While the Nobel Prize in literature in most instances confirms the career of an author already prominent, in the case of Karl Gjellerup it marked the end of a lifelong struggle for artistic recognition. In spite of his prolific output in many genres and on many subjects, Gjellerup was both an anachronistic and a disharmonious writer, whose high-flown style, passionate abstractions, and indirect language failed to reconcile him with most audiences. An erudite freethinker in most of his poetry, drama, and fiction, his peculiar versatility betrays a moral and religious claim to core convictions that he never found within the confines of Danish culture. Gjellerup's irrepressible idealistic drive led him into various uneasy relations with modern forms of realism. To the extent his personality found rest, it was in private idyllic settings or in otherworldly aesthetics.

While his collected work may never achieve classical status, its formal and...