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Villy Sørensen (1929-2001) |
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Danish philosopher, short-story writer, and essayist, a modernist storyteller with an absurdist flavor. In the tradition of his great countryman Hans Christian Andersen, Villy Sørensen developed his philosophical and psychological positions as an integral part of his fiction. The style is misleadingly clear but hides a multi-layered and ironic interpretation of the world. Sørensen's psychological insights have invited comparison with those of Franz Kafka, but as a philosopher he was more influenced by Søren Kierkegaard. "You know, your mother will carry out her ideas, never mine, he said, and sighed. "We never get any food now, because she says there's a tiger in the kitchen. Of course, I wanted to go in and chase it out, but she has locked the door and hidden the key. I was just reading about tigers in the encyclopædia. There is plenty about them, but nothing about them living kitchens." (Tiger in the Kitchen and Other Strange Stories by Villy Sørensen, translated from the Danish by Maureen Neiiendam, with an introduction by Angus Wilson, Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1969, p. 3) Villy Sørensen was born in Frederiksberg, near Copenhagen, the son
of Johannes Peder Sørensen, a railway conductor, and Anna
Mathilde Thomsen. Part of his growing-up years occurred during the Nazi occupation of Denmark. Sørensen attended the Vestre Borgerdydskole, and graduated
in 1947. He then studied philosophy at the University of
Copenhagen and the University of Freiburg, but dropped out in 1954. During the post-World War II
period Sørensen became a major figure in Danish intellectual life. From 1959
to 1963 he co-edited with Klaus Rifbjerg Vindrosen (The wind
rose), the leading Danish modernist journal of its time. In 1965 he
became a member of the Danish Academy. From 1978 to 1981 he was the
editor of På Vej,
and Gyldendal Kulturbibliotek from 1987 to 1991. Villy Sørensen died on December 16, 2001. Although he lived alone most of his life, he had a wide circle of friends, who included Niels Barfoed, Klaus Rifbjerg, Vagn Lundbye, Ib Michael, Sven Holm and Suzanne Brøgger. Due to chronic back pain, he didn't travel much and was also compelled to withdrew from public appearances. Sørensen often invited colleagues and friends to his home in Taarbæk. Sørensen received several awards, including the Danish Critics Prize (1959), Danish Academy Prize (1962), Gyldendal Prize (1965), Nathansen Award (1969), Holberg Medal (1973), Brandes Prize (1973), Steffens Prize (1974), Nordic Council Prize (1974), Amalienborg Prize (1977), Hans Christian Andersen Award (1983), Swedish Academy Nordic Prize (1986), Poul Henningsen Prize (1987), Wilster Prize (1988), and Paul Hammerich Prize (1994). Sørensen had an honorary degree from the University of Copenhagen. Sære historier (1953, Tiger in the Kitchen and Other Strange Stories), Sørensen's first collection of stories, broke a new ground in the Danish modernist movement. The tone is often ironic, masking the seriousness at the root of the matters. Something can be cruel and funny at the same time in the world of children, as pointed out in the macabre tale 'Blot en drengestreg' (Child's Play), about two brothers, who play doctors and amputate the leg of an another boy. In Sørensen, the comical is present in every stage of life. Much of his material came from the Bible, legends, ballads, world literature, and history. As a thinker, throughout Sørensen's writings the major concern was the relationship between language and philosophy. Ufarlige historier (1955, Harmless Tales) further explored the realms of the strange (det fremmede). The characters confront both the known and the unknown within themselves. Formynderfortællinger (1964, Tutelary Tales) was defined by Sørensen as "a chapter in the history of the European psyche." In the short story 'Another Metamorphosis' (De mange og De enkelte og andre småhistorier, 1986) the invisible narrator observes two German brothers, who have bought a doll’s house for their father. He has returned home from a nursing home, where they have shrunk him – he is some 20 or 30 centimeters tall. Sørensen was a lifelong reader of Andersen but his "fairytales" were written for adults. In the 1960s Sørensen participated in the social and political
debate through the translations of Kafka's short stories and works on Friedrich Nietzsche and Arthur Schopenhauer. He also edited Karl Marx's Økonomi of filosofi
(1962) but insisted that he had no special political agenda –
the political and the aesthetic were not radically distinct in his
work. Though Sørensen criticized the emphasis on materialistic
values, he saw that the idea of the welfare state is a
system, where it is "possible for the individual to regard the
entire social sphere as something inessential—and to conceive it with the same indifference as Kierkegaard himself did." (quoted in 'The Permanent Reception – 150 Years of Reading Kierkegaard' by Steen Tullberg, in Kierkegaard's International Reception, Tome I: Northern and Western Europe, London and New York: Routledge, edited by Jon Stewart, 2009, p. 85) His own inner conflicts Sørensen recognized
in the character of Seneca, the 1st-century poet, thinker,
