Mikaël

Both an astute literary critic and a master prose stylist, Herman Bang was born in Denmark in 1857. His style has been described as impressionistic. With a few literary brush strokes, Bang is able to paint sensitive psychological portraits. Bang was not as optimistic as his colleagues about the Modern Breakthrough, the rejection of show more nineteenth-century perspectives for modern progress. His characters are often gentle individuals crushed by circumstances. Bang's propensity for depicting declining noble families makes him a major precursor of literary decadence and fin de siecle pessimism. Although he enjoyed great popularity abroad, particularly in Germany, Bang's success at home in Denmark was hampered by a competition with the critics Georg Branes and Edvard Brandes. Several books have been written about Bang in the Scandinavian countries; none have yet appeared in English. (Bowker Author Biography) show less