Unhappy texts

A digital and post-critical examination of novels written by the Women of the Modern Breakthrough

Abstract

This article discusses the established interpretation of novels by women authors of the Modern Breakthrough as unhappy texts and proposes the term texts on (un)happiness. Traditionally, Nordic feminist literary historiography has approached works written by the women of the Modern Breakthrough as symptoms of an oppressive patriarchy. This article, in contrast, explores how the women authors depicted survival and resistance, and renegotiated the terms of happiness amidst adversity. The central hypothesis thus suggests that these authors were greatly concerned with happiness – not as something already achieved, but as an ambition pursued with great effort.

Combining digital distant readings, post-critical close readings, and affect theory, the article examines the relationship between (un)happiness, gender, social positions, and aesthetic trends in 839 novels. The digital analyses reveal a gendered and social divide in the affective style of the texts, which is further examined through close reading of novels by Theodora Mau, Adda Ravnkilde, and Drude Krog Janson.

These post-critical analyses show that the concepts of unhappiness and happiness are intertwined in the novels, with each novel suggesting a form of love – self-sacrificing, pure, or motherly – as a path to happiness. This challenges the unhappy text hypothesis and provides new insights into the emotional landscape of the Modern Breakthrough.