User:FunfactsDK/The Labyrinth (1792-93)

Labyrinthen (The Labyrinth) is a novelistic travel description by Danish author Jens Baggesen, published in two volumes 1792-1793.

The book is a partly autobiographical description of the author's travels in Europe in 1789-1790. Due to poor health, Baggesen had been granted a journey to the German spa resort Bad Pyrmont by his patron, Prince Frederik Christian of Augustenburg. Unlike most of the travel descriptions of this period, Jens Baggesen did not aim to write a tourist guide to the countries he visited. Rather, he was interested in depicting his own development and the people around him.

Baggesen originally set out to write a Danish version of Laurence Sterne's A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy from 1768, as witness, among other things, by the hunt for a passport in the opening chapter, which clearly references the English model. However, Baggesen soon realized that his book is far personal than Sterne's light and satirical prose, and he therefore proceeded to write his own unique work.

This leads to highly subjective descriptions of the places and landscapes he visits. The description of Mannheim, whose grid street plan gives it a militaristic aspect, in the chapter The City in Verse is characteristic. The city occasions a lengthy discussion of urban planning as well as prose style and rhyme:

"To me, straight streets and matching quarters in a city seem to correspond to measured lines and rhymes in a book. They immediately raise the expectation of great beauty, an expectation that at first is not pleasant - if it is satisfied, the pleasure is truly more complete; yet if it is not satisfied, the displeasure is all the greater as it turns into annoyance when looking back at the boastful promise. A city in solute style does not promise more than it can keep, its conversation is like everyday speech; common sense and every now and again a good idea is all one demands of it; a city in the "bound style", however, strikes a pose, clears its throat and starts declaming - woe to it if it does not meet all requirements in arte poetica!"

- (Danske Værker, bind 9, 1846): 192-93.

The journey to revolutionary France and, in particular, Paris, is also interesting. It was Baggesen's intention to visit the newly formed National Assembly as well as the ruins of the Bastille.

On the journey Jens Baggesen meets his future wife, Swiss Sophie von Haller, and in the continuation of the travel description he recounts how the two become engaged and are married, after which the author takes her with him back to his home country. The book ends when the carriage with Jens Baggesen and his bride rolls across the Danish border.

The two first volumes of The Labyrinth were published in 1792 and 1793, and Baggesen never ended the work on a continuation. Only parts of it were published. The complete edition with the continuation can be found in the 10-vol. edition of Baggesen's works by his sons Adam Paul Baggesen and August Baggesen and the priest and poet C. E. Boye (1827-1832; 2nd ed. 1845-1847). All later editions of The Labyrinth have been abbreviated.