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EWALD, JOHANNES (1743-1781)

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Originally appearing in Volume V10, Page 40 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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EWALD, JOHANNES (1743-1781) , the greatest lyrical poet of See also:Denmark, was the son of a See also:melancholy and sickly See also:chaplain at See also:Copenhagen, where he was See also:born on the 18th of See also:November 1743. At the See also:age of eleven he was sent to school at See also:Schleswig, his See also:father's birthplace, and returned to the See also:capital only to enter the university in 1758. His father was by that See also:time dead, and in his See also:mother, a frivolous and foolish woman, he found neither sympathy nor moral support. At fifteen he See also:fell passionately in love with Arense Hulegaard, a girl whose father afterwards married the poet's mother; and the romantic boy resolved on various modes of making himself admired by the See also:young See also:lady. He began to learn Abyssinian, for the purpose of going out as a missionary to See also:Africa, but this See also:scheme was soon given up, and he persuaded a See also:brother, four years older than himself, to run away that they might enlist as hussars in the Prussian See also:army. They managed to reach See also:Hamburg just when the Seven Years' See also:War was commencing and were allowed to enter a See also:regiment. But the See also:elder brother soon got tired and ran away, while the poet, after a See also:series of extraordinary adventures, deserted to the See also:Austrian army, where from being drummer he See also:rose to being sergeant, and was only not made an officer because he was a See also:Protestant. In 176o he was weary of a soldier's See also:life and deserted again, getting safe back to Denmark. For the next two years he worked with See also:great See also:diligence at the university, but the Arense for whom he had gone through so much hardship and taken so much pains married another See also:man almost immediately after Ewald's final and very successful examination. The disappointment was one from which he never recovered, but his own weakness of will was largely to blame for it. He plunged into dissipation of every See also:kind, and gave his serious thoughts only to See also:poetry. In 1763 his first See also:work, a perfunctory dissertation, De pyrologia sacra, first saw the See also:light.

In 1764 he made a considerable success with a See also:

short .See also:prose See also:story in the popular manner of Sneedorf, Lykkens Tempel (The See also:Temple of See also:Fortune), which was translated into See also:German and Icelandic. On the See also:death of See also:Frederick V., how-ever, Ewald first appeared prominently as a poet; he published in 1766 three Elegies over the dead See also:king, which were received with universal See also:acclamation, and of which one, at least, is a veritable masterpiece. But his dramatic poem See also:Adam og Eva (Adam and See also:Eve), by far the finest imaginative work produced in Denmark up to that time, was rejected by the Society of Arts in 1767 and was not published until 1769. At the latter date, however, its merits were perceived. In 1770 Ewald attained success with Philet, a narrative and lyrical poem, and still more with his splendid Rolf Krage, the first See also:original Danish tragedy. For the next ten years Ewald was occupied in producing one brilliant poetical work after another, in rapid See also:succession. In 1771 he published De brutale Klappers (The Brutal Clappers), a tragicomedy or See also:parody satirizing the dispute then raging between the critics and the manager of the Royal See also:Theatre; in 1772 he translated from the German the lyrical See also:drama of See also:Philemon and Baucis, and brought out his versified See also:comedy of See also:Harlequin Patriot, a See also:satire on the See also:passion for See also:political scribbling created by See also:Struensee's introduction of the See also:liberty of the See also:press, In 1773 he published Pebersvendene (Old Bachelors), a prose comedy. In 1771 he had already collected some of his lyrical poems under the See also:title of Adskilligt of Johannes Ewald (Miscellanies). In 177439 appeared the heroic See also:opera of See also:Balder's Dad (Balder's Death), and in 1779 the finest of his See also:works, the lyrical drama Fiskerne (The Fishers), which contains the Danish See also:National See also:Song, " King See also:Christian stood by the high See also:Mast," his most famous lyric. In the two poems last mentioned, however, Ewald passed beyond contemporary See also:taste, and these great works, the See also:pride of Danish literature, were coldly received. But while the new poetry was slowly winning its way into popular esteem, the poet did not lack admirers, and at the See also:head of these he founded in 1775 the Danish See also:Literary Society, a See also:body which became influential, and which made the study of Ewald a cultus. But the poet's See also:health had broken; when he was See also:writing Rolf Krage he was already an inmate of the consumptive See also:hospital, and when he seemed to be recovering, his health was shattered again by a See also:night spent in the frosty streets.

