Results for Hans Christian Andersen
On this page:
 
Artist:

Hans Christian Andersen [author]

  • Born April 02, 1805 in Odense
  • Died August 04, 1875 in Copenhagen
  • Country: Denmark

Biography

Born in a slum and struggling through his youth to break through Denmark's class structure, Hans Christian Andersen always considered himself an outsider. And so his plays, novels, and especially his fairy tales are populated by outsiders, some of whom do not live happily ever after. The young Andersen initially hoped to rise from his impoverishment as an actor, but a theater director instead raised money to send him to school. In 1829, he gained his first success not as an actor but as a writer, with "A Walk From Holmen's Canal to the East Point of the Island of Amager in the Years 1828 and 1829." Despite its unwieldy travelogue title, this was a tale of fantasy inspired by the work of E.T.A. Hoffmann. Still attached to the theater, Andersen went on to write several plays, few of which were particularly successful. He made his name more as a novelist, with such works as The Improviser (1835) and Only a Fiddler (1837). It was during this early phase of novel writing that Andersen also began turning out original little tales in folk style. The first of what would amount to 156 stories was published in 1835 as Eventyr, or Tales Told for Children. Eventyr was expanded in 1837 and a second volume came out in 1842. Related collections of stories were regularly issued through 1852, with a last publication, New Fairy Tales and Stories, finally arriving in 1872. One key to Andersen's popularity was his style, which was colloquial rather than literary. Yet he refused to write down to children; he introduced dark feelings and sinister turns of events and expressed special sympathy for outcasts, not just heroes and princesses. Some of his tales celebrated the triumph of goodness and were, indeed, overtly Christian, but others were pessimistic in the tradition of German Romanticism. Andersen was also a poet, and his verse has been set to music by such composers as Grieg, Nielsen, and Schumann (notably Der Spielmann). But his fairy tales have made the strongest impression on composers. Among musical adaptations, sometimes quite loose, of Andersen's tales are Prokofiev's song The Ugly Duckling, Mary Rodgers' musical Once Upon a Mattress (based on "The Princess and the Pea"), and Disney's animated feature The Little Mermaid. ~ James Reel, All Music Guide

 
 
Biography: Hans Christian Andersen

The Danish author Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) enjoyed fame in his own lifetime as a novelist,dramatist, and poet, but his fairy tales are his great contribution to world literature.

Hans Christian Andersen was born on April 2, 1805, in Odense, Denmark. His father was a shoemaker and his mother a washerwoman, and he was the first Danish author to emerge from the lowest class. At the age of 14, Andersen convinced his mother to let him try his luck in Copenhagen rather than be apprenticed to a tailor. When she asked what he intended to do there, he replied, "I'II become famous! First you suffer cruelly, and then you become famous."

For 3 years he lived in one of Copenhagen's disreputable districts. He tried to become a singer, dancer, and actor but failed. When he was 17, a prominent government official arranged a scholarship for Andersen in order to repair his spotty education. But he was an indifferent student and was unable to study systematically. He never learned to spell or to write the elegant Danish of the period. Thus his literary style remained close to the spoken language and is still fresh and living today, unlike that of most of his contemporaries.

After spending 7 years at school, mostly under the supervision of a neurotic rector who seems to have hated him, Andersen celebrated the passing of his university examinations in 1828 by writing his first prose narrative, an unrestrained satirical fantasy. This, his first success, was quickly followed by a vaudeville and a collection of poems. Andersen's career as an author was begun, and his years of suffering were at an end.

A lifelong bachelor, he was frequently in love (with, among others, the singer Jenny Lind). He lived most of his life as a guest on the country estates of wealthy Danes. He made numerous journeys abroad, where he met and in many cases became friends with prominent Europeans, among them the English novelist Charles Dickens. Andersen died on Aug. 4, 1875.

Literary Career

In 1835 Andersen completed his first novel, The Improvisatore, and published his first small volume of fairy tales, an event that went virtually unnoticed. The Improvisatore has a finely done Italian setting and, like most of Andersen's novels, was based on his own life. It was a success not only in Denmark but also in England and Germany. He wrote five more novels, all of them combining highly artificial plots with remarkably vivid descriptions of landscape and local customs.

As a dramatist, Andersen failed almost absolutely. But many of his poems are still a part of living Danish literature, and his most enduring contributions, after the fairy tales, are his travel books and his autobiography. In vividness, spontaneity, and impressionistic insight into character and scene, the travel books (of which A Poet's Bazaar is the masterpiece) rival the tales, and the kernels of many of the tales are found there.

