Knowing the Right Thing, but Not Doing It - Knut Hamsun’s Markens grøde in the Anthropocene

Abstract

Knut Hamsun’s novel Markens grøde has been interpreted as advocating a simple and sustainable life in harmony with nature. However, when read retrospectively against the background of human-made environmental changes that have brought the planet into a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, Markens grøde cannot be considered an ecological text. What the novel actually delivers is a narrative of constant progress and growth, without consideration of potential limits or unintended detrimental side-effects. In Markens grøde, human nature is assumed to create desires that can only be fulfilled through permanent increases in production and consumption, irrespective of material environmental restraints. In combination with an ideology of human population growth, the novel, instead of conveying »green values«, constitutes a literary expression of precisely the ideas and processes that led to the transition into the Anthropocene.

Keywords

• Markens grøde
• literature
• anthropocene