Bregendahl, Marie

(1867-1940)

   A Danish novelist, short story writer, and poet, Bregendahl was, like her husband Jeppe Aakjær, born in Jutland. Expected to become a farm wife, she spent some time at a folk high school, where she met Aakjær, and moved with him to Copenhagen. She had her literary debut with the novel Henrik i Bakken (1904; Henrik down the Hill), which is written with a significant sense of psychological realism, of which she is one of the pioneers in Danish literature. The novel En Dødsnat (1912; tr. A Night of Death, 1931) exemplifies a groundbreaking narrative technique in that the death of the farm woman in the book—modeled on the death of Bregendahl's own mother—is focalized through her young children.

   Bregendahl's major work is a suite of seven shorter narratives that were later published in two volumes with the collective title Sødals-folkene (1935, originally published 1914-1923; The People of Sødal), in which preindustrial rural culture is portrayed. Social change and its effect on rural people is likewise the theme ofa historical novel in two volumes, Holger Hauge og hans Hustru (19341935; Holger Hauge and His Wife). Bregendahl also wrote a number of short story collections. One of the major themes in the stories is the emotional price that has to be paid by the rural people who move to the cities because they have been displaced by structural economic changes in their home environments. She also published one volume of poetry, Filtret Høst (1937; Filtered Autumn).