He embittered his existence by the recklessness of his private life, and finally, through a fall from a See also:

horse, he ended by becoming a See also:complete invalid. His last ten years were full of acute suffering; his mother treated him with See also:cruelty, his See also:family with neglect, and but few even of his See also:friends showed any manliness or generosity towards him. In 1774 he was placed in the See also:house of an inspector of See also:fisheries at Rungsted, where See also:Anna Hedevig See also:Jacobsen, the daughter of the house, tended the wasted poet with See also:infinite tenderness and skill. He stayed in this house for three years, and wrote there some of his finest later lyrics. Meanwhile he had fallen deeply in love with the charming solace of his sufferings and won her consent to a See also:marriage. This step, however, was prevented by his family, who roughly removed him to their own keeping near Kronborg. Here he was treated so infamously that he insisted on being taken back to Copenhagen in 1777, where he found an older, but no less See also:tender See also:nurse, in Ane Kirstine Skou. Here he wrote Fiskerne with his See also:imagination full of the See also:familiar See also:shore at Hornbaek, near Rungsted. In 1780 he was a little better, and managed to be See also:present at the theatre at the first performance of his poem. But this excitement hastened his end, and after months of extreme agony he died on the 17th of See also:March 1781, and was carried to the See also:grave by a large See also:assembly of his admirers, since he was now just recognized by the public for the first time as the greatest national poet. Among his papers were found fragments of three dramas, two on old Scandinavian subjects, entitled Frode and Helga, and the third a tragedy on the story of See also:Hamlet, which he meant to treat in a way wholly distinct from See also:Shakespeare's. Ewald belongs to the See also:race of poetical reformers who appeared in all countries of See also:Europe at the end of the 18th See also:century; but it is interesting to observe that in point of time he preceded all of them.

He was born six years earlier than See also:

Goethe and See also:Alfieri, sixteen years before See also:Schiller, nine years before See also:Andre See also:Chenier, and twenty-seven years earlier than See also:Wordsworth, but he did for Denmark what each of these poets did for his own See also:country. Ewald found Danish literature given over to tasteless See also:rhetoric, and without See also:art or vigour. He introduced vivacity of See also:style, freshness and brevity of See also:form, and an imaginative study of nature which was then unprecedented. But perhaps his greatest claim to See also:notice is the fact that he was the first See also:person to See also:call the See also:attention of the Scandinavian peoples to the treasuries of their See also:ancient See also:history and See also:mythology, and to suggest the use of these in imaginative writing. With a colouring more distinctly See also:modern than that of See also:Collins and See also:Gray, his lyrics yet resemble the odes of these his See also:English contemporaries more closely than those of any See also:continental poet; from another point of view his See also:ballads remind us of those of Schiller, which they preceded. His dramas, which had an immense See also:influence on the Danish See also:stage, are now chiefly of antiquarian See also:interest, with the exception of " The Fishers," a work that must always live as a great national poem. In See also:personal See also:character and in See also:fate Ewald seems to have been not unlike Heinrich See also:Heine. The first collected edition of Ewald's works began to appear in his lifetime. It is in four volumes, 1780-1784. His works have constantly been reprinted, but the See also:standard edition is that by Liebenberg, in 8 vols., 1850–1855. The best See also:biographies of him are those by C. Molbech (1831), Hammerich (186o) and Andreas Dolleris (1900).

(E.

End of Article: EWALD, JOHANNES (1743-1781)

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