World fame came to Andersen early. In 1846 the publication of his collected works in German gave him the opportunity to write an autobiography (published in both German and English in 1847). This book formed the basis of the Danish version, The Fairy Tale of My Life (1855).

Fairy Tales

Andersen began his fairy-tale writing by retelling folk tales he had heard as a child. Very soon, however, he began to create original stories, and the vast majority of his tales are original. The first volumes in 1835-1837 contained 19 tales and were called Fairy Tales Told for Children. In 1845 the title changed to New Fairy Tales. The four volumes appearing with this title contained 22 original tales and mark the great flowering of Andersen's genius. In 1852 the title was changed to Stories, and from then on the volumes were called New Fairy Tales and Stories. During the next years Andersen published a number of volumes of fairy tales, and his last works of this type appeared in 1872. Among his most popular tales are "The Ugly Duckling," "The Princess and the Pea," and "The Little Mermaid."

At first Andersen dismissed his fairy-tale writing as a "bagatelle" and, encouraged by friends and prominent Danish critics, considered abandoning the genre. But he later came to believe that the fairy tale would be the "universal poetry" of which so many romantic writers dreamed, the poetic form of the future, which would synthesize folk art and literature and encompass the tragic and the comic, the naive and the ironic.

While the majority of Andersen's tales can be enjoyed by children, the best of them are written for adults as well and lend themselves to varying interpretations according to the sophistication of the reader. To the Danes this is the most important aspect of the tales, but it is unfortunately not often conveyed by Andersen's translators. Indeed, some of the finest and richest tales, such as "She Was No Good," "The Old Oak Tree's Last Dream," "The Shadow," "The Wind Tells of Valdemar Daae and His Daughter," and "The Bell," do not often find their way into English-language collections. More insidious, though, are the existing translations that omit entirely Andersen's wit and neglect those stylistic devices that carry his multiplicity of meanings. Andersen's collected tales form a rich fictive world, remarkably coherent and capable of many interpretations, as only the work of a great poet can be.

Further Reading

The only complete collection of Andersen's tales in English is the translation by Jean Hersholt, The Complete Andersen: All of the 168 Stories (6 vols., 1949). His novels and travel books have all been translated but not in this century. Still one of the best sources of information about Andersen's life is his autobiography, The Fairy Tale of My Life, in a translation by W. Glyn Jones (1954). Excellent biographies are Fredrik Böök, Hans Christian Andersen (1938; trans. 1962), and Monica Stirling, The Wild Swan: The Life and Times of Hans Christian Andersen (1965). A good introduction to Andersen's method is Paul V. Rubow's essay, "Idea and Form in Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales," in Svend Dahl and H.G. Topsöe-Jensen, eds., A Book on the Danish Writer Hans Christian Andersen: His Life and Work (trans. 1955).

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Andersen.
(click to enlarge)
Hans Christian Andersen. (credit: The Bettmann Archive)
(born April 2, 1805, Odense, near Copenhagen, Den. — died Aug. 4, 1875, Copenhagen) Danish writer of fairy tales. Though reared in poverty, he received a university education. In his many collections of tales, published 1835 – 72, he broke with literary tradition and employed the idioms and constructions of spoken language. His stories are imaginative combinations of universal elements from folk legend and include such favourites as "The Ugly Duckling" and "The Emperor's New Clothes." While some reveal an optimistic belief in the ultimate triumph of goodness and beauty (e.g., "The Snow Queen"), others are deeply pessimistic. Part of what makes his tales compelling is the way they identify with the unfortunate and outcast. He also wrote plays, novels, poems, travel books, and several autobiographies.

For more information on Hans Christian Andersen, visit Britannica.com.

 
English Folklore: Hans Christian Andersen

(1805-75)

A Danish shoemaker's son who as a child had heard traditional storytelling ‘in the spinning-room or during the hop harvest’. He began writing fairytales in 1835, and continued all his life; the first English translations appeared in 1846. Some, for instance ‘The Travelling Companions’ and ‘Big Claus and Little Claus’, follow traditional plots quite closely; others are variations on old motifs, such as ‘The Little Mermaid’, elaborating the belief that water-spirits may love humans, and may desire to obtain salvation. Many, including the well-known ‘Ugly Duckling’, are entirely his own creations; almost all are full of pathos and emotionalism. Andersen's influence on the later literary fairytale in England was profound; it pervades the fairytales of Oscar Wilde, and can be felt as early as 1857 in several passages of Dickens's Little Dorrit. About a dozen are now among the stock of fairytales which most English children know, and are no longer felt as foreign.

