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Hans Christian Andersen, (April 2, 1805 -
August 4, 1875) was a Danish author and poet most famous for his fairy
tales.
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Personal life
Andersen was born in Odense, Denmark, on
Tuesday, April 2, 1805. He was the son of a sickly 22-year-old shoemaker
and his wife, a laundress, several years older than her husband. The
entire family lived and slept in a single tiny room.
Andersen's father apparently believed that
he might be related to nobility, and according to scholars at the Father
Hans Christian Andersen Center, his paternal grandmother told him that
the family had once been in a higher social class. However,
investigation has provided proof that these stories to be 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. The writer Rolf Dorset
insists that not all options have been explored in determining
Andersen's heritage.
Andersen displayed imagination even 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. Andersen, throughout his childhood, 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.
In 1816, his father died and the young boy
had to start earning a living. He worked as an apprentice boy for both a
weaver and a tailor, and 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 14, Andersen
moved to Copenhagen seeking employment on the stage. 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.
Following an accidental meeting, King
Frederick VI of Denmark started taking an interest in the odd boy and
sent Andersen to the grammar school in Slagelse. The education was paid
for by the King. Before even being admitted to grammar-school, Andersen
had already succeeded in publishing his first story, The Ghost at
Palnatoke's Grave in (1822). Andersen, though a backward and unwilling
pupil, studied both in Slagelse and at a school in Elsinore until 1827.
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
the odd man out among his fellow students, being much older than most of
them.
The feeling of "being different", usually
resulting in pain, is a recurrent motif in his work. One of the most
telling stories in that respect is the tale of The Little Mermaid, who
takes her own life since she can not be loved by a beautiful prince. It
is thought to exemplify his love for the young Edvard Collin, 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 was not erotically
attracted to 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 and the young duke of Weimar did not result in notable
partnerships.
In Andersen's early life, his private
journal records his refusal to have sexual relations and his unabashed
release through masturbation.
In the spring of 1872, Andersen fell out of
bed and severely hurt himself. He never quite recovered, but he lived
until the August 4, 1875, dying very peacefully in a house called
Rolighed (literally: quietness), near Copenhagen. His body was interred
in the Assistens Kirkegård in the Nørrebro area of Copenhagen.
2005 is the bicentenary of Andersen's birth
and his life and work has been celebrated around the world. The interest
in Andersen's person, legacy and writing has never been greater. In
Denmark, particularly, the nation's most famous son has been feted like
no other literary figure. The Hans Christian Andersen Bicentenary
Website is an excellent resource.
Life as an author
In 1829, Andersen enjoyed a considerable
success with a fantastic story entitled A Journey on Foot from Holmen's
Canal to the East Point of Amager, and during the same season, he
published both a farce and a collection of poems. His first success
happened at a time when his friends had ultimately given up hope for
him, deciding that his early eccentricity and vivacity would never lead
to anything good. 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 in the beginning of 1835, and became an instant success. His humble
beginnings as a poet had finally come to an end. During the same year,
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 recognized and they sold poorly. At the same time, Andersen
enjoyed more success with two novels: O.T. (1836) and Only a Fiddler
(1837).
In 1851, he published to wide acclaim In
Sweden, a volume of travel sketches. A keen traveler, 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). In his
travelogues Andersen took heed of some of the contemporary conventions
about travel writing, but always developing 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
proven in the charming 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. In June1847, he paid his first visit to England and enjoyed
a triumphal social success. Charles Dickens invited him to stay at his
place for a fortnight, but Andersen stayed for 6 weeks, not
understanding Dickens increasing hints for Andersen to leave. When he
left, Dickens saw him off from Ramsgate pier. Shortly thereafter Dickens
published David Copperfield, in which the character Uriah Heep is said
to have been modelled on Andersen—a left-handed compliment, to say the
least.
Andersen continued to publish many works,
although 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 this year.
In the English-speaking world, the stories
of The Ugly Duckling, The Emperor's New Clothes, and The Princess and
the Pea are cultural universals; everyone knows them, though few can
name the author. They have become part of our common heritage, and, like
the tales of Charles Perrault, are no longer distinguished from actual
folk-tales such as those of the Brothers Grimm. Andersen himself was
highly inspired by the Arabian Nights. A few of his stories such as "The
Wild Swans" and The Rose-Elf are adaptations of older folktales (for
example, "The Wild Swans" might be a retelling of The Six Swans as
recorded by the Brothers Grimm.)
Andersen is often categorised as an author
writing for children. However, he did not like to be stereotyped. The
overall character of Andersen's stories is dark, sometimes even cruel,
and redemption often comes at a high price. One of his famous stories,
The Ugly Duckling, is a story that Anderson explained in his personal
correspondence as a story that could be generalized broadly. In
particular, he was writing the story as a tribute to those who like
himself dealt with minority sexual feelings. Certainly not a heavily
discussed backdrop for authoring children's literature. In that vein,
Linda de Haan and Stern Nijland claim to have been inspired by H.C.
Anderson's story of the Ugly Duckling in their controversial work "King
and King".
Fairy tales
Some of his most famous fairy tales
include:
The Angel
The Bell
The Emperor's New Clothes
The Fir Tree
The Happy Family
The Little Match Girl
The Little Mermaid
Little Tuk
The Nightingale
The Old House
Ole Lukoie
The Princess and the Pea (also known as The
Real Princess)
The Red Shoes
The Shadow
The Snow Queen
The Steadfast Tin Soldier
The Story of a Mother
The Swineherd
Thumbelina
The Ugly Duckling
The Wild Swans
Naming conventions
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"
(pronounced as Ho Say 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 (other examples include H.P.,
short for Hans Peter and J.C. short for Jens Christian). This tradition
is as strong as the American "middle initial".
Miscellaneous trivia
H.C. Andersen is also a Finnish band. Its
name is a pun: They play hardcore-punk and hardcore is often abbreviated
"HC".
****
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