and a statesman. Seneca, humanisted ved Neros hof (1976) drew paralles between the metropolis of Rome and Nero's court and our contemporary society: "If Seneca appears to be more modern than many philosopher who are closer to us in time, it is, of course, partly because present-day Europe has more in common with the city of Rome than with the more limited and enclosed society of pre-industrialised Europe. With its worship of quantity, its lack of common spiritual values, its wealth and its poverty, its enjoyment of life and its spleen, its search for entertainment and for salvation, its individualism and its mass psychosis, Rome was the great precursor of our own urban civilization." (Seneca: The Humanist at the Court of Nero, translated by W. Glyn Jones, Edinburgh: Canongate; 1984, p. 9) In 'The Enemy,' from Sære historier, a village is annihilated by a man who burns with his glare his enemies, but saves a dark-eyed girl. He tells how he would have saved all if he had known that he would meet the girl there. The girl asks, in disappointment, whether he had not come for her? The burned soldiers kill the man, the village is rebuilt but the girl never marries. 'A Tale of Glass' from Formynderfortællinger depicts with seemingly simplicity the consequences of an optician's invention of a glass which transforms the perception of those who peer through it so that the world looks good. Ragnarok (1982, The Downfall of the Gods), which drew on Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda (ca. 1220), and Apollons oprør (1989) were the first two volumes of a trilogy on Norse, Greek, and Judeo-Christian mythology. In Ragnarok Sørensen took his subject from the 10th-century Icelandic poem Völuspá,
in which Ragnarok is the great battle which provides a climax for the
"Twilight of the Gods" in Norse Mythology. Its fairy-tale language is explicit but conveys
meanings that connect ancient gods to the modern world and eternal
philosophical problems. Among the central characters is Loki, who is not good, not bad, but a kind of trickster-character. In 'Balder's dream' the god of light and justice is troubled by a recurrent dream, in which he is killed by other gods but not Loki. He is afraid of death and asks himself why Odin, the god of wisdom, war and death, doesn't do anything to stop Ragnarok, the end of the world. But if Odin, the supreme god, has no knowledge of Ragnarok, what kind of god was he then? Vejrdage (1980) is a collection of reflections in verse and prose in the form of diary entries from the summer of 1979. One of the central themes is the way words change or extend their meanings. Søren Kierkegaard, German existentialism, and the writings of Martin Heidegger have deeply influenced Sørensen's vision of the divided self of the modern individual. His philosophically orientated writings include Digtere og dæmoner (1959, Poets and Demons), Hverken-eller (1961, Neither-Nor), and Jesus og Kristus (1992). During a stay in Vienna, he became interested in the self-portraits of the Expressionist painter and draughtsman Egon Schiele (1890-1918), who died in the influenze epidemic of 1918. In Formynderfortællinger Sørensen examined through the
figures of Judas and Saint Paul free will and determinism. As an
essayist Sørensen has questioned the materialism and rationalism of the
day. Originally he
started to write philosophically in order to explain what he had said
in his fiction. He did not consider himself as an essayist: "I do not
regard myself as anything described by a word ending in -ist. Neither
philosophically nor artistically." ('Sørensen, Villy' by Vivian Greene-Gantzberg, in Encyclopedia of The Essay,
edited Tracy Chevalier, Routledge, 1997, p. 787) Mostly Sørensen's did not go beyond the common stock of themes: they included the breakdown of
values, threats of totalitarian ideologies, and the contrasting
relationships between art and democracy, intellect and emotion, body
and soul. Unlike many of his Norwegan or Swedish colleagues,
Sørensen
did not sympathize with the radical movements of the 1960s,
but felt closer to the cultural tradition, which was associated with
the classical ideals of order, balance and moderation. When the New
Left saw that freedom is a matter of communal interaction, Sørensen
considered freedom as individual's personal fulfilment. He argued in
his
essay collections Den gyldne middlelvej (1979) and Demokratiet og kunsten
(1988) that human life can best flourish at some distance from both
Marxist-Leninist socialism and unregulated capitalism. However, Uprør fra midten
(1978, Revolt from the Center), a political vision of the future,
co-authored with Niels I Meyer and K. Helweg-Pedersen, provoked a
heated debate and accusations of totalitarian views. The writers
suggested that the political establishment should launch a reform of
the welfare state before the radical fringe seized the initiative. For further reading: The Social Life of Fairytale Language: (In)Competent Speakers in Hans Christian Andersen and Villy Sørensen by Sarah Bienko Eriksen (2024); Saglighedens lidenskab: om forholdet mellem K.E. Løgstrup og Villy Sørensen by Steen Tullberg (2022); Ninka interviewer Villy Sørensen igen by Anne Wolden-Ræthinge (2020); Villy Sørensen og kulturkonservatismen by Kasper Støvring (2011); 'The Body Doubled. Villy Sørensen's "Duo" and the Truth of the Body' by Nathaniel Kramer, in Norlit 2009, August 6-9, (2009); Det etiske kunstværk: Villy Sørensens poetik og litterære kritik by Kasper Støvring (2006); Midtens vovestykke: Om Villy Sørensens essayistiske forfatterskab by Carl Steen Pedersen (2000); 'Sørensen, Villy' by Vivian Greene-Gantzberg, in Encyclopedia of The Essay, edited Tracy Chevalier (1997); 'The Comic Conception of Reality. The Relationship between the Comic, Language, and Cognition in the Works of Villy Sørensen' by Catarina Testa, in Scandinavian Studies, LXIV (1992): 'Villy Sørensen,' in A History of Danish Literature, edited by Sven H. Rossel (1992); 'Sørensen, Villy' by S.H.R. [Sven H. Rossel], in Columbia Dictionary of Modern European Literature, edited Jean-Albert Bédé and William B. Edgerton (1980); Litterær arkæologi. Studier i Villy Sørensens Formynderfortællinger by Jørgen Bonde Jensen (1978); Villy Sørensen. En ideologi-kritisk analyse by Ebbe Sønderriis (1972); A History of Danish Literature by P.M. Mitchell (1971) Selected works:
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