Schack, Hans Egede

(1820-1859)

   A Danish novelist, Schack studied law and got involved in liberal politics. He completed a single novel, Phantasterne (1857; The Fantasts), which is an important precursor to the realism of the 1870s, not only in Danish literature but in Scandinavian literature as a whole. Phantasterne tells about three boys, Conrad, the book's narrator, Christian, and Thomas. Conrad and Christian are given to daydreaming about all the great things they are going to do in the future, but Thomas is a skeptic. Christian never develops past the daydreaming stage and ends up in a mental hospital, but Conrad manages to develop a healthy balance between reality and dream. Phantasterne is thus a critique ofromantic idealism and a defense of political liberalism in contrast to the older forms of social organization that the boys had dwelled on in their fantasies. Shack's death cut short his work on a second novel, Sandhed med Modification (Truth with Modification).