public occasions, topical comedies, philo­sophical comedies, and satires of dramatic forms, and provides a fully developed exam­ple of each type. He then examines those de­tails that make the scripts comic and stageworthy. The essential elements of Holberg’s com­edy are those of all successful comedy writ­ers: comic situations, business, character, and dialogue.