GRUNDTVIG, NIKOLAI FREDERIK SEVERIN (1783-1872), Danish poet, statesman and divine, was born at the parsonage of Udby in Zealand on Sept. 8, 1783. At the close of his university life at Copenhagen he made Icelandic his special study, until in 1805 he took the position of tutor in a house on the island of Langeland. The next three years were spent in the study of Shakespeare, Schiller and Fichte. His cousin, the philosopher Henrik Steffens, had returned to Copenhagen in 1802 full of the teaching of Schelling, and his lectures and the early poetry of Ohlenschlager opened the eyes of Grundtvig to the new era in literature. His first work, On the Songs in the Edda, attracted no attention. Returning to Copenhagen in 1808 he achieved greater success with his Northern Mythology, and again in 1809-11 with a long epic poem, the Decline of the Heroic Life in the North.
The boldness of the theological views expressed in his first sermon in 1810 offended the ecclesiastical authorities, and he retired to a country parish as his father's assistant for a while. From 1812 to 1817 he published five or six works, of which the Rhyme of Roskilde is the most remarkable. From 1816 to he was editor of a polemical journal entitled Dannevirke, and in 1818 to 1822 appeared his Danish paraphrases (6 vols.) of Saxo Grammaticus and Snorri.
In 1825 he published a pamphlet, The Church's Reply, against H. N. Clausen, who was professor of theology in the university of Copenhagen. Grundtvig was publicly prosecuted and fined, and for seven years he was forbidden to preach, years which he spent in publishing a collection of his theological works, in paying two visits to England, and in studying Anglo-Saxon. In 1832 he ob tained permission to preach again, and in 1839 he became priest of the church of Vartov hospital, Copenhagen, a post he continued to hold until his death. In 1837-41 he published Songs for the Danish Church, a rich collection of sacred poetry; in 1838 he brought out a selection of early Scandinavian verse; in 1840 he edited the Anglo-Saxon poem of the Phoenix, with a Danish trans lation. He visited England a third time in 1843. From 1844 until after the first German war Grundtvig took a prominent part in politics. In 1861 he received the titular rank of bishop, but without a see.
The chief characteristic of his theology was the substitution of the authority of the "living word" for the apostolic commentaries, and he desired to see each congregation a practically independent community. His patriotism was almost a part of his religion, and he established popular schools where the national poetry and history should form an essential part of the instruction. His followers are known as Grundtvigians. He was married three times, the last time in his 76th year. He died on Sept. 2, 1872.
Grundtvig holds a unique position in the literature of his country; he has been styled the Danish Carlyle. He was above all things a man of action, not an artist; and the formless vehe mence of his writings, which have had a great influence over his own countrymen, is hardly agreeable or intelligible to a foreigner. The best of his poetical works were published in a selection ( 7 vols., 188o-89) by his eldest son, Svend Hersleb Grundtvig (1824 83 ), who was an authority on Scandinavian antiquities, and made an admirable collection of old Danish poetry (Danmarks gamle Folkeviser, 5 vols.; completed in 1891 by A. Olrik).
His correspondence with Ingemann was edited by S. Grundtvig (1882) ; his correspondence with Christian Molbech by L. Schroder (1888) ; see also F. Winkel Horn, Grundtvigs Liv og Gjerning (1883) ; an article by F. Nielsen in Bricka's Dansk Biografisk Lexikon; and F. Gronning, R.F.S. Gruntvig (8 vols., 1907-14) .