The Norwegian Society
Encyclopedia
The Norwegian Society was a literary society for Norwegian
students in Copenhagen
. Its members included authors, poets and philosophers. The Norwegian Society was formed in 1772 by Ove Gjerløw Meyer
. Their meeting place was Madame Juel's Coffeehouse (madame Juels Kaffehus) in the Læderstræde.
It was a gentlemen's club, with the exception of the waitress Karen Bach, and the meetings were lively with speakers, song and discussion, poetry recitation improvisations and relatively significant intakes of punch. The club considered itself culturally conservative and devoted to the rationalistic
empirical
style of Ludvig Holberg
.
The members of the Norwegian Society are often viewed as playing a central role in the wakening of Norwegian patriotic awareness at the close of the 18th century. Many of the poems and plays had patriotic themes. The society was discontinued in 1813 after the battle was won to establish the first Norwegian university, but a new gentlemen's club with the same name started in 1818.
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
students in Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
. Its members included authors, poets and philosophers. The Norwegian Society was formed in 1772 by Ove Gjerløw Meyer
Ove Gjerløw Meyer
Ove Gjerløw Meyer was a Norwegian writer and jurist, best known for founding the Norwegian Society.-Career:He was born around 1742, probably in Frederikshald. His father was headmaster and priest Edvard Offesen Meyer ; his mother is not known...
. Their meeting place was Madame Juel's Coffeehouse (madame Juels Kaffehus) in the Læderstræde.
It was a gentlemen's club, with the exception of the waitress Karen Bach, and the meetings were lively with speakers, song and discussion, poetry recitation improvisations and relatively significant intakes of punch. The club considered itself culturally conservative and devoted to the rationalistic
Rationalism
In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...
empirical
Empirical
The word empirical denotes information gained by means of observation or experimentation. Empirical data are data produced by an experiment or observation....
style of Ludvig Holberg
Ludvig Holberg
Ludvig Holberg, Baron of Holberg was a writer, essayist, philosopher, historian and playwright born in Bergen, Norway, during the time of the Dano-Norwegian double monarchy, who spent most of his adult life in Denmark. He was influenced by Humanism, the Enlightenment and the Baroque...
.
The members of the Norwegian Society are often viewed as playing a central role in the wakening of Norwegian patriotic awareness at the close of the 18th century. Many of the poems and plays had patriotic themes. The society was discontinued in 1813 after the battle was won to establish the first Norwegian university, but a new gentlemen's club with the same name started in 1818.
Central members
- Johannes EwaldJohannes EwaldJohannes Ewald was a Danish national dramatist and poet.-Biography:Ewald, normally regarded as the most important Danish poet of the 2nd half of the 18th Century, led a short and troubled life, marked by alcoholism and poor health...
(1743-81) - Johan Nordahl BrunJohan Nordahl BrunJohan Nordahl Brun was the poet, dramatist, bishop in Bergen , and politician who contributed significantly to the growth of National Romanticism in Norway, contributing to the growing national consciousness.He traveled to Copenhagen in 1767, where he passed his theological examinations...
(1745-1816) - N.K. Bredal
- Ove Gjerløw MeyerOve Gjerløw MeyerOve Gjerløw Meyer was a Norwegian writer and jurist, best known for founding the Norwegian Society.-Career:He was born around 1742, probably in Frederikshald. His father was headmaster and priest Edvard Offesen Meyer ; his mother is not known...
- Johan VibeJohan VibeJohan Vibe was a Danish-Danish military officer and engineer, who was appointed Governor-General of Norway by the Danish crown from 10 April 1708 until his death.-Biography:...
- Søren Monrad
- Niels TreschowNiels TreschowNiels Treschow , was a Norwegian philosopher and politician, central to the creation of the University of Oslo. He also served as Minister of Education and Church Affairs 1814-1816, 1817-1819, 1820-1822 and 1823-1825, and member of the Council of State Division in Stockholm 1816-1817, 1819-1820,...
(1751-1833) - Jakob Edvard ColbjørnsenJakob Edvard ColbjørnsenJakob Edvard Colbjørnsen was chief justice of the Supreme Court of Denmark-Norway in the capital of Copenhagen....
- Claus Fasting
- P.H. Frimann
- Jonas ReinJonas ReinJonas Rein was a Norwegian priest, poet and member of the Norwegian Constituent Assembly at Eidsvoll that wrote the Constitution of Norway on 17 May 1814.-Career:...
- Edvard StormEdvard StormEdvard Storm , was a poet from Vågå, Oppland, Norway. He was the son of Johan Storm, the priest in Vågå, and his second wife, Ingeborg Birgitta Røring. The first 12 years of his life were spent in the Vågå rectory, until he began school in 1756 in Christiania...
- Jens ZetlitzJens ZetlitzJens Zetlitz was a Norwegian priest and poet.Born in Stavanger, at the close of the 18th century he traveled to Copenhagen to study theology. He became a member of Det Norske Selskab, and became well known for his entertaining songs and drinking songs...
- Johan Herman WesselJohan Herman Wesselthumb|Johan Herman WesselJohan Herman Wessel was a Norwegian-Danish poet. Some of his satirical poems are still popular.-Biography:...
(1742-1785)