 
Fairy Tale Companion: Hans Christian Andersen

Andersen, Hans Christian (1805–75), Danish writer, often regarded as the father of modern fairy tales. Son of a cobbler and a washerwoman, he rose to the position of a national poet and is the most well‐known Scandinavian writer of all times.

Although Andersen considered himself a novelist and playwright, his unquestionable fame is based on his fairy tales. He published four collections: Eventyr, fortalte for børn (Fairy Tales, Told for Children, 1835–42), Nye eventyr (New Fairy Tales, 1844–8), Historier (Stories, 1852–5), and Nye eventyr og historier (New Fairy Tales and Stories, 1858–72), which already during his lifetime were translated into many languages.

The sources of his stories were mostly Danish folk tales, collected and retold by his immediate predecessors J. M. Thiele, Adam Oehlenschläger and Bernhard Ingemann. Unlike the collectors, whose aim was to preserve and sometimes to classify and study fairy tales, Andersen was in the first place a writer, and his objective was to create new literary works based on folklore. As exceptions, some fairy tales have their origins in ancient poetry (‘The Naughty Boy’) or medieval European literature (‘The Emperor's New Clothes’).

There are several ways in which Andersen may be said to have created the genre of modern fairy tale. First, he gave the fairy tale a personal touch. His very first fairy tale, ‘The Tinder Box’, opens in a matter‐of‐fact way, instead of the traditional ‘Once upon a time’, and its characters, including the king, speak a colloquial, everyday language. This feature became the trademark of Andersen's style. Quite a number of his early fairy tales are retellings of traditional folk tales, such as ‘Little Claus and Big Claus’, ‘The Princess and the Pea’, ‘The Travelling Companion’, ‘The Swineherd’, ‘The Wild Swans’; however, in Andersen's rendering they acquire an unmistakable individuality and brilliant irony. Kings go around in battered slippers and personally open gates of their kingdoms; princesses read newspapers and roast chicken; and many supernatural creatures in later tales behave and talk like ordinary people. An explicit narrative voice, commenting on the events and addressing the listener, is another characteristic trait of Andersen's tales. It is not accidental that many fairy tales were told by Andersen to real children before he wrote them down. However, there are no conventional morals in them, possibly with the exception of ‘The Red Shoes’.

Secondly, Andersen brought the fairy tale into the everyday. His first original fairy tale, ‘Little Ida's Flowers’, recalls the tales of E. T. A. Hoffmann in its elaborate combination of the ordinary and the fantastic, its nocturnal magical transformations, and its use of the child as a narrative lens. Still closer to Hoffmann is ‘The Steadfast Tin Soldier’ with its animation of the realm of toys. However, in both tales Andersen's melancholic view of life is revealed: both end tragically, thus raising the question whether children's literature must depend on happy endings. These may be counterbalanced by more conventional stories of trials and reward, such as ‘Thumbelina’ or ‘The Snow Queen’, the latter based on the popular Norse legend of the Ice Maiden.

In a group of fairy tales, Andersen went still further in animating the material world around him and introducing everyday objects as protagonists: ‘The Sweethearts’ (also known as ‘The Top and the Ball’), ‘The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep’, ‘The Shirt Collar’, ‘The Darning‐Needle’; he is credited with being a pioneer in this respect. Also, flowers and plants are ascribed a rich spiritual life, as in ‘The Daisy’, or arrogance, as in ‘The Fir Tree’, or otherwise are depicted as having a limited petty bourgeois horizon, as in ‘Five Peas from One Pod’.

Andersen's animal tales are also radically different from traditional fables. While in ‘The Storks’ he makes an original interpretation of the popular saying that babies are brought by storks, in several stories (‘The Happy Family’, ‘The Sprinters’, ‘The Dung‐Beetle’) Andersen makes animals represent different perspectives on life, and the stories themselves are more like satirical sketches of human manners than fairy tales for children. ‘The Ugly Duckling’, probably one of Andersen's best‐known stories, is a camouflaged autobiography, echoing the writer's much‐quoted statement: ‘First you must endure a lot, then you get famous.’ The animals, including the protagonist, possess human traits, views, and emotions, making the story indeed a poignant account of the road from humiliation through sufferings to well‐deserved bliss. The message is, however, ambivalent: you have to be born a swan in order to become one.

