Satire in the Strange Realms of the Underground World

Ludvig Holberg’s 1741 Latin novel, The Journey of the Niels Klim to the World Underground presents a far-ranging satire of European society through an imaginary voyage of a young college graduate as he travels throughout a series of fantastic worlds beneath the earth’s surface. Utilizing the freedom of an imaginary world, the novel circumvented the strict censorship of its day to become something of a best-seller in Germany and Scandinavia. The eponymous Niels Klim approaches each society with an unwavering sense of his own superiority, and that of his homeland, only to be continually humiliated and ridiculed. The satire of the work emerges from the conflict between the naïve bravado of Klim and the different societies and values he encounters. Effectively, the novel circumvents potential censorship and backlash by seemingly reinforcing European values and supremacy, only to indirectly dismantle this perspective with the reason or foolishness of the elaborate fantasy worlds the narrator encounters.

Read the rest at CVLT Nation: http://www.cvltnation.com/satire-in-the-strange-realms-of-the-underground-world/