23 Facts About Georg Brandes

Georg Morris Cohen Brandes was a Danish critic and scholar who greatly influenced Scandinavian and European literature from the 1870s through the turn of the 20th century.

Georg Brandes is seen as the theorist behind the "Modern Breakthrough" of Scandinavian culture.

At the age of 30, Brandes formulated the principles of a new realism and naturalism, condemning hyper-aesthetic writing and fantasy in literature.

When Georg Brandes held a series of lectures in 1871 with the title "Main Currents in 19th-century Literature", he defined the Modern Breakthrough and started the movement that would become Cultural Radicalism.

Georg Brandes was born into a non-observant Jewish middle-class family in Copenhagen, the elder brother of prominent Danes Ernst Brandes and Edvard Brandes.

Georg Brandes became a student at the University of Copenhagen in 1859 where he first studied jurisprudence.

Georg Brandes did not collect his poems until as late as 1898.

Georg Brandes now took his place as the leading northern European critic, applying to local conditions and habits of thought the methods of Taine.

Georg Brandes became Docent or reader in Aesthetics at the University of Copenhagen, where his lectures were a great success and gathered huge audiences.

The tumult which gathered round the person of the critic increased the success of the work, and the reputation of Georg Brandes grew apace, especially in Germany and Russia.

In 1877 Georg Brandes left Copenhagen and settled in Berlin, taking a considerable part in the aesthetic life of that city.

Georg Brandes wrote with great depth on the main contemporary poets and novelists of Denmark and Norway, and he and his disciples were for a long time the arbiters of literary success in the north.

Georg Brandes wrote an excellent book on Poland, and was one of the editors of the German version of Ibsen.

Georg Brandes was afterwards engaged in writing a history of modern Scandinavian literature.

Georg Brandes published Main Currents in Nineteenth-Century Literature in 1906.

Durant and Georg Brandes were both contributors to the Mother Earth magazine.

Between the years of 1886 and 1888 Georg Brandes was engaged in a relationship with the Swedish author Victoria Benedictsson, who wrote Penningar and Fru Marianne under the male pseudonym Ernst Ahlgren.

Benedictsson committed suicide in a Copenhagen hotel room, and the relationship with Georg Brandes has later been blamed as the cause for her death.

Georg Brandes condemned the maltreatment of national minorities, the persecution of Alfred Dreyfus, etc.

Georg Brandes argued against the historicity of Jesus and was a proponent of the Christ myth theory.

Georg Brandes published Sagnet om Jesus which was translated as Jesus: A Myth in 1926.

Georg Brandes stands as one of the most influential inspirations of Danish culture, an equal of Holberg, Grundtvig and Ansgar.

Georg Brandes became an outstanding political figure of the party Det Radikale Venstre.