Youth and debut Gjellerup was the son of a vicar in
Zealand who died when his son was three years. Karl Gjellerup was raised then by the uncle of
Johannes Fibiger, he grew up in a national and romantic idealistic atmosphere. In the 1870s he broke with his background and at first he became an enthusiastic supporter of the
naturalist movement and
Georg Brandes, writing audacious novels about
free love and
atheism. Strongly influenced by his origin he gradually left the Brandes line and 1885 he broke totally with the naturalists, becoming a new
romanticist. A central trace of his life was his
Germanophile attitude, he felt himself strongly attracted to German culture (his wife was a German) and 1892 he finally settled in Germany, which made him unpopular in Denmark on both the right and left wing. As years passed he totally identified with the German Empire, including its war aims 1914–18. Among the early works of Gjellerup must be mentioned his most important novel (1882, i.e. ''The Germans' Apprentice''), a partly autobiographic tale of the development of a young man from being a
conformist theologian to a pro-German atheist and intellectual, and (1889), on the surface, a love story but more of a study in woman's
psychology. Some Wagnerian dramas show his growing romanticist interests. An important work is the novel (1896, i. e.
The Mill), a sinister
melodrama of love and jealousy.
Later years In his last years he was clearly influenced by
Buddhism and Oriental culture. His critically acclaimed work / (1906, i.e.
The Pilgrim Kamanita) has been called 'one of the oddest novels written in Danish'. It features the journey of Kamanita, an Indian merchant's son, from earthly prosperity and carnal romance, through the ups and downs of the world's way, a chance meeting with a stranger monk (who, unbeknownst to Kamanita, was actually
Gautama Buddha), death, and reincarnation towards
nirvana. In
Thailand, which is a
Buddhist country, the Thai translation of
The Pilgrim Kamanita co-translated by
Phraya Anuman Rajadhon was formerly used as part of the school textbooks. (1907, i.e.
The wife of the perfect) is a versified drama, inspired by
Dante's
Divine Comedy, about
Buddha's earthly life as
Siddharta, being inhibited in his spiritual efforts by his wife,
Yasodhara. The giant novel (1910, i.e.
The world roamers) takes its contemporary starting point in a German female academic on a study tour in India, but evolves across chronological levels, in which characters re-experience what has happened in former eons, thus featuring souls roaming from one incarnation to another. (1913, i.e.
The country practice of [physician] Rudolph Sten) is set in the rural Zealand of Gjellerup's youth. The main character develops from a liberal, superficial outlook on life, including youthful romantical conflicts, through years of reflection and ascetic devotion to duty towards a more mature standpoint, hinting at the author's own course of life. (1919, i.e.
The holiest animal) was Gjellerup's last work. Having elements of self-parody, it is regarded as his only attempt at humour. It is a peculiar mythological satire in which animals arrive at their own Elysium after death. These include the snake that killed
Cleopatra,
Odysseus' dog Argos,
Wisvamitra (the holy cow of India), the donkey of
Jesus and the horses of various historical commanders in field. The assembly select, after discussion, Buddha's horse
Kantaka as the holiest of animals, but it has left without a trace to follow its master to nirvana. ==Aftermath==