Georg Brandes
Georg Brandes , born Morris Cohen, was a Danish critic and scholar who greatly influenced Scandinavian and European literature from the 1870s through the turn of the 20th century. He is seen as the theorist behind the Modern Breakthrough of Scandinavian culture. At the age of 30, Brandes formulated the principles of a new realism and naturalism, condemning hyperaesthetic writing and also fantasy in literature. His literary goals were shared by some other authors, among them the Norwegian realist playwright Henrik Ibsen.
Georg Brandes was born as Morris Cohen in Copenhagen into a nonobservant Jewish middleclass family, the elder brother of prominent Danes Ernst Brandes and Edvard Brandes. He became a student at the University of Copenhagen in 1859 where he first studied jurisprudence. From this, however, his interests soon turned to philosophy and aesthetics. In 1862 he won the gold medal of the university for an essay on The Idea of Nemesis among the Ancients. Before this, indeed since 1858, he had shown a remarkable gift for versewriting, the results of which, however, were not abundant enough to justify separate publication. Brandes did not collect his poems until as late as 1898. At the university, which he left in 1864, Brandes was influenced by the writings of Heiberg in criticism and Sren Kierkegaard in philosophy, influences which continued to leave traces on his work.
Source: Wikipedia