BRANDES, GEORG MORRIS COHEN Danish critic and literary historian, was born in Copenhagen, the son of a Jewish merchant. After graduating from the university of his native town, Brandes travelled much in Europe, publishing in 1868 his Aesthetic Studies on Danish poets. In 1871 he be came reader in Belles Lettres at the University of Copenhagen, and although he was the obvious person for the professorship of aesthetics which became vacant in 1872, he was not elected because his modernism and championing of self-determination had offended many. He was known to be a Jew, he was convicted of being a Radical, and he was suspected of being an atheist.
Brandes now issued his Main Currents of Literature in the 19th Century (1872-75; trans. 19o1—o5), describing the revolt against the pseudo-classicism of the i8th century. The work has been translated into the principal European languages, and has become a classic. From 1877 to 1883, while living in Berlin, he published Danish Poets (1877), Ferdinand Lassalle (1877), Ben jamin Disraeli (18 78) and Men of the Modern Transition (1883) . In 1897 appeared his famous study of Shakespeare (Eng. trans. by W. Archer) and two years later his Henrik Ibsen. In 1902 his brilliant and lucid critical work outweighed prejudice, and he re ceived the professorship of aesthetics at Copenhagen which had been denied him 3o years before.
During the World War Brandes sought to be impartial, but he openly quarrelled with his friend Clemenceau and displeased the Allies by his criticism of their colonial policy, and by his faith in post-Revolutionary Russia. He died on Feb. 19, 1927. The re action against the naturalism of Brandes was started as early as 1885 by Holger Drachmann. (See DENMARK : Literature.) Since the first collected edition of his works was published in 190o, some of his best-known books have appeared. These in clude: Anatole France (19°5), Life of Goethe (1914), Frederick Nietzsche (Eng. trans. 1914), Life of Voltaire (1916), The World War (1916), Julius Caesar (1918), Michael Angelo (1921), Hein rich Heine (1922), Creative Spirits of the zgth Century (1924), The Jesus Myth (1925) and Hellas (1925).
His brother, EDVARD BRANDES (1847-1931), a well-known critic, was the author of a number of plays and of two psycho logical novels: A Politician (1889) and Young Blood (1899).