OHLENSCHLAGER, ADAM GOTTLOB Danish poet, was born in Vesterbro, a suburb of Copenhagen, on Nov. 14, 1779. His father, a Schleswiger by birth, was at that time organist, and later became keeper, of the royal palace of Frederiksberg. Through Edvard Storm, Adam received a nom ination to the college called "Posterity's High School," of which Storm was the principal. Storm himself taught the class of Scandinavian mythology, and thus Ohlenschlager received his earliest bias towards the traditions of his ancestors. His studies were interrupted first by the death of his mother, and by the English attack on Copenhagen in April 1801, which, however, inspired a dramatic sketch (April the Second i8o1).
In the summer of 1802, wren Ohlenschlager had an old Scan dinavian romance, as well as a volume of lyrics, in the press, the young Norse philosopher, Henrik Steffens, came back to Copenhagen after a long visit to Schelling in Germany, full of new romantic ideas. His lectures at the university, in which Goethe and Schiller were for the first time revealed to the Danish public, created a great sensation. Steffens and Ohlen schlager met, and after a conversation of sixteen hours the latter went home and wrote at a sitting his splendid poem Guldhornene, in a manner totally new to Danish literature. A volume of poems in the romantic style is now chiefly remembered as containing the lovely piece called Sanct-Hansaften-Spil. The next two years saw the production of the epic of Thors Reise til Jotunheim, the charming poem in hexameters called Langelandsreisen, and fan tasy Aladdin's Lampe (1805).
At the age of twenty-six Ohlenschlager was universally recog nized, even by the opponents of the romantic revival, as the leading poet of Denmark. He now collected his Poetical Writings in two volumes. He obtained a grant for foreign travel from the government, and joined Steffens at Halle in August 1805. Here he wrote the first of his great historical tragedies, Hakon Jarl. In the spring of 1806 he went on to Weimar, where he spent several months in daily intercourse with Goethe. The autumn of the same year he spent with Tieck in Dresden, and proceeded in December to Paris. Here he resided eighteen months, and wrote his three famous masterpieces, Baldur kin Gode (1808), Palnatoke (1809) and Axel og Valborg (i8i0). In the spring of 5809 Ohlenschlager went to Rome to visit Thorwaldsen, and in his house wrote (in German) his tragedy of Correggio.
He returned to Denmark in the spring of 1810 to take the chair of aesthetics at the University of Copenhagen. In 181I he pub lished the Oriental tale of Ali og Gulhyndi, and in 1812 the last of his great tragedies, Staerkodder. His talent culminated in the
cycle of verse-romances called Helge, published in 1814. The tragedy of Hagbarth og Signe, 1815, showed a distinct falling-off in style. In 1817 he went back to Paris, and published Hroars Saga and the tragedy of Fostbrodrene. In 1818 he was again in Copenhagen, and wrote the idyll of Den line Hyrdedreng and the Eddaic cycle called Nordens Glider. His next productions were the tragedies of Erik og Abel (1820) and Vaeringerne i Mikla gaard (1826), and the epic of Hrolf Krake (1829).
In 1829 Ohlenschlager was publicly crowned with laurel in front of the high altar in Lund cathedral by Bishop Esaias Tegner, as the "Scandinavian King of Song." His last volumes were Tor denskjold (1833), Dronning Margrethe (1833), Sokrates (1835), Olaf den Hellige (1836), Knud den Store (1838), Dina (1842), Erik Glipping (1843) and Kiartan og Gudrun (1847). On his seventieth birthday, Nov. 14, 1849, a public festival was ar ranged in his honour, and he was decorated by the king of Denmark. He died on Jan. 20, 1850, and was buried in the cem etery of Frederiksberg. Immediately after his death his Erin dringer ("Recollections") were published in two volumes.
With the exception of Holberg, there has been no Danish writer who has exercised so wide an influence as Ohlenschlager. He awakened in his countrymen an enthusiasm for the poetry and religion of their ancestors, and his name remains to this day synonymous with Scandinavian romance. His plays, partly, no doubt, in consequence of his own early familiarity with acting, fulfilled the stage requirements of the day, and were popular beyond all expectation. The earliest are the best—Ohlenschlager's dramatic masterpiece being, without doubt his first tragedy, Hakon Jarl. In his poems and plays alike his style is limpid, elevated, profuse; his flight is sustained at a high pitch without visible excitement. His fluent tenderness and romantic zest have been the secrets of his extreme popularity. Although his inspira tion came from Germany, he is not much like a German poet, ex cept when he is consciously following Goethe ; his analogy is much rather to be found among the English poets, his contemporaries. With all his faults he was a very great writer, and one of the principal pioneers of the romantic movement in Europe.
(E. G.; X.) The critical edition of ohlenschlager's works is that by J. L. Luben berg (32 vols., 1857-62). See B. Andersen, Ohlenschlager et livs poesie (3 vols., 1899).