You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Danish. (June 2023) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Danish Wikipedia article at [[:da:Jens Baggesen]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|da|Jens Baggesen}} to the talk page.
Jens Immanuel Baggesen[1] (15 February 1764 – 3 October 1826) was a major Danishpoet, librettist, critic, and comic writer.
Life
Baggesen was born at Korsør on the Danishisland of Zealand on February 15, 1764. His parents were very poor, and he was sent to copy documents at the office of the clerk of Hornsherred[citation needed]District before he was twelve. He was a melancholy, feeble child, and he attempted suicide more than once. By dint of indomitable perseverance, he managed to gain an education; in 1782, he entered the University of Copenhagen.[2]
His first work—a verse Comical Tales broadly similar to the later Broad Grins of Colman the Younger—took the capital by storm and the struggling poet found himself a popular favorite at age 21.[2] He then tried more serious lyric poetry and his tact, elegant manners, and versatility gained him a place in the best society.[2] In March 1789,[citation needed] his success collapsed when his operaHolger Danske was received with mockery of its many faults[2] and a heated nationalist controversy over Baggesen's association with Germans.[citation needed] He left Denmark in a rage and spent the next years in Germany, France, and Switzerland.[2]
In 1790, he married at Bern and began to write in German. He published his next poem Alpenlied ("Alpine Song") in that language, but brought the DanishLabyrinten ("Labyrinth") as a peace offering upon his return to Denmark in the winter. It was received with unbounded homage. Over the next twenty years, he published volumes alternately in Danish and German and wandered across northern Europe before settling principally in Paris. His most important German work during this period was the 1803 idyllic hexameterepic called Parthenais.[2]
Upon his 1806 visit to Copenhagen, he found the young Oehlenschläger hailed as the great poet of the day and his own popularity on the wane. He then stayed, engaging in one abusive literary feud after another, most with the underlying issue that Baggesen was determined not to allow Oehlenschläger to be considered a greater poet than himself. He finally left for Paris in 1820, where he lost his second wife and youngest child in 1822. Suffering a period of imprisonment for his debts, he fell at last into a hopeless melancholy madness. Having slightly recovered, he determined to see Denmark once more, but died en route at the Freemasons' hospital in Hamburg on October 3, 1826. He was buried at Kiel.[2]
Legacy
Baggesen's many-sided talents achieved success in all forms of writing, but his political, philosophical, and critical works fell out of favor by the mid-19th century. His satire is marred by his egotism and passions, but his comic poems are deathless. His finished and elegant style was very influential on later Danish literature, in which he is regarded as the major figure between Holberg and Oehlenschläger. His greatest success, however, has proven to be the simple song Da Jeg Var Lille[3] ("There Was a Time when I Was Very Little")[4] which was known by heart among Danes a century after his death. It outlived all of his epics.[2]
There is a statue of Baggesen on Havnepladsen in Korsør, unveiled on 6 May 1906 by Professor Vilhelm Andersen. The local Best Western hotel is also named after him.
References
^Also formerly written as Jens Emmanuel Baggesen.(Gosse 1911, p. 200)