Critics’ Seminar: On Betraying Oneself, Time and Time Again. Must the Literary Critic Choose One or the Other?

Lecture by Maria Olerud, author, journalist and literary critic at Morgenbladet:

This programme item is part of the Critics’ Seminar “The treachery of literary criticism”. The event is open to everyone.

“Advise me, but do not deceive me.” These were words Henrik Ibsen put in the mouth of Peer Gynt, perhaps one of the most capricious and deceitful characters in Norwegian literary history. The theme for LitFestBergen 2026 is betrayal, and the annual Critics’ Seminar will engage with it. One of the desirable qualities of literary criticism is that it should be free, and perhaps also that it should be uncompromising and trustworthy. So, in the spirit of good criticism: Should literary criticism also be deceitful – for is deceit unequivocally negative? And what does potentially deceitful criticism look like from a historical perspective on literary criticism?

To squeeze a little more out of the word “betrayal”, we ask: Where and how do critics and literary criticism betray? What and whom – if anything – does criticism betray? In the spirit of faithfulness, then, this year’s Critics’ Seminar will pummel, wrench, and wring the concept of betrayal in a quest to uncover blind spots in the work and essence of literary criticism – both by looking at the history of literary criticism and at our own contemporary world.