Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/208

190 man) and "Den Vægelsindede" (the fickle woman), and among other plays "Henrik and Pernille" and "Maskeraden" are especially to be mentioned.

It is, however, no easy matter to classify Holberg's comedies in groups. The most of them have in common not only a leading character (a person affected with some striking human weakness or some individual peculiarly characteristic of the age), but also the secondary figures, which, though constantly recurring, are diversified with great skill and humor (the dignified parent, the cunning servant, the simple domestic, the lovers, etc., etc.), and all are drawn with remarkable distinctness. Every comedy teems with genuine wit, and with exquisite, though sometimes rather broad humor. His exuberant humor was combined with a most profound psychological insight, and his plays abound in traits that evince a rare knowledge of human nature. His prolonged stay abroad necessarily opened the eyes of a man endowed with a gift of keen observation to all that was ridiculous and small in the social life of Denmark. Abroad he also became acquainted with the new dramatic form, and when once the impulse from without had been given, the great dramatist had it entirely in his power to paint the men of his time as they lived and moved, and to paint them in such a manner as to give the dramas immortal value, since, in addition to the particular color belonging to the time and the circumstances, they also embody the common and permanent human element. Like his predecessor, Molière, he does not hesitate to take his materials wherever he can find them, and thus he has borrowed for his plays not only from Molière and from the Italians, but also from Plautus and Terence. His creative talent never forsakes him, however, and what he borrows, he always understands, like the true artist, to use in such a manner that it blends with his own materials, and through this very blending acquires its true lustre.

And yet the poetical point of view was to Holberg a subordinate one. The most important aim of which he was