During her life Thit Jensen was one of the most widely read and most controversial of Danish writers. Both her tumultuous life and writing career are representative of central issues in Danish literary history betwe en Det moderne Gennembrud (The Modern Breakthrough) of the 1870s, the literary movement that introduced naturalism and realism to Danish literature, and World War II, after which modernism became the dominant literary mode. More specifically, Jensen is a leading representative of the Scandinavian female literary tradition of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. In Jensen's case, life and writing are inextricably interwoven. Her fictional experimentation with various notions of the "true" nature of femininity, female sexuality, female-male relations, marriage, and motherhood owes much to the writings of the women o f the Modern Breakthrough but equally mirrors private experience and the contemporary social, legal, and economic conditions of women.

Maria Kristine...