The Cheerful Danes: Henry Clarke Barlow’s ‘Revelation of a Writing-Case’ (1856) on Copenhagen

Abstract

This article analyses two unpublished travel essays (‘Revelations of a Writing-Case: At Copenhagen’ and ‘Revelations of a Writing-Case: Leaving Copenhagen’) written by the British Dante scholar Henry Clarke Barlow (1806–1876) during his journey to Denmark and Sweden in 1856. Having explored the relationship between Barlow and Denmark and the context around the two manuscripts, this article considers the bases of Barlow’s statement about the ‘cheerful’ Danes and examines his lively representation of public life in Copenhagen. What makes the Danes ‘cheerful’ in 1856 Copenhagen according to Barlow? The article also argues that in order to answer this question we need to move beyond the content of the essays and their possible classification as travel writing about Scandinavia and reflect on their history as archival objects.