Spørgekraft, efterglød

– Henrik Pontoppidan og den litterære kanon

Resumé

Abstract
This article marks the inclusion (in 2025) of Henrik Pontoppidan among the seven required authors in a new Danish canon for secondary education. It takes the form of a personal defense of his body of work as a whole, particularly his early realistic short stories, his three major novels, and his so-called “short novels.” In conclusion, a list is provided of Henrik Pontoppidan’s most important qualities in terms of subject matter and human perspective, along with the aesthetic competencies inextricably linked to them. I offer a suggestion as to why the major characteristics of his prose make them particularly suitable for educational purposes today. The basic premise is that Henrik Pontoppidan’s works exemplify a direct, truthful, and credible representation of real-life experiences, easy to relate to, and find resonance with, by the individual reader.