Content area
Full text
Sven Hakon Rössel, ed. Ludvig Holberg: A European Writer. Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft 8. Amsterdam-Adanta, GA: Rodopi, 1994. Pp. i-vii + 238.
Like other recent books dealing with Holberg's oeuvre, Ludvig Holberg:A European Writer can be usefully seen as contributing to a politics of recognition. The underlying assumption throughout is that Holberg's writings have valuable conceptual, political, and aesthetic qualities diat have been largely overlooked by international audiences. The volume quite rightly suggests that questions of citizenship and cultural hierarchy need to be evoked if we are to understand why Holberg's contribution "still awaits international recognition" (vi). As a citizen of what is now a small nation, Holberg is widely seen as contributing to a minor culture having only limited or local significance.
Recent post-colonial theories have focused intensely on the existence and ideological role of hierarchies of cultural value. Although the...