Philip Rode Houm (20 April 1911 – 22 April 1990) was a Norwegian literary critic.

Biography

He was born in

Kristiania Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

(now Oslo), Norway. He graduated with a master's degree in literature from the

Royal Frederick University The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top universit ...

in 1938, Houm was a co-editor in the journal ''Kølen'' 1942-45. He worked as literary critic for the newspaper ''

Dagbladet ''Dagbladet'' (lit.: ''The Daily Magazine'') is one of Norway's largest newspapers and is published in the tabloid format. It has 1,400,000 daily readers on mobile, web and paper. Traditionally ''Dagbladet'' is considered the main liberal newspa ...

'' from 1945. He was a board member of

Nationaltheatret The National Theatre in Oslo ( no, Nationaltheatret) is one of Norway's largest and most prominent venues for performance of dramatic arts. History The theatre had its first performance on 1 September 1899 but can trace its origins to Christia ...

from 1963, a member of Norwegian Language Committee (''Norsk språknemnd'') from 1966 to 1972, and of the

Norwegian Language Council The Language Council of Norway ( no, Språkrådet, ) is the consultative body of the Norwegian state on language issues. It was established in 2005 and replaced the Norwegian Language Council (, ) which existed from 1974 to 2005. It is a subsidiar ...

from 1972 to 1976. In 1947, he was commissioned by Aschehoug to write a closing volume to their series on Norwegian literature history
''Norges litteratur fra 1914 til 1950-årene''
was published in 1955. Among his other books were ''Ask Burlefot og vi'' (1957) and ''Kritikere i en gullalder'' (1982). Houm died in

Bærum Bærum () is a municipality in the Greater Oslo Region in Norway that forms an affluent suburb of Oslo on the west coast of the city. Bærum is Norway's fifth largest municipality with a population of 128,760 (2021). It is part of the electoral ...

and was buried in the churchyard of Haslum Church. He was a grandfather of Nicolai Houm.

References

1911 births 1990 deaths Writers from Oslo University of Oslo alumni Norwegian literary critics Norwegian literary historians Dagbladet people 20th-century Norwegian historians {{norway-writer-stub