Another programmatic fairy tale is ‘The Little Mermaid’, based on a medieval ballad, eagerly exploited by romantic poets. Andersen, however, reversed the roles and, toning down the ballad's motif of the Christian versus the pagan, created a beautiful and tragic story of impossible love, which certainly also reflected his personal experience.

While most of Andersen's fairy tales are firmly anchored in his home country and often mention concrete topographical details, like the Round Tower in Copenhagen, some fairy tales have exotic settings, like China in ‘The Nightingale’, or unspecified ‘Southern countries’ in ‘The Shadow’. This tale, based loosely on a story by Adelbert von Chamisso, which it also mentions indirectly, is probably the most enigmatic and disturbing of his tales. Published in 1847, it marked a general change in Andersen tales, from being addressed to children to a wider audience, even primarily adults. In fact, his late tales, which he himself characterized as ‘Stories’ rather than ‘Fairy Tales’, are much less known and almost never published in contemporary collections for children. Among them is Andersen's tribute to modern technology, ‘The Great Sea‐Serpent’, depicting the first transatlantic telegraph cable.

The significance of Andersen may be illustrated by the fact that the world's most prestigious prize in children's literature, the Andersen Medal, is named after him, and that his birthday, 2 April, is celebrated as the International Children's Book Day.

Bibliography

  • Bendix, Regina, ‘Seashell Bra and Happy End: Disney's Transformations of “The Little Mermaid” ’, Fabula, 34.3–4 (1993).
  • Bredsdorf, Elias, Hans Christian Andersen (1975).
  • Grønbech, Bo, Hans Christian Andersen (1980).
  • Ingwersen, Niels, “‘Being Stuck: The Subversive Andersen and his Audience’”, in James A. Parente Jr. and Richard Erich Schade (eds.), Studies in German and Scandinavian Literature after 1500 (1993).
  • Lederer, Wolfgang, The Kiss of the Snow Queen: Hans Christian Andersen and Man's Redemption by Woman (1986).
  • Nassaar, Christopher S., ‘Andersen's “The Shadow” and Wilde's “The Fisherman and his Soul”: A Case of Influence’, Nineteenth‐Century Literature, 50.2 (September 1995).
  • Rossel, Sven Hakon (ed.), Hans Christian Andersen: Danish Writer and Citizen of the World (1996).

— Maria Nikolajeva

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Andersen, Hans Christian,
1805–75, Danish poet, novelist, and writer of fairy tales. Reared in poverty, he left Odense at 14 for Copenhagen. He failed as an actor, but his poetry won him generous patrons including King Frederick VI. In 1829 his fantasy A Journey on Foot from the Holmen Canal to the Eastern Point of Amager was published, followed by a volume of poetry in 1830. Granted a traveling pension by the king, Andersen wrote sketches of the European countries he visited. His first novel, Improvisatoren (1835), was well received by the critics. His sentimental novels were for a time considered his forte. However, with his first book of fairy tales, Eventyr (1835), he found the medium of expression that was to immortalize his genius. He produced about one volume a year and was recognized as Denmark's greatest author and as a storyteller without peer. His tales are often tragic or gruesome in plot. His sense of fantasy, power of description, and acute sensitivity contributed to his mastery of the genre. Among his many widely beloved stories are “The Fir-Tree,” “The Little Match Girl,” “The Ugly Duckling,” “The Snow Queen,” “The Little Mermaid,” and “The Red Shoes.”

Bibliography

See his Fairy Tales, tr. by R. P. Keigwin (4 vol., 1956–60); his autobiography (1855, tr. 1871); A River—A Town—A Poet, autobiographical selections by A. Dreslov (1963); his diaries, translated by S. Rossel and P. Conroy; biographies by F. Böök (tr. 1962), R. Godden (1955), M. Stirling (1965), S. Toksvig (1934, repr. 1969), and E. Bredsdorff (1975).

