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THE DILEMMA OF THE ARTIST IN SELECTED PROSE WORKS OF FRANK JÆGER

excellent contemporary author, Frank Jaeger, is known more for his poetry than for his prose works. Most literary histories refer to him as "digter" or "poet" and concentrate for the most part on analyzing his poetic efforts while treating his considerable prose output rather perfunctorily.1 This state of affairs unfortunately gives a rather one-sided picture of the author, who has produced numerous short stories, several novels, not a few essays, and a play or two. As a prosaist he is perhaps best known for his novels, Den unge Jœgers lidelser and Iners, as well as his collections of short stories, Hverdagshistorier, Danskere, Kapellanen o g andre fortxllinger, and Alvilda: Sengelœsning for unge og gamie. Jaeger's strength as a writer of prose lies primarily in his short stories. In reading his shorter works, one is struck again and again by the author's easy versatility and by his capacity to immerse the reader in the world which he has created. One marvels at Jaeger's ability variously to capture the mood of a particular historical ambience ("Kidholm"2), to portray the ebullience and insecurity of adolescence ("Tamt vildt"3), to demonstrate the humor of a given situation ("Ribs"4), and to infuse the work with a feeling of subliminal terror ("F0dderne"5). Nor can one read much of Jaeger's prose without noticing his inclination toward irony, which often conveys a sense of implied personal tragedy. It is not uncommon in one of Jaeger's short stories to see success or salvation pale to nothingness just as it appears to be within reach ("Alvilda,"6 "Foraarsaften med Faust"7). Although some of Frank Jaeger's prose relies heavily on his creation of a singular world of fantasy quite often lugubrious and disquieting (as in Hverdagshistorier and the novel Iners) most of his prose works are based solidly on the rock of realism, albeit with an occasional, but convincing entry into the realm of the unreal. A very prominent theme in a number of Jaeger's prose writings is that of renunciation. In the present study I will examine this theme in four of Jaeger's shorter prose writings, all of which are uniquely