Comedies by Holberg

In Short

This collection brings together three classic Danish plays by Ludvig Holberg—Jeppe of the Hill, The Political Tinker, and Erasmus Montanus. Each comedy tracks a foolish protagonist who gets elevated far above his station or abilities, whether through a cruel aristocratic prank, a political delusion, or the arrogance of university learning. Driven by absurd social ambition, the main characters wreak immediate havoc on their families and neighbors. Holberg uses these swift, mocking plots to puncture human pretension, demonstrating how easily ignorance, pedantry, and newfound authority slide into outright tyranny before order is restored.

The Story

The volume spans three distinct comic trajectories across Danish town and country life. It opens with Jeppe of the Hill, where an impoverished, heavy-drinking peasant is routinely beaten by his fierce wife, Nille, and driven to drink by his own misery. When a local Baron finds Jeppe passed out drunk on a dunghill, he and his servants carry the peasant into the castle, dress him in fine clothes, and place him in the lord's best bed. Waking up to soft linens and bowing valets, Jeppe is easily persuaded by opportunistic doctors and servants that his life as a peasant was merely a bad dream. Once he believes he is the true lord of the estate, Jeppe instantly turns into an imperious, greedy bully. He gorges on sweet wine, demands bribes, and threatens to hang his underlings. To end the joke, the Baron gets Jeppe drunk again, dumps him back on his dunghill in his old rags, and subjects him to a mock trial for treason before letting him off with a fright.

The focus then shifts to urban ambition in The Political Tinker. Herman von Bremen, a incompetent Hamburg craftsman, spends his days drinking with his fellow tradesmen in a political club, blustering about how to fix imperial foreign policy and military strategy. Fed up with his neglect of the household, his wife Geske frets while the town council decides to teach the arrogant tinker a lesson. They orchestrate a elaborate hoax, convincing Herman that he has been appointed Burgomaster of Hamburg. Flattered and overwhelmed, Herman assumes the title, while his wife immediately adopts absurd aristocratic airs, refusing to associate with her old working-class friends. Reality hits hard when actual citizens flood Herman's house with complex legal disputes, trade grievances, and financial demands. Unable to handle a single real civic problem, Herman suffers a mental breakdown, begging to return to his workbench and promising never to meddle in statecraft again.

Finally, Erasmus Montanus follows Rasmus Berg, a peasant youth who returns to his native village after studying at the university in Copenhagen. Renaming himself "Erasmus Montanus," he refuses to let his family call him brother or son, insisting on his Latin title. Armed with university jargon, he terrorizes the village by using logic to prove ridiculous premises—such as arguing his mother is a candle—and alienating his wealthy future father-in-law, Jeronimus, by insisting the earth is round. Jeronimus breaks off Erasmus's betrothal to his daughter Lisbed until the young man recants his heretical science. Erasmus obstinately chooses his academic pride over love, until a clever military Lieutenant tricks him into enlisting as a common soldier. Terrified by the harsh drill and physical discipline, Erasmus tearfully begs for mercy, abandons his pedantry, and declares the earth to be as flat as a pancake to secure his bride.

How It Unfolds

The trick is staged Finding a brutalized, intoxicated peasant named Jeppe unconscious in the road, a bored Baron and his servants plot a elaborate prank to test human nature. They strip the sleeping man, dress him in silk shirts, and lay him in the castle's finest bed to see how he will react to an unearned fortune.

The yokel becomes a tyrant Upon waking, Jeppe is convinced by doctors and lackeys that his painful life as a beaten peasant was a bad dream. The moment he accepts his lordly status, he gorging on sweet port-wine, demanding gifts, and threatening his servants with the gallows.

A craftsman claims the state Herman von Bremen, a small-town tinker who spends his hours criticizing imperial generals and foreign policy, is tricked into believing he has been made Burgomaster. His household succumbs to monstrous vanity, snubbing old neighbors and putting on ridiculous airs of high rank.

The weight of actual rule When real citizens arrive at his doorstep with multi-page legal complaints, conflicting trade grievances, and administrative duties, Herman is completely overwhelmed. The pressure shatters his delusions, forcing him to realize his utter ignorance of actual government.

