Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger

• Born: November 14, 1779
• Birthplace: Copenhagen, Denmark
• Died: January 20, 1850
• Place of death: Copenhagen, Denmark

Other Literary Forms

Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger was an accomplished poet. He wrote very few prose texts but contributed greatly to the genre of the lyric epic poem. In addition, Oehlenschläger is highly acclaimed for his straightforward lyric poetry.

Achievements

In 1797, one of the most important contemporary Danish journals pronounced the Golden Age of poetry and culture dead, but within five years of this pronouncement some of the giants of intellectual life in Denmark were to make their presence felt. Among them were Bertel Thorvaldsen, whose sculptures in the classic tradition made him famous beyond the national borders, Hans Christian Ørsted, whose contribution to the natural sciences is still recognized today, and Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger. The celebrated Danish literary critic Georg Brandes stated in 1886 that Oehlenschläger’s Aladdin represents the point of departure of more recent Danish literary culture.

Like most other Romantic poets, Oehlenschläger must be seen in his historical context. He grew up in a world that was going through successive political crises. Denmark was to experience its worst trauma in centuries in the English bombing of Copenhagen in 1807, the loss of Norway to Sweden as a result of the Napoleonic Wars, and the state bankruptcy of 1813. Against this political backdrop, the dominant direction of belletristic literature was to turn away from reality to seek solace in aesthetic and religious values. Imagination was the tool with which Romanticism tried to embrace the whole world, to understand its secrets, and to arrive at an explanation for the meaning of life. This aim was not to be achieved by means of scientific striving and research; above all, it was the province of the Romantic poet.

It would be simplistic to say that Oehlenschläger introduced Romanticism into Denmark. The main impetus of his style and subject matter came from the German Romantics, among them mainly the Schlegel brothers, Johann Adolf and Johann Elias, and Novalis. Oehlenschläger, however, did not import the German movement unchanged into his country but subsumed many of its strategies into the particular circumstances of his culture. At times, these circumstances were even limited to his immediate location—Copenhagen and its surrounding area—as is the case in Midsummer Night’s Play. Oehlenschläger made wide use of a humor, which, although localized and, at times, rather parochial, nevertheless separates him from many of his contemporaries in European Romanticism. His changes introduced a special Danish Romanticism on the belletristic scene.

As a Romantic poet, Oehlenschläger possessed a singular lyric inventiveness, and he made use of the Danish language as few before him had. Evidence for his influence on Danish is to be found in the many quotations from Aladdin that have entered the vernacular as proverbs or sayings; these are widely used today without any consciousness of their origin. Oehlenschläger made the Danes aware of the beauty and possibilities of their language.

Oehlenschläger also played a major role in the Danish-German literary relationship. He rewrote Aladdin and several other works in German and translated the works of Ludvig Holberg into that language. In addition, he translated the works of the German poet Ludwig Tieck and introduced them to the Danish public.

Linguistically and stylistically, Oehlenschläger created an epoch. Colorful, directly sensual, and plastic imagery reached a new height in his work. He was exposed to many attacks by his fellow authors and poets, but in 1829, the Swedish poet Esaias Tegnér crowned him the “Nordic King of Poetry.” In his later years, Oehlenschläger enjoyed a growing appreciation of his role as the creator of Danish national poetry and as a master of the lyric epic poem and Nordic drama. Largely because of his work, romance became a favorite genre in Denmark, as did drama, and following generations tried with varying degrees of success to follow in Oehlenschläger’s footsteps.

Biography

Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger was born in Copenhagen on November 14, 1779, to a Danish mother and a German father. The latter was an organist at first but later became the steward of the palace at Frederiksberg, then the summer residence of the Danish royal family. There can be little doubt that Oehlenschläger’s love for nature started in his childhood, a good part of which he spent in the beautiful parks and gardens of the royal palace.

As a young man, he vacillated between law and the theater. During this period, he met and came under the influence of the important Danish intellectuals of his time, whose lives revolved around the natural sciences, art, literature, religion, aesthetics, and the search for “truth.” Young Oehlenschläger grew to despise the materialism and the rationalist philistinism (or so his time perceived the spirit of the Enlightenment) that prevailed in his country.

