Ivory Tower or Dialogue? Against the Myth concerning the Secluded Authors around Heretica

Contradicting the widespread belief that the modernist literature of the welfare state is solely of a secular nature and has a cultural-radical foundation, the article aims to show how religious ways of understanding and of expression have been of crucial importance for the literary idiom and the theme of welfare. A great deal of the modernist literature in the Danish post-war period was centered around the literary magazine Heretica, often considered as representing an aloof and secluded form of late symbolism. Danish literary history has seen modernism as a never-ending series of clashes between generations. Instead it is here suggested that we should attend to lines of continuity and study the connections between the literary generations, and look for the simultaneously existing plurality of various forms of modernism, which are interwoven in unpredictable ways. Deeply inspired by Soren Kierkegaard, for the various authors around Heretica truth lies in intersubjectivity. The meeting between the literary work and the reader, between people engaged in dialogue, is where the collective creation of meaning takes place. It is based upon the ability to tell stories, to communicate, to identify with the worlds and viewpoints of others - and this takes place through language and literature. In focusing on the societal and aesthetic significance of the Heretica authors, the article poses a new definition of the welfare state as an organisation of society that is based upon and in every sense of the word has the means to provide interpersonal relationships that may bestow identity through acts of dialogue (or by a divine creation).