Jens Peter Jacobsen - Legacy

Legacy

Unlike many of his colleagues Jacobsen did not take much interest in politics, his main interests being science and psychology. He is primarily an artist: his ability to create "paintings" and arabesque-like scenes both in his prose and his poetry (which has sometimes been criticized as "mannered") is one of the secrets of his art. It has been said that his novels are a presentation of various snapshots rather than tales of action.

In spite of his not very extensive oeuvre Jacobsen's international influence has been quite strong. In Germany both his novels and poems were widely read and they are known to have influenced Thomas Mann, as well as the Englishman D. H. Lawrence. Jacobsen's works also greatly inspired Rainer Maria Rilke's prose: in Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, he claims that he always has two books with him - the Bible and the collected works of Jacobsen. Jacobsen also influenced many other authors of the turn of the 20th century, including Henrik Ibsen, Sigmund Freud, Hermann Hesse, Stefan Zweig, and T. E. Lawrence, who all commented on his work.

He also had a musical influence: Frederick Delius's Fennimore and Gerda and Arnold Schönberg's Gurre-Lieder are based upon themes from Jacobsen's books.