Hans Christian Anderson

Hans Christian Andersen was the first truly professional Danish writer in the sense that he earned a living from his writing and never had another occupation (Andersen 65). Although his fame today rests on his fairy tales, his works cover every literary genre and many of them received great popular acclaim in his own time, both in Denmark and abroad.

Danish writer, the story of Hans Christian Andersen's life is, as he so often described it, a fairy tale: the son of a cobbler and an illiterate washer woman becomes a bestselling and internationally renowned author, a friend of princes, kings and queens. However, it is a fairy tale in the style of one of Andersen's own stories, no simple journey from 'once upon a time' to 'happily ever after' but a complex tale open to many interpretations, where a possibly mysterious beginning leads to a bitter-sweet end. Indeed, the stories are the Life, containing as they do so much more of what he actually felt and longed for than his autobiographies ever reveal.

Strongly influenced by E. T. A. Hoffmann, Andersen's first major successful work (in 1829) was Fodreise fra Holmens Canal til Østpynten af Amager i Aarene 1828 og 1829 (A Walking Tour from Holmen's Canal to the Eastern Point of Amager in the Years 1828 and 1829), a satirical, real and imaginary walking tour on New Year's Eve in Copenhagen. This tour de force brought Andersen's name to the attention of the public and the critics alike.

While still at school, Andersen wrote his first successful poem, “Det døende Barn” (“The Dying Child”), which was published anonymously. In the following years, Heinrich Heine became the main influence on Andersen's poetry, for example on Digte (Poems) in 1830, but most notably on his love poems in Phantasier og Skizzer (Phantasies and Sketches), 1831. In 1833 he published his Collected Poems, after which his lyrical writings become more incidental, appearing as part of his travelogues, plays and libretti, as occasional poems celebrating the nation or its regions, such as “I Danmark er jeg født” (“In Denmark I Was Born”) and “Jylland mellem tvende Have” (“Jutland between Two Oceans”), or as humorous narrative poems like “Konen med Æggene” (“The Woman with the Eggs”) (Bredsdorff 62).

Despite his enthusiasm for the stage, Andersen was not a natural dramatist and he suffered more defeats and distress here than in any other area of his vast production. Plays accepted for staging at the Royal Theater often ran for just a few performances and professional criticism was usually harsh. Admittedly, most of his plays had a very loose structure and the verse did not always ring true, but the critics were at times unjustly severe on him on formal grounds and for deviating from the prevailing taste, not appreciating some of the novel elements that he brought to the stage. He had a rare success with Mulatten (The Mulatto) in 1840. With its exotic setting, its powerful portrayal of sexual passion, hate and revenge, its interracial ...