Language:
English
Year of publication:
1986
Titel der Quelle:
Edda; Nordisk tidsskrift for litteraturforskning
Angaben zur Quelle:
2 (1986) 123-133
Keywords:
Hamsun, Knut,
;
Antisemitism in literature
Abstract:
Defends the Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun, described in an article by Allen Simpson ("Edda" 5, 1977) as an antisemite. Simpson assumed that Hamsun's acceptance of the Nazis' glorification of the peasant and return to the soil was proof that he accepted all aspects of Nazi ideology. Analyzes Hamsun's letters, political writings, and fiction in order to show he was not antisemitic. He attacked the Jews as agents of the commercialization of modern life and the decline of rural values, and sympathized with German resistance to Jewish domination in which he sincerely believed due to his political naivete. Shows that unpleasant characters in Hamsun's novels, cited as antisemitic portraits, are not Jewish and his Jewish characters are not unpleasant.
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