Højskoleeftermiddag - Professor Johannes Nørregaard Frandsen

H.C. Andersen lecture with Professor Frandsen: Tuesday 9 March 2027, 14:30–16:30, Festsalen i sognegården, Viborg. Tickets cost 50 kr.

H.C. Andersen: Fantasien og livsrejsen. This is the title of professor Johannes Nørregaard Frandsen's lecture at the folk high school afternoon in the Sognegården festival hall in Viborg.

The lecture explores H.C. Andersen's narrative power and how he repeatedly broke the conventions of his time regarding genres and forms. According to Frandsen, Andersen's artistic genius rested on four foundations: Christianity, natural science, folklore, and his own life journey.

Andersen lived in an era when the steam engine, electromagnetism, and the telegraph transformed the world, and a new Europe took shape. He noticed the ruptures, and he was himself a rule-breaker. His fairy tales and stories remain as modern today as when they were written, containing both humour and fantasy, vitality, but also shadows and eeriness.