Niels Lyhne is an aspiring poet, torn between romanticism and realism, faith and reason. Through his relationships with six women--including his young widowed aunt, a seductive free spirit, and his passionate cousin who marries his friend--his search for purpose becomes a yielding to disillusionment. One of Danish literature's greatest novels, with nods to Kierkegaard and a protagonist some critics have compared to Hamlet, Jacobsen's masterpiece has at its center a young man who faces the anguish of the human condition but cannot find comfort in the Christian faith. Tiina Nunnally's...