This broad, interdisciplinary work explores the often overlooked contributions of women to the cultural life of the Danish Golden Age. Featuring chapters on novelist Thomasine Gyllembourg, actress Johanne Luise Heiberg, and feminist writer Mathilde Fibiger, it spans three generations of women from the early to late Golden Age, examining the perceived proper role of women in Danish society at the time, including an examination of views by male Golden Age writers and thinkers such as Soren Kierkegaard and Hans Lassen Martensen. Offering a panorama of personalities, literary texts, theater...

The Danish Golden Age of the first half of the nineteenth century endured in the midst of a number of different kinds of crises political, economic, and cultural. The many changes of the period made it a dynamic time, one in which artists, poets, philosophers, and religious thinkers were constantly reassessing their place in society. This book traces the different aspects of the cultural crisis of the period through a series of case studies of key figures, including Johan Ludvig Heiberg, Hans Lassen Matensen, and Soren Kierkegaard. Far from just a historical analysis, however, the book shows...