In 1801, Oehlenschläger won second prize in a contest that posed the controversial question of whether it would be useful for Nordic arts if the old Nordic mythology were to be introduced and generally accepted in lieu of the Greek. As might be expected of a budding Romantic, he answered in the affirmative and thus set the tone for the main subject matter in his literary works. It was the philosopher Henrik Steffens who was crucial in introducing Oehlenschläger to the ideas of Romanticism. Steffens believed that sentiment and nature were vital elements in poetry, and he shared the contemporary Continental (and especially German) preference for imagination and intuition over reason and enlightenment. Oehlenschläger, who at the age of nineteen had read Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (1774; The Sorrows of Young Werther, 1779), was easily converted to Romanticism.

Oehlenschläger’s first collection, Digte (1803), broke with the tradition of the eighteenth century and heralded the arrival of a Danish Romanticism. The work was a true testament to the “universal poetry” suggested by Friedrich von Schlegel because it embraced several genres, including lyric poems, a verse drama, and lyric epics. Its publication marked a turning point in Oehlenschläger’s literary career. It included the lyric drama Midsummer Night’s Play and the poem Guldhornene (1802; The Golden Horns, 1913), which was based on the discovery of two gold drinking horns from Nordic antiquity (they were later stolen from a museum and are believed to have been melted down). Oehlenschläger’s imagination turned these relics of antiquity into symbols of true poetry because they were not found by scientists or scholars, but by accident by a “son of nature”—a ploughman—who was selected by the gods.

This theme was further explored in his next collection, Poetiske skrifter, which appeared in 1805. It contained, among other works, two lyric cycles and Vaulundurs saga (English translation, 1847), but the crucial text was the play Aladdin. Poetiske skrifter made Oehlenschläger the favorite of the Danish public, and hopes for a Danish national literature were placed on the young poet. The king sponsored an obligatory trip abroad, and from 1805 to 1809, Oehlenschläger journeyed to Germany, France, Italy, and Switzerland, during which time he made the personal acquaintance of Goethe and Friedrich Schleiermacher and renewed his friendship with Steffens.

He matured much during this period and turned toward a bourgeois humanism with a Nordic focus. His literary output was no longer characterized by a lighthearted and witty vein, and he started writing tragedies. It was during his stay in Halle with Steffens that he wrote Hakon Jarl, which was published in 1807, together with Baldur hiin gode and a dramatic poem entitled Nordiske digte.

After his return to Denmark, Oehlenschläger was made professor of aesthetics at the University of Copenhagen. He would never again reach the pinnacle of creativity of his early youth, although he wrote many more lyric poems and epics—of the latter, Hroars saga (1817) is worth mentioning. Indeed, Oehlenschläger did not develop as a reflective writer: He blossomed for a short time and then never again. He was thus an example of his own philosophy of literature. On his seventieth birthday, shortly after a Danish victory over Prussia, his countrymen celebrated him as a symbol of Danish national resurrection. He died a few months later in Copenhagen on January 20, 1850.

Analysis

Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger’s choice of subject matter for his plays was very much in line with the philosophy of the time. To him, as well as to other writers of the epoch, the national spirit was to be found in indigenous folklore. This view stimulated enormous research into folk songs and medieval tales, resulting in a rediscovery of the old sagas. Oehlenschläger stated that mythology was the product of a nation’s characters and way of thinking. Thus, one must look at his literary production as the point of departure for a new Danish national literary tradition. This fact is one of the prime reasons for his success with audiences.

Midsummer Night’s Play

Midsummer Night’s Play, a lyric drama, appeared in the collection Digte in 1803. This is the only play by Oehlenschläger that is set in contemporary Denmark, and the author uses the local setting as backdrop for a Romantic polemic against the rationalist philosophy of life and its expression in the arts.

The plot line of Midsummer Night’s Play is very thin and is subordinate to the polemicizing of the proponents of the various viewpoints. Maria has been farmed out and hidden with another family by her mother because she has fallen in love with Ludvig, a man above her in social standing. Ludvig loves Maria also, and they meet surreptitiously at a picnic at the popular Bakken, an amusement park for Copenhageners then and now. Within this framework, Oehlenschläger takes a mildly satiric look at the bourgeoisie and the state of the arts in Denmark. His vehicle is the whole plethora of Pierrots, harlequins, conjurers, minstrels, marionettes, and beggars, together with “art critics” from the general crowd of listeners. The play ends on a happy note when the Goddess of Love takes pity on the unhappy lovers and escorts them to a faraway place where they can live their lives in idyllic harmony.

