HAUCH, JOHANNES CARSTEN Danish poet, was born of Danish parents at Frederikshald, Norway, on May 12, 1790. In 1803 he returned with his father to Denmark and served as a volunteer against the English in 1807 before he entered the University of Copenhagen. He became the friend and associate of Steffens and Oehlenschlager, warmly adopting the romantic views about poetry and philosophy. His early dramatic poems (1816) and a lyrical drama, Rosaura (1817) had no success, and Hauch decided to resume his scientific studies. An accident which entailed the amputation of a foot drove him back to literature. Again his plays—on historical subjects—were indifferently received, whereupon he turned to fiction, and pro duced a series of romantic novels. In 1842 he collected his shorter Poems. In 1846 he was appointed professor of the Scan dinavian languages in Kiel, but returned to Copenhagen when the war broke out in 1848. His dramatic talent was now at its height, and he produced one admirable tragedy after another. In 1861 he published another collection of Lyrical Poems and Romances; and in 1862 the historical epic of Valdemar Seir, volumes which contain his best work. From 1851, when he succeeded Oehlen schlager, to his death, he held the honorary post of professor of aesthetics at the University of Copenhagen. He died in Rome on March 4, 1872. Of Hauch's dramas Marshal Stig is perhaps the best, and of his novels the patriotic tale of Vilhelm Zabern is admired the most.
See G. Brandes, "Carsten Hauch" (1873) in Danske Digtere ; F. Ronning, J. C. Hauch (189o) , and in Dansk Biografisk-Lexicon, vol. vii. (1893) . Hauch's novels were collected (1873-74) and his dramatic works (3 vols., 2nd ed., 1852-59).