 
Wikipedia: Hans Christian Andersen
For other uses, see Hans Christian Andersen (disambiguation).
Hans Christian Andersen

Born: April 2 1805(1805--)
Odense, Denmark
Died: August 4 1875 (aged 70)
Copenhagen, Denmark
Occupation: novelist, short story writer, fairy tales writer, poet
Nationality: Dane
Genres: Children's literature, travelogue
Influences: Ludvig Holberg, William Shakespeare

Hans Christian Andersen [ˈhanˀs ˈkʰʁæʂd̥jan ˈɑnɐsn̩] or simply H.C. Andersen [hɔse ˈɑnɐsn̩], (April 2 1805 – August 4 1875) was a Danish author and poet, most famous for his fairy tales. Among his best-known stories are "The Snow Queen", "The Little Mermaid", "The Emperor's New Clothes" and "The Ugly Duckling". During Andersen's lifetime he was feted by Royalty and acclaimed as having brought joy to children across Europe. His fairy tales have been translated into well over a hundred languages and continue to be published in "millions of copies all over the world".[1]

Biography

Childhood

Hans Christian Andersen was born in Odense, Denmark, on Tuesday, April 2 1805. Most English (as well as German and French) sources use the name "Hans Christian Andersen", but in Denmark and the rest of Scandinavia he is usually referred to as merely "H. C. Andersen." His name "Hans Christian" is a traditional Danish name and is used as a single name, though originally a combination of two individual names. It is incorrect to use only one of the two parts. It is an accepted custom in Denmark to use only the initials in this and a few other names.

Andersen's father apparently believed that he might be related to nobility, and according to scholars at the Hans Christian Andersen Center, his paternal grandmother told him that the family had once been in a higher social class. However, investigation proves these stories unfounded. The family apparently did have some connections to Danish royalty, but these were work-related. Nevertheless, the theory that Andersen was the illegitimate son of royalty persists in Denmark, bolstered by the fact that the Danish King took a personal interest in Andersen as a youth and paid for his education. The writer Rolf Dorset insists that not all options have been explored in determining Andersen's heritage.[2]

Andersen displayed great intelligence and imagination as a young boy, a trait fostered by the indulgence of his parents and by the superstition of his mother. He made himself a small toy-theatre and sat at home making clothes for his puppets, and reading all the plays that he could lay his hands upon; among them were those of Ludvig Holberg and William Shakespeare. Throughout his childhood, he had a passionate love for literature. He was known to memorize entire plays by Shakespeare and to recite them using his wooden dolls as actors. He was also a great lover of the art of banter, and assisted in initiating a society of like minded banterers amongst his friends.

Youth

In 1816, his father died and, in order to support himself, Andersen worked as an apprentice for both a weaver and a tailor. He later worked in a cigarette factory where his fellow workers humiliated him by betting on whether he was in fact a girl, pulling down his trousers to check. At the age of fourteen, Andersen moved to Copenhagen seeking employment as an actor in the theatre. He had a pleasant soprano voice and succeeded in being admitted to the Royal Danish Theatre. This career stopped short when his voice broke. A colleague at the theatre had referred to him as a poet, and Andersen took this very seriously and began to focus on writing.

Hans Christian Andersen in 1869
Enlarge
Hans Christian Andersen in 1869

Following an accidental meeting, Jonas Collin started taking an interest in the odd boy and sent Andersen to the grammar school in Slagelse, paying all his expenses.[3] Before even being admitted to grammar-school, Andersen had already succeeded in publishing his first story, The Ghost at Palnatoke's Grave in (1822). Though an unwilling pupil, Andersen studied both in Slagelse and at a school in Elsinore until 1827.[4] He later stated that these years had been the darkest and most bitter parts of his life. He had experienced living in his schoolmaster's own home, being abused in order to "build his character", and he had been alienated from his fellow students, being much older than most of them, homely and unattractive. Furthermore, he was dyslexic, a very likely reason for his learning difficulties and he later said that the school faculty forbid or discouraged him to write. He would later learn to speak near fluent English, Dutch, and German, as well as the Scandanavian languages.

Career

Early works

In 1829, Andersen enjoyed a considerable success with a short story entitled "A Journey on Foot from Holmen's Canal to the East Point of Amager." During the same season, he published both a farce and a collection of poems. He had little further progress, however, until 1833 when he received a small traveling grant from the King, making the first of his long European journeys. At Le Locle, in the Jura, he wrote "Agnete and the Merman"; and in October 1834 he arrived in Rome. Andersen's first novel, The Improvisatore, was published in the beginning of 1835, and became an instant success.

Andersen's Fairy Tales

It was during 1835 that Andersen published the first installment of his immortal Fairy Tales (Danish: Eventyr). More stories, completing the first volume, were published in 1836 and 1837. The quality of these stories was not immediately recognised, and they sold poorly. At the same time, Andersen enjoyed more success with two novels: O.T. (1836) and Only a Fiddler (1837).

