Jens Baggesen

Jens Baggesen (born February 15, 1764, Korsør, Denmark—died October 3, 1826, Hamburg, Germany) was a leading Danish literary figure in the transitional period between Neoclassicism and Romanticism. In 1782 Baggesen went to Copenhagen to study theology. Three years later, at age 21, he had an unprecedented success in Denmark with his first collection of poems, Comiske fortællinger (1785; “Comical Tales”). Later, after his libretto to the first major Danish opera, Holger Danske (1789; “Ogier the...