Dialogens kunstner Dialog og performativitet hos Martin A. Hansen – med særligt henblik på hans ikke-fiktive forfatterskab

This thesis is about the Danish writer Martin A. Hansen (1909-1955) and focusses on his essayistic works in which he acts as an engaged – but more importantly – also as a dialogical social critic. I have primarily looked into the way Martin A. Hansen (MAH) uses dialogue in his writings about modern society.
This thesis shows that Hansen uses a critical, investigative but foremost a dialogical approach in dealing with the perception of modern times as well as with the past and my hypothesis is, that MAH's contact with his audience was of a dialogic, or Socratic, nature, that contributed to the establishment of his “leading position”, which was one of the recurring characteristics used of MAH in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Because I have investigated the dialogic tools MAH makes use of, the theoretical background of the thesis has been of a rhetorical nature. A starting point in my theoretical and methodical approach are the ideas expressed by Ole Togeby in his book Steder i bevidsthedens landskab, 2009 (Places in the Landscape of Consciousness). Togeby introduces the concept of ‘topoi’ which is a means to analyse reasoning and argumentation. In the analysis by means of topoi, it is not the outcome of the argumentation which is important, the focus is on the consistency.