<p><strong>Jacobsen's immediate importance was his status as the 'writer of his generation.'</strong> Jacobsen's breakthrough came already in 1876 with the historical and psychological novel Fru Marie Grubbe," entitled Marie Grubbe in English, "which for the first time in Danish literature presented a profound portrayal of a woman as a creature of instinct and desire and as a being searching for her own identity. The book's defiant individualism asserting human values as opposed to society's judgment was also a sign of modernity."</p>