In Defence of Poetry

Af : Bruno Berni

Sophus Claussen is one of Denmark's greatest lyric poets. He has been compared to W. B. Yeats. Both started out from Romantic literature, and both turned to French Symbolism in the 1890s. In Claussen, as in Yeats, it is possible to trace the gradual transition from Romantic to Modernist poetry. Bruno Berni describes an oeuvre that has been of great significance to Danish literature right up to the present day.

In the 1890s, Denmark was characterised by a variety of literary movements and a series of contemporary currents to which the leading exponents of Naturalism still fully adhered while, at the same time, new stimuli became manifest that would influence the literature of the century about to begin. The most important of these was the Symbolist movement that was born in Copenhagen when the magazine Taarnet (The Tower) was published by Johannes Jørgensen, Sophus Claussen and Viggo Stuckenberg, three talented young poets who dared to break away from the Naturalism that held sway. Only ten years previously, the reaction against romantic idealism had been easily identifiable as a general trend and, only ten years later, the circle of young “Taarnet” poets would have broken up, but the 1890s themselves, during which the evolution of past generations of poets and the birth of new ones overlapped to produce fruitful results, perhaps provide the key to nineteenth century poetry.

What was happening did not constitute a complete break with the past, but a development of Naturalism, although in a different direction to that favoured by Georg Brandes; in fact, the Naturalist period was offset by the Symbolist current — an expression of the crisis of the century — that sprang from it, which did not repudiate Naturalism but went beyond it, aiming for a more complete vision of the world and of the role of art. The Symbolist movement was above all the “manifestation of Man’s need for the metaphysical”, as Jørgensen affirmed in December 1893, also stressing that “the world is profound, and only mundane spirits do not realise this”. During this period of change the Taarnet group, which also had strong links with the tradition that preceded Naturalism, revolved around Sophus Claussen (1865-1931).

A journalist, poet, novelist and translator of Heine and Baudelaire, Claussen made his debut on the literary scene in 1887 with a collection of lyric poetry entitled Naturbørn. His output, often identified with the Symbolist period, actually spans five decades, from the late nineteenth to well into the twentieth century, going beyond the First World War and linking the poetry of the new century to the legacy of the romantic tradition. Sophus Claussen travelled extensively in Europe, especially in France and Italy, and his poetic style reflects various international literary movements: from the romantic school to French Symbolism to a form of Naturalism with a broader, more complete and profound vision of the world. His natural affinity with Baudelaire and Verlaine, and his rapport with the poetry of the past, made him heir to a wide-ranging tradition that relates him to poets like Byron and Heine — as he himself acknowledges in his poem “Stamtavle” (Genealogical Tree) written in 1885 — but also to Realism “to which we swore to be faithful”, as he wrote in his essay “In Defence of Poetry”.

Claussen’s poetry was a source of renewal for Danish literature of the period but also for future generations, from Pilefløjter (1899), the collection with rich erotic and satirical overtones in which his early lyric poetry reached its height, to Djævlerier (1904), Danske Vers (1912), and lastly Heroica (1925) featuring poems in which Nature, in the positive and negative sense, represents the foundation of life and possesses a cruelty that challenges the heroism of Man which obliges him to give a meaning to existence. While the musical, rhythmical and symbolical characteristics of Claussen’s poetic style remain constant, a modern pessimism occasionally transpires in his work with regard to the materialistic quality that human existence assumed in the early years of the twentieth century, which is balanced by an optimism concerning the equilibrium that nature will inevitably restore.

Claussen was therefore a pivotal literary figure, a Danish poet who was more European than many. Like Silvio, the protagonist of his novel Valfart, he is a builder of bridges, who is deeply rooted in the European poetic tradition of the nineteenth century and, at the same time, considered to be the leading Danish modern lyric poet. He was a poet who described the connections between things, rather than the things themselves; a trend-setter who undoubtedly had affinities with many contemporary poets, during a period when poetry once again became a continuation of the past by linking tradition to the present. This is perhaps why his poetry has been best interpreted in the last few decades and his work has actually been re-evaluated by critics and much appreciated by readers in recent years. Hence, a century later, Sophus Claussen represents a model for many poets who share a similar tradition, which justifies, and will further stimulate, the growing interest in a poetic oeuvre which has a strong affinity with contemporary lyric poetry.

Denne artikel blev første gang bragt i Danish Literary Magazine 19.

Oversat af Susan Ann White