After a visit to Sweden in 1837, Andersen became inspired by Scandinavism and committed himself to writing a poem to convey his feeling of relatedness between the Swedes, the Danes and the Norwegians.[5] It was in July 1839 during a visit to the island of Funen that Andersen first wrote the text of his poem Jeg er en Skandinav (I am a Scandinavian).[5] Andersen designed the poem to capture "the beauty of the Nordic spirit, the way the three sister nations have gradually grown together" as part of a Scandinavian national anthem.[5] Composer Otto Lindblad set the poem to music and the composition was published in January 1840. Its popularity peaked in 1845, after which it was seldom sung.[5]

Travelogues

In 1851, he published to wide acclaim In Sweden, a volume of travel sketches. A keen traveller, Andersen published several other long travelogues: Shadow Pictures of a Journey to the Harz, Swiss Saxony, etc. etc. in the Summer of 1831 (1831), A Poet's Bazaar (1842), In Spain (1863), and A Visit to Portugal in 1866 (1868). The latter describes his visit with his Portuguese friends Jorge and Jose O'Neill, who were his fellows in the mid 1820s while living in Copenhagen. In his travelogues, Andersen took heed of some of the contemporary conventions about travel writing; but always developed the genre to suit his own purposes. Each of his travelogues combines documentary and descriptive accounts of the sights he saw with more philosophical excurses on topics such as being an author, immortality, and the nature of fiction in the literary travel report. Some of the travelogues, such as In Sweden, even contain fairy-tales.

In the 1840s Andersen's attention returned to the stage, however with no great success. His true genius was however proved in the miscellany the Picture-Book without Pictures (1840). The fame of his Fairy Tales had grown steadily; a second series began in 1838 and a third in 1845. Andersen was now celebrated throughout Europe, although his native Denmark still showed some resistance to his pretensions.

Meetings with Dickens

In June 1847, Andersen paid his first visit to England and enjoyed a triumphal social success during the summer. The Countess of Blessington invited him to her parties where intellectual and famous people could meet, and it was at one party that he met Charles Dickens for the first time. They shook hands and walked to the veranda which was of much joy to Andersen. He wrote in his diary "We had come to the veranda, I was so happy to see and speak to England's now living writer, whom I love the most."[6]

Ten years later, Andersen visited England, primarily to visit Dickens. He stayed at Dickens' home for five weeks, oblivious to Dickens' increasingly blatant hints for him to leave. Dickens' daughter said of Andersen, "He was a bony bore, and stayed on and on."[6] Shortly after Andersen left, Dickens published David Copperfield, featuring the obsequious Uriah Heep, who is said to have been modeled on Andersen. Andersen quite enjoyed the visit, and never understood why Dickens stopped answering his letters.

Later works

Andersen continued to publish many works, still hoping to excel as both novelist and dramatist, but was unsuccessful in the attempt. He disdained the enchanting Fairy Tales, the composition of which had proved his unique genius. He did, however, continue to write them, and two more collections appeared in 1847 and 1848. After a long silence, Andersen published a new novel To Be Or Not to Be in 1857. He continued publishing his Fairy Tales in installments, until 1872. He published his last stories at Christmas in this year.

Death

In the spring of 1872, Andersen fell out of bed and was severely hurt. He never quite recovered, but he lived until August 4 1875, dying peacefully in a house called Rolighed (literally: calmness), near Copenhagen, the home of his close friends Moritz Melchior and wife, a banker.[7] Shortly before his death, he had consulted a composer about the music for his funeral, saying: "Most of the people who will walk after me will be children, so make the beat keep time with little steps."[7] His body was interred in the Assistens Kirkegård in the Nørrebro area of Copenhagen. At the time of his death, he was an internationally renowned and treasured artist. He received a stipend from the Danish Government as a "national treasure". Before his death, steps were already underway to erect the large statue in his honour which was completed and is prominently placed in Copenhagen. [1]

The critic Georg Brandes had questioned Andersen about whether he would write his autobiography. He claimed that it had already been written- "The Ugly Duckling". [1]

Sexual orientation

Andersen's sexual orientation is a matter of controversy in academic circles.[8] The discussion began in 1901 with the article "Hans Christian Andersen: Evidence of his Homosexuality" by Carl Albert Hansen Fahlberg (using the pseudonym Albert Hansenin) in Magnus Hirschfeld's publication Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufe (Yearbook on Sexual Ambiguity). Biographies usually portray him as either homosexual or bisexual.