The scholar returns home Rasmus Berg arrives from the university thoroughly transformed into "Erasmus Montanus," a arrogant pedant who treats his peasant family with disdain. He refuses to speak plain Danish, using flawed logic to terrorize the local deacon and his own mother.

Prudence yields to reality After alienating his father-in-law and losing his betrothed over his stubborn refusal to say the earth is flat, Erasmus is outsmarted by a military officer. Faced with the harsh reality of army service, the scholar tearfully surrenders his academic ego and embraces village norms.

The People

• Jeppe of the Hill: A downtrodden, heavy-drinking peasant who lives in constant fear of his wife Nille and her switch, "Master Eric." He desires escape and physical comfort, but when granted absolute authority by a nobleman's prank, he turns into a cruel, petty tyrant before being cast back onto his dunghill.
• Nille: Jeppe's stern, work-driven wife. She believes firm violence is the only way to keep her lazy husband from drinking away their lease money, ruling her household with an iron hand.
• The Baron: A wealthy, bored aristocrat who orchestrates elaborate practical jokes on his social inferiors to amuse himself, using Jeppe's sudden rise and fall to prove his own cynical theories about human nature.
• Herman von Bremen: A loud-mouthed Hamburg tinker who imagines himself a master of international diplomacy and statecraft. When thrust into the actual office of Burgomaster, his incompetence is exposed, leaving him humbled and eager to return to his trade.
• Geske: Herman’s wife, who quickly absorbs the foolish arrogance of high society, snubbing her lifelong friends the moment she believes her husband has achieved high office.
• Erasmus Montanus (Rasmus Berg): A peasant's son who returns from the university puffed up with Latin phrases and intellectual vanity. He values academic victory over family and love, until physical coercion forces him to abandon his posturing.
• Jeronimus: A wealthy, conservative country freeholder who refuses to marry his daughter to a man he considers a heretic and an arrogant fool.

In Its Own Voice

Before his elevation, Jeppe describes the absolute domestic terror under which he lives at home:

"Ought I let a man rule the household who is perfectly ready to sell his belongings and wife and children and even himself for brandy?"

When Herman’s wife immediately succumbs to social climbing, she snubs her old companion with cold condescension:

"My good woman, I don't know you."

Confronted by his sensible younger brother, Erasmus reveals the hollow arrogance of his university training:

"Vulgus indoctum est monstrum horrendum informe, cui lumen ademptum."

What It's Really About

Underneath their brisk, slapstick humors, Holberg's comedies explore the dangerous instability of human identity when vanity is left unchecked. The plays argue that foolishness is not merely a personal flaw, but a public hazard. Whether it is a drunk peasant given imperial authority, a tradesman trying to manage a city without basic skill, or a scholar using education to mock his unlearned parents, Holberg demonstrates how quickly unearned pretension turns into abuse. Authority without character, and learning without common sense, are shown to be equally destructive. The plays repeatedly ask whether human beings are governed by reason or merely by appetite and social rank, concluding that most people require the firm boundaries of community and necessity to keep from destroying themselves.

Why Read It Today

Readers who enjoy classic European satire, early modern theater, and sharp social mockery will find Holberg's plays remarkably fresh. His dialogue moves with swift, muscular precision, cutting straight to the absurdities of human ego without tedious exposition. The humor relies on universal character flaws—the couch-expert who thinks he can run the country, the student who returns from college looking down on his family, and the victim of power who instantly becomes a bully.

The primary difficulty for modern readers lies in the period-specific context of eighteenth-century European society. The plays feature archaic class hierarchies, casual domestic violence, and long passages of mock-Latin logic designed to parody medieval scholasticism. The moral conclusions can also feel sharply conservative, as the narrative resolution frequently demands that lower-class characters stay strictly in their assigned social stations. Yet for all their historical distantness, these plays retain an extraordinary comedic spark, capturing the timeless folly of people who mistake a little bit of learning or a brief taste of power for true wisdom.