Midsummer Night’s Play is composed of a series of pictures that represents a bourgeois idyll. Oehlenschläger displays a contrapuntal array of figures, images, and ideas that contrast both in form and in content. The bold artists and the philistines, the irreverence of the ideals of the Enlightenment and the sensual representation of the primitive antiquity, the joy at the sight of the full picnic basket and the semireligious reverence of nature—these elements are all present in this youthful, playful drama. Most of the themes are presented in their own style, and lyric and epic episodes interchange freely in Oehlenschläger’s first dramatic attempt at universal poetry.

Aladdin

Aladdinwas the main work appearing in Oehlenschläger’s collection Poetiske skrifter. The source for the play was a 1758 Danish translation from the French of The Thousand and One Nights, and the author followed his source very closely, deviating only when dramatic exigency demanded it.

Aladdin is divided into five “actions,” rather than the traditional acts. In this way, Oehlenschläger broke with dramatic conventions, immediately establishing the critical stance of Romanticism: nonconformity, challenge, and negation of classicism and rationalism.

Aladdin is the story of a young, handsome idler who wins a princess and a crown. Aladdin meets Nureddin, who, unknown to him, is a magician and is searching for the Magic Lamp. Nureddin tries to kill Aladdin when the latter has retrieved the Magic Lamp for him but is unsuccessful. The young man returns home to his mother, Morgana, with the aid of the Spirit of the Lamp and proceeds to fall in love with the sultan’s daughter, Gulnare, after having spied on her when she was on the way to her bath. He convinces his mother to go to Soliman, the sultan, to ask for the hand of his daughter. Helped by the Spirit of the Lamp, he comes up with the outrageous bridal price that Soliman demands: forty black slaves, each carrying one gold vessel filled with jewels, followed by forty white slaves. In addition, his magic servants build a white marble palace overnight as a wedding gift to Gulnare.

Nureddin, however, has realized that Aladdin is alive and in possession of the Magic Lamp. He appears in the town, disguised, and while Aladdin is away hunting, he acquires the lamp through cunning. When the hunting party returns, there is neither palace nor Gulnare. Consequently, the sultan loses his confidence in his son-in-law and condemns him to death, but the people plead for Aladdin’s life, and he goes free on the condition that he return the princess and the palace within forty days.

Aladdin locates and kills Nureddin at the last moment and regains the favor of Soliman. Yet Nureddin’s brother, Hindbad, is driven by greed toward possession of the Magic Lamp. He kills a holy woman and, disguised as her, gains entry to the palace, where he is exposed as an impostor and dies in a duel with Aladdin. As Hindbad dies, a messenger tells Aladdin and Gulnare that the old sultan has died, and Aladdin is proclaimed sultan.

Aladdin is essentially an anti-Faustian figure who does not strive for knowledge. In this figure, Oehlenschläger presented his Danish audience with the Romantic paradigm, the “merry son of nature.” Many see in the character of Aladdin the forerunner of Joseph von Eichendorff’s protagonist in his popular Romantic novella Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts (1826; Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing, 1906, 1955). The evil magician, Nureddin, represents that which the Romantic movement fought with unflagging energy—the rational, intellectual being who orders, “Nature shall succumb to the power of the intellect.” He is first introduced speaking in a meter closely resembling the Alexandrine, very frequently used in the Enlightenment because it is well suited to discursive thought. Oehlenschläger also used obvious formal devices for the characterization of the dramatis personae.

Hakon Jarl

Hakon Jarl was written at the end of 1805, was published in 1807, and had its premiere on January 30, 1808. The play is a Nordic tragedy focusing on the introduction of Christianity into Scandinavia. Hakon Jarl, the title character, has ruled Norway as earl for some time but longs to be crowned king. His strength and ingenuity are legendary, but in a conversation with the merchant Thorer Klake in Odin’s sacred grove, he reveals his fears of Olaf Trygveson, the Christian king of Dublin, and at the same time bemoans his own increasing age and failing strength. During this conversation, Hakon Jarl discovers the strikingly beautiful daughter of the smith and local guildsman, Bergthor. She begs Hakon to let her go and then runs home to her father, who immediately locks her up underneath the house, confirming the audience’s suspicion that Hakon is a womanizer. Later, Hakon visits Bergthor’s shop to inquire whether the crown is ready for the meeting of the farmers’ council where he wants to be crowned. Bergthor replies that the crown is forged according to the measurement of an old, legendary king and that the crown belongs on the head on which it fits. The first real clue to the outcome of the play is found in the revelation that Hakon’s head is far too small for the crown.

