"Kunsten er Lovbundethed inden for Fantasien" (Art is regularity within the imagination)--thus reads one of Jakob Knudsen's reflections on creative artistic activity. This regularity distinguishes artistic fantasy from ordinary reverie and daydreaming. Knudsen also often described how impressions from his childhood shaped his own artistic fantasy. By the time he had made his mark as an author, he was a man of forty whose mental state was firmly molded. It is therefore difficult to arrange his works according to a progressive line of development; however, underlying all his writings are the influences to which he was subjected in his childhood, influences that he was continually evaluating.

Knudsen's childhood home was deeply influenced by an understanding of life and Christianity that had originated with N. F. S. Grundtvig's teachings and shaped Danish culture and society in the last half of the nineteenth century. Through the agency of the...