Good Intentions, Authors of Genius

Hans Christian Andersen’s Manuscripts and the Author’s Changing Role in Genetic Criticism

Abstract

The article outlines the historical shifts in the relationship between text and author within genetic literary studies and examines how the author’s role is perceived in recent genetic research on Hans Christian Andersen. The starting point is the Hans Christian Andersen Centre’s digital manuscript edition and includes early studies, such as Vilhelm Andersen’s Dansk Litteratur. Forskning og Undervisning (1912), which used the genetic method to explore the author’s psyche. In the 1960s, the French school of critique génétique emerged as an extension of post-structuralism, viewing the text as a dynamic process but struggling with the tension between analysing textual revisions and dismissing authorial intention. More recent Anglo-Saxon genetic criticism adopts a pragmatic approach, recognising shifting authorial intention focused not on meaning but on textual function. The article concludes by highlighting the research potential of authorship-centred manuscript studies.