Meanwhile, Thorer Klake succeeds in tricking the young Dublin king into staying in Norway. Olaf had stopped there on a sentimental visit en route to Russia, and he now declares his love of Norway and Christianity. He believes Thorer’s tale about the peasants’ dissatisfaction with Hakon and decides to stay to win over the country and its inhabitants to Christianity and himself. Unknown to Thorer, Hakon has in fact given the impetus to a peasants’ uprising in Hlade, having sent a group of his bondsmen to take the beautiful Gudrun from her father and her lawfully betrothed. The brave smith and his clan have offered resistance, and the outrage over this attempted misdeed spreads very quickly to other areas; soon an army is raised.

Act 3 of Hakon Jarl takes place on the island of Moster, where everything is ready for battle. Hakon is waiting in a coppice for the outcome of his latest cunning attempt to kill King Olaf, but his own kinsmen and warriors are disgusted by his deceit and thwart his plan, and Hakon is forced to flee.

The tragedy depicts the end of the last great heathen warrior and the extent to which he is willing to go in order to please the strict gods of Valhalla. In a pathetic last attempt to appease Odin, Hakon sacrifices his youngest and dearest son, Erling, in the sacred grove. Erling is already showing signs of the change that is to come over the Nordic countries when he shows his fear of the gods’ stone images, asking his father who those foul, old men are.

In the final act, the audience and Hakon’s sometime lover, Thora, hear word of the last battle, in the style of the old warrior epic and Nordic saga. Hakon has escaped alone on horseback, and Olaf Trygveson and his men are looking for him. Thora, however, allows Hakon to hide in the sepulchral chamber underneath her house. There he spends the last hours of his life with his thrall, Karker, who finally kills him and is executed by King Olaf for this unfaithful deed.

Hakon is indeed a tragic hero in the classic sense. Because of an accident of birth, he lives at a time of great upheaval in the north. He is a true product of his environment and can function only as a warrior and a ruler according to the cruel and dark myths of his time. Olaf Trygveson, on the other hand, is the harbinger of the new light and merciful faith that is changing the face of humanity. Hakon has no alternative but to follow the bidding of his culture and does not understand that the age of the old gods is over.

Oehlenschläger’s original intention was to make Olaf Trygveson the main character, but the ancient historical sources made such an impression on him that Hakon’s grand, tragic figure became the central one, and his struggle for power and for the values of the old culture became the heart of the tragedy. Oehlenschläger created two allegorical heroes who are fighting not for themselves but for ideas: the virile Nordic and heathen spirit against a generous, colorful, but weaker southern nature.

Baldur hiin gode

Baldur hiin gode is a tragedy written in iambic hexameter, the traditional epic meter. Here Oehlenschläger turns fully to the Nordic mythology and describes the end of Mithgarth—the realm of the Nordic gods. The god Baldur, representing the principle of Good, has had a dream that he soon shall die. The other gods, who all love Baldur, are horrified at the thought and command all things in the universe that they rule not to harm him. They forget the mistletoe, and Loke, a misfit and only part member of the family of gods, kills Baldur by means of a spear made of mistletoe. Hel, the goddess of the underworld, promises to let Baldur return to life if all things in the world show sorrow. Loke, however, does not weep, and consequently Baldur must remain with Hel.

The characters are types or allegorical figures. Good and evil, and beauty and ugliness, are juxtaposed forcefully in the play. The action is also built on contrasting relationships and historical clashes between ideas, cultures, or personalities. Baldur hiin gode portrays the grand passions: happiness and sorrow, love and hate, envy and sacrifice.

Even though the theme is different from that of Aladdin, it is interesting to note that the quality of evil, just as in Aladdin, has been assigned to the meditating, scheming, more rational figure, Loke. Baldur, on the other hand, is the dreaming, beautiful, naïve character; the audience recognizes the Romantic ideal in his qualities.

Bibliography

Aage, Jøorgenson. Idyll and Abyss: Essays on Danish Literature and Theater. Seattle, Wash.: Mermaid Press, 1992. A chapter in this work is devoted to a discussion of Oehlenschläger, with emphasis on his poetry. Bibliography.

Bernd, Clifford A. Poetic Realism in Scandinavia and Central Europe, 1820-1895. Columbia, S.C.: Camden House, 1995. This volume covers poetry in Denmark at the time when Oehlenschläger was writing. Bibliography and index.