Summary This book explores the aesthetic consequences of Protestantism in Scandinavia. Fourteen case studies from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century discuss five abstract and trans-historical principles that characterize Scandinavian aesthetics and that arguably derive from Protestant thinking and practice, namely: simplicity, logocentrism, tension between pronounced individualism and collectivism, relatedness to the world, and ethics. The contributions address the peculiar aesthetics of Scandinavian print, literature, architecture, film, and opera and reflect on the influence of Protestant traditions on the establishment of genres and writing practices. This volume is the first in a new series that will focus on the aesthetics of Protestantism in Scandinavia, both theoretically and through exemplary individual analyses. TABLE OF CONTENTS Joachim Grage, Thomas Mohnike, Lena Rohrbach, Aesthetics of Protestantism in Northern Europe. Introductory Investigations Jürg Glauser, The Aesthetics of Protestant Rhetoric: Early Reformation Polemic in Denmark Margrét Eggertsdóttir, The Value and Importance of Poetry in the Vernacular Ueli Zahnd, Which Protestants? Calvinism, Crypto-Calvinism, and the Scandinavian Reformation Lena Rohrbach, Access to the Word of God. Language, Literacy, and Religious Understanding in Protestant Faroese Tradition Arne Bugge Amundsen, Church Architecture in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Scandinavia Bernd Roling, Rugia Gothorum': Ludwig Gotthard Kosegarten and the Tradition of Gothicism Anna Bohlin, Anti-Catholicism in Bremer and Topelius: Addressing the Historicity of Trans-historical Principles Joachim Grage, Kierkegaard's Journals as a Protestant Practice of Writing Claudia Lindén, Ursus sacer. The Bear as Man's Neighbour in Swedisch Nineteenth-century Fiction Sophie Wennerscheid, Sin and Seduction: Antichrist in Danish Literature, Opera, and Film Thomas Mohnike, Aesthetization of Faith and the Nordic Revival Movements in Scandinavian Post-World War II Literature Giuliano D'Amico, ?Rather Than Buddha's Calm, I Choose the Crucifixion? - Håkan Sandell's Christian Palimpsests Joachim Schiedermair, Absence - Remnants of a Protestant Past: Greeley/Vattimo/Ask