Between 1750 and 1850 Danish poets and literary scholars discovered, interpreted, and recycled the literary and cultural heritage from the Middle Ages: Poets and writers adapted forms and motifs drawn from medieval literature, or invented imaginative medieval storyworlds, and scholars recovered, annotated, and edited medieval works.
The project proposes to write the first literary history of this Danish romantic medievalism. Bringing medievalism into focus, the project will revise the image of Danish romanticism projected by the last fifty years of Danish literary historiography. The project will document the continuity between the second half of the 18th and the first half of the 19th centuries and show how Danish romantic medievalism was part of a European network or transmission of texts and ideas. Hereby the project hopes to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of romantic ideas and cultural heritage and national identity – ideas which once again have become operative.
