Jens Baggesen

Jens Baggesen
Jens Baggesen, pastel by Christian Horneman made during a visit to Copenhagen in 1806 from Paris where Baggesen lived at the time
Born	Jens Immanuel Baggesen (1764-02-15)15 February 1764 Korsør, Denmark
Died	3 October 1826(1826-10-03) (aged 62) Hamburg, German Confederation
Occupation	Poet
Nationality	Danish
Literary movement	Romanticism
Notable works	Labyrinten "Da Jeg Var Lille"
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Jens Immanuel Baggesen (15 February 1764 – 3 October 1826) was a major Danish poet, librettist, critic, and comic writer.

Baggesen was born at Korsør on the Danish island of Zealand on February 15, 1764. His parents were very poor, and before he was sent to copy documents at the office of the clerk of HornsherredDistrict 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.

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. He then tried more serious lyric poetry and his , elegant manners, and versatility gained him a place in the best society. In March 1789, his success collapsed when his opera Holger Danske was received with mockery of its many faults and a heated nationalist controversy over Baggesen's association with Germans. He left Denmark in a rage and spent the next years in Germany, France, and Switzerland.

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 Danish Labyrinten ("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 hexameter epic called Parthenais.