Profile of Hans Christian Andersen on Famous Like Me

Hans Christian Andersen, (April 2, 1805 - August 4, 1875) was a Danish author and poet most famous for his fairy tales.

Personal life

Andersen was born in Odense, Denmark, on 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 Hans Christian Andersen Center, his paternal grandmother told him that the family had once been in a higher social class. However, investigation has proven 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, as described in this essay.

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 changed. A colleague at the theatre had referred to him as a poet. Andersen took this very seriously and began focusing 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 published 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.

Some people recognize the feeling of "being different", usually resulting in pain, as the key motif of his works. 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 Edward 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 apparently was not erotically attracted to men, wrote in his own Memoirs: I found myself unable to respond to this love, and this caused the author much suffering. It is impressive that the young Collin was not repulsed by the idea of homosexually erotic love, instead, he simply felt that he could not respond in kind. Likewise, the infatuations of the author for the Danish dancer Harald Scharff and the young duke of Weimar