Many of his stories are interpreted as references to his sexual grief. One of these stories is The Nightingale which is a tribute to the "Swedish Nightingale" Jenny Lind, a famous Swedish opera singer, with whom Andersen was in love. Her feelings towards him were not mutual; she saw him as a brother at most.[9][10]. One other story is "The Little Mermaid", who sacrifices her own life for that of her unattainable prince. Some biographers think this story exemplifies Andersen's love for the young Edvard Collin,[11] to whom he wrote: "I languish for you as for a pretty Calabrian wench... my sentiments for you are those of a woman. The femininity of my nature and our friendship must remain a mystery." Collin, who did not prefer men, wrote in his own memoir: "I found myself unable to respond to this love, and this caused the author much suffering." Likewise, the infatuations of the author for the Danish dancer Harald Scharff[12] and Carl Alexander, the young hereditary duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach,[13] did not result in notable partnerships. Four of his letters to Carl are edited in the anthology by Rictor Norton. In Andersen's early life, his private journal records his refusal to have sexual relations and his release through masturbation. [14][15]

Legacy

In the English-speaking world, stories such as "Thumbelina", "The Snow Queen", "The Ugly Duckling", "The Little Mermaid", "The Emperor's New Clothes", and "The Princess and the Pea" remain popular and are widely read. "The Emperor's new clothes" and "ugly duckling" have both passed into the English language as well-known expressions.

In the Copenhagen harbor there is a statue of The Little Mermaid, placed in honor of Hans Christian Andersen. 2 April, Andersen's birthday, is celebrated as International Children's Book Day.

About a third of Andersen's stories have been translated into Interlingua, and the majority into Esperanto. His home in Odense, Denmark, features a computer displaying samples of his work in each language in which it appears. The sample in Interlingua is the story "The days of the week".[16]

The year 2005 was the bicentenary of Andersen's birth and his life and work was celebrated around the world. In Denmark, particularly, the nation's most famous son has been feted like no other literary figure.[17]

A $12.5m theme park based on Andersen's tales and life opened in Shanghai at the end of 2006. Multi-media games as well as all kinds of cultural contests related to the fairytales are available to visitors. He was chosen as the star of the park because he is a "nice, hardworking person who was not afraid of poverty", Shanghai Gujin Investment general manager Zhai Shiqiang was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying. (BBC Asia-Pacific 8/11/06)

Fairy tales

Some of his most famous fairy tales include:

Contemporary literary works inspired by Andersen's stories

  • The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf by Kathryn Davis: a contemporary novel about fairy tales and opera
  • The Snow Queen by Joan Vinge: an award-winning novel that reworks the Snow Queen's themes into epic science fiction
  • The Nightingale by Kara Dalkey: a lyrical adult fantasy novel set in the courts of old Japan
  • The Wild Swans by Peg Kerr: a novel that brings Andersen's fairy tale to colonial and modern America
  • Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier: a romantic fantasy novel, set in early Ireland, thematically linked to "The Wild Swans"
  • The Snow Queen by Eileen Kernaghan: a gentle Young Adult fantasy novel that brings out the tale's subtle pagan and shamanic elements
  • "The Snow Queen", a short story by Patricia A. McKillip (published in Snow White, Blood Red)
  • "You, Little Match Girl", a short story by Joyce Carol Oates (published in Black Heart, Ivory Bones)
  • "Sparks", a short story by Gregory Frost (based on The Tinder Box, published in Black Swan, White Raven)
  • "Steadfast", a short story by Nancy Kress (based on The Steadfast Tin Soldier, published in Black Swan, White Raven)
  • "The Sea Hag", a short story by Melissa Lee Shaw (based on The Little Mermaid, published in Silver Birch, Blood Moon)
  • "The Real Princess", a short story by Susan Palwick (based on The Princess and the Pea, published in Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears)
  • "Match Girl", a short story by Anne Bishop (published in Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears)
  • "The Pangs of Love", a short story by Jane Gardam (based on The Little Mermaid, published in Close Company: Stories of Mothers and Daughters)
  • "The Chrysanthemum Robe", a short story by Kara Dalkey (based on The Emperor's New Clothes, published in The Armless Maiden)
  • "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", a short story by Joan Vinge (published in Women of Wonder)
  • "In the Witch's Garden", a short story by Naomi Kritzer (based on The Snow Queen, published in Realms of Fantasy magazine, October 2002 issue)
  • "The Last Poems About the Snow Queen", a poem cycle by Sandra Gilbert (published in Blood Pressure)
  • The Little Mermaid (2005) for childrens chorus, narrator, orchestra by Richard Mills
  • "La petite marchande d'allumettes", film by Jean Renoir (1928)[18]

