BAGGESEN, JENS IMMANUEL (1764-1826)

This article appears in Volume V03, Page 200 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: AUD-BAI

BAGGESEN, JENS IMMANUEL (1764-1826) , Danish poet, was born on the 15th of February 1764 at Korsor. His parents were very poor, and before he was twelve he was sent to copy documents at the office of the clerk of the

district

DISTRICT

. He was a melancholy, feeble child, and before this he had attempted suicide more than once. By dint of indomitable perseverance, he managed to gain an education, and in 1782 entered the university of Copenhagen. His success as a writer was coeval with his earliest publication; his Comical Tales in verse, poems that recall the Broad Grins that Colman the younger brought out a decade later, took the town by

storm

, and the struggling

young

poet found himself a popular favourite at twenty-one. He then tried serious lyrical writing, and his tact, elegance ofmanner and versatility, gained him a place in the best society. This sudden success received a blow in 1789. when a very poor opera, Halge Danske, which he had produced, was received with mockery and a reaction against him set in. He left Denmark in a rage and spent the next years in Germany, France and Switzerland. He married at Berne in 1790, began to write in German and published in that language his next poem, Alpenlied.. In the winter of the same year he returned to his mother-country, bringing with him as a peace-offering his fine descriptive poem, the Labyrinth, in Danish, and was received with unbounded homage. The next twenty years were spent in incessant restless wanderings over the north of Europe, Paris latterly becoming his nominal

home

. He continued to publish volumes alternately in Danish and German. Of the latter the most important was the idyllic epos in hexameters called Parthenais (1803). In 18o6 he. returned to Copenhagen to find the

young

Ohlenschlager installed as the

great

GREAT

poet of the day, and he himself beginning to lose his previously unbounded popularity. Until 182o he resided in Copenhagen, in almost unceasing literary

feud

FEUD

with some one or other, abusing and being abused; the most important feature of the whole being

Baggesen

BAGGESEN, JENS IMMANUEL (1764-1826)

's determination not to allow Ohlenschlager to be considered a greater: poet than himself. He then left Denmark for the last time and went back to his beloved Paris, where he lost his second wife and youngest child in. 1822, and after the miseries of an imprisonment for debt, fell at last into a state of hopeless melancholy madness. In 1826, having slightly recovered, he wished to see Denmark once more, but died in the freemasons'

hospital

at Hamburg on his way, on the 3rd of October, and was buried at Kiel. His many-sided talents achieved success in all forms of writing, but his domestic, philosophical and

critical

CRITICAL (in alphabetical order of authors)

works have long ceased, to occupy attention. A little more power of restraining his egotism and passion would have made him one of the wittiest and keenest of modern satirists, and his comic poems are deathless. The Danish literature owes

Baggesen

BAGGESEN, JENS IMMANUEL (1764-1826)

great

GREAT

debt for the firmness, polish and form which he introduced into ithis style being always finished and elegant. With all his faults he stands as the greatest figure between Holberg and Ohlenschlager. Of all his poems, however, the loveliest and best is a little simple song, There was a time when I was very little, which every Dane, high or low, knows by heart, and which is matchless in its simplicity and pathos. It has outlived all his epics. (E.G.)

End of Article: BAGGESEN, JENS IMMANUEL (1764-1826)

If you wish, you can link directly to this article.

<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/AUD_BAI/BAGGESEN_JENS_IMMANUEL_1764_18.html">
BAGGESEN, JENS IMMANUEL (1764-1826)
</a>

(Previous)
BAGGARA (" Cowherds ")

(Next)
BAGGING

JCSM was founded in 1997 and exists to help the community and bring people into a life-changing and productive relationship with Jesus Christ. JCSM offers over 200,000 free web pages, including its weekly inspirational emails that were sent continuously for over a decade.

Jesus Christ Saves Ministries
P.O. Box 9297
San Diego, CA 92169
1-888-887-0417 or Email