Andersen on the Move: The Early European Breakthrough

Beskrivelse

This keynote explores how the Danish fairy tale writer Hans Christian Andersen was disseminated in Germany, England, and France in the mid-nineteenth century using perspectives of world literature and translation theory (Pascale Casanova). The paper focuses on three key aspects. First, it analyzes how the international networks of translators, influential gatekeepers, and publishing infrastructures of the time conditioned and facilitated the dissemination of Andersen’s fairy tales. Second, it investigates how an uneven distribution of literary capital in the Western European literary landscape, along with variations in marketing strategies, target audiences, and differences in national norms and values, influenced the early translations. Third, building on the work of Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen it discusses how Andersen’s biographical narrative of his own life became an effective wildcard, a paratext that, in its positioning between work and context, connected the two in a way that created a productive synergy between author and authorship in the dissemination. The intention is to argue how a combination of Andersen’s strategic navigation of diverse European literary environments, the inherent agility and adaptability of the fairy-tale genre, and the self-fiction accompanying the dissemination of the fairy tales collaborated to place Andersen in a particularly advantageous position to break through to the international literary super-league of the nineteenth-century European literary landscape.

Periode	24. maj 2025
Begivenhedstitel	Hans Christian Andersen: Life and Afterlife
Begivenhedstype	Konference
Placering	Hong Kong, KinaVis på kort
Grad af anerkendelse	International