Sartre believed that man is a passion inutile, and it is then possible that passion is ultimately useless and futile, but along the way it is indispensable and life-giving.
Literary passions I-II set out to bear witness to a condition that Thomas Mann has given the best description of: "Devotion in union with recognition - that is exactly what passion is".
The first volume contains readings of Danish poetry from Ingemann and Aarestrup to Signe Gjessing, a section on Johannes V. Jensen and a discussion of important concepts in narrative analysis.
The second volume organizes an ongoing dialogue with international philosophy and literary theory, often in connection with significant poets in German, English and American literature, e.g. Hölderlin, Rilke, Celan, Wordsworth and Stevens.
Contents 1. Sacred eroticism. From Winther to Bjørnvig 2. To write. Poetics from Claussen to Gjessing 3. Globes, June nights and balconies in the cosmos. From Ingemann to Gjessing 4. With and without blessing. Bjørnvig and Benedicte in the Pact, "Anubis" and the Raven 5. To write the second. Nature and cosmos in Bjørnvig's poetry 6. The tragic passion of the mind. Bjørnvig's Nietzsche 7. Over the years. Reunion with Proust and Bjørnvig 8. The mental images of the modern soul. Sarvig's cultural criticism 9. (Post)modern influences. Pound in Danish literature 10. A wreath of white rose petals. Winter trip with Høecks Hölderlin 11. Summer visions of missing dead. Inger Christensen's Sommerfugledalen 12. Johannes V. Jensen: The Fall of the King 13. Strangers and other others in Jensen's early writing 14. Places and life paths in Jensen's early myths 15. City alarm and sparrow bath. Jensen at Oehlenschläger's grave 16. Focalization. Hemingway, Jacobsen, Jensen, Dreyer 17. Unreliability. Stoic limitations in Blicher's “The Panty Seller” 18. Character. Fatal seductions at Gyllembourg and Levison 19. Stream of consciousness and allusion. Branner's "Two Minutes of Silence"
