The Journey of Niels Klim to the World Underground by Ludvig Holberg

In this role, he witnesses a myriad of strange peoples and societies, some strange and terrible, other marvelous and interesting in one land, all the inhabitants are born with different numbers of eyes and divided accordingly. The Potuans allow Klim to remain in their society after an initial altercation, on account of his “so weak and uneven a judgment that he hardly merits to be considered as a rational creature”, and take advantage of his relatively mobile form by employing him as a royal messenger. Their home kingdom of Potu ( Utopia) is a striking example of 18 th-century Enlightenment thought, with all its associated blessings and curses. In this underground world, Klim visits a number of worlds in the novel most strikingly is the planet Nazar inhabited by enlightened tree people. Niels Klim finds himself accidentally in a subterranean world, having fallen while exploring a cave on the surface. Effectively, the novel circumvents potential censorship and backlash by seemingly reinforcing European values and supremacy, only to indirectly dismantle this perspective with the reason or foolishness of the elaborate fantasy worlds the narrator encounters. The satire of the work emerges from the conflict between the naïve bravado of Klim and the different societies and values he encounters. The eponymous Niels Klim approaches each society with an unwavering sense of his own superiority, and that of his homeland, only to be continually humiliated and ridiculed. Utilizing the freedom of an imaginary world, the novel circumvented the strict censorship of its day to become something of a best-seller in Germany and Scandinavia. Ludvig Holberg’s 1741 Latin novel, The Journey of the Niels Klim to the World Underground presents a far-ranging satire of European society through an imaginary voyage of a young college graduate as he travels throughout a series of fantastic worlds beneath the earth’s surface.

The Journey of Niels Klim to the World Underground by Ludvig Holberg