Niels Lyhne

Niels Lyhne is an 1880 novel written by the Danish author Jens Peter Jacobsen. A naturalistic work, Niels Lyhne is considered to be part of the Modern Breakthrough, a style of Realism native to Scandinavia; however, the novel does contain several romantic elements, and it relies and expands on romantic themes (examination of individual struggle and consciousness; artistic expression and inspiration), while it also ironizes them. The story chronicles the titular character's renunciation of his faith, his various bereavements and, ultimately, it depicts his disillusionment and his death. This disillusionment is part and parcel of the work's naturalism—focusing on his failures as a lover and as an artist, Niels Lyhne demonstrates the individual's helplessness and serves as a critique of atheism as well as faith; Georg Lukács cites the novel in his influential Meaning of Contemporary Realism as the "first novel to describe this state of mind of the atheistic bourgeois intelligentsia".