Bibliography

  • Jackie Wullschläger, Hans Christian Andersen. The Life of a Storyteller, Penguin, 2000, ISBN 0-14-028320-X
  • Stig Dalager, Journey in Blue, historical, biographical novel about H.C.Andersen, Peter Owen, London 2006, McArthur & Co., Toronto 2006.
  • Norton, Rictor (ed.) My Dear Boy:Gay Love Letters through the Centuries. Leyland Publications, San Francisco. 1998 ISBN 0-943595-71-1
  • Ruth Manning-Sanders, Swan of Denmark: The Story of Hans Christian Andersen, Heinemann, 1949

Notes

  1. ^ a b c Elias Bredsdorff, Hans Christian Andersen: the story of his life and work 1805-75, Phaidon (1975) ISBN 0-7148-1636-1
  2. ^ Neil Philip (8 January 2005). The little prince. Times Online. Retrieved on 2007-09-27. “the illegitimate son of a future king?”
  3. ^ H.C. Andersens skolegang og livet i Slagelse
  4. ^ H.C. Andersens skolegang i Helsingør Latinskole
  5. ^ a b c d Hans Christian Andersen and Music. - I am a Scandinavian. (Accessed January 12, 2007).
  6. ^ a b H.C. Andersen og Charles Dickens 1857
  7. ^ a b Bryant, Mark: Private Lives, 2001, p.12
  8. ^ Dag Heede writes that "the ‘War About Hans Christian Andersen’s Sexuality’ ... has lasted over a century and ... is far from over." Heede, Dag. Hans Christian Andersen's (Homo) Sexuality. Danish Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved on 2006-07-19.
  9. ^ H.C. Andersen homepage (danish)
  10. ^ English source
  11. ^ Hans Christian Andersen's correspondence, ed Frederick Crawford, London. 1891
  12. ^ Andersen wrote about Scharff in his diary, on 6 March 1862: "I long for him daily." From de Mylius, Johan. The Life of Hans Christian Andersen. Day By Day.. Hans Christian Andersen Center. Retrieved on 2006-07-22.
  13. ^ Andersen wrote in his diary: "The Hereditary Grand Duke walked arm in arm with me across the courtyard of the castle to my room, kissed me lovingly, asked me always to love him though he was just an ordinary person, asked me to stay with him this winter. [...] fell asleep with the melancholy, happy feeling that I was the guest of this strange prince at his castle and loved by him. [...] It is like a fairy tale." From Pritchard, Claudia. "His dark materials", The Independent, 2005-03-27. Retrieved on 2006-07-23. 
  14. ^ Lepage, Robert. "Bedtime stories", The Guardian, 2006-01-18. Retrieved on 2006-07-19. 
  15. ^ Recorded using "special Greek symbols".Garfield, Patricia (2004-06-21). The Dreams of Hans Christian Andersen (PDF) 29. Retrieved on 2006-07-20.
  16. ^ H.C. Andersen in Interlingua, March 17, 2006.
  17. ^ The Hans Christian Andersen Bicentenary Website
  18. ^ La petite marchande d'allumettes (1928) at the Internet Movie Database

Jens Andersen; Andersen, En Biografi; Gyldendal, Copenhagen, 2 volumes, 2003

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Wikisource
Wikisource has original works written by or about:
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:


Persondata
NAME Andersen, Hans Christian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Danish novelist, short story writer, fairy tales writer, and poet
DATE OF BIRTH April 2 1805(1805--)
PLACE OF BIRTH Odense, Denmark
DATE OF DEATH August 4 1875
PLACE OF DEATH Copenhagen, Denmark

zh-yue:安徒生


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

Join the WikiAnswers Q&A community. Post a question or answer questions about "Hans Christian Andersen" at WikiAnswers.

 

Copyrights:

Artist. Copyright © 2008 All Media Guide, LLC. Content provided by All Music Guide ® , a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Biography. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved.  Read more
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
English Folklore. A Dictionary of English Folklore. Copyright © 2000, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Fairy Tale Companion. The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales. Copyright © 2000, 2002, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Hans Christian Andersen".  Read more

On this page:   E-mail   print Print  Link  

 

Keep Reading

Mentioned In:

 |  More >More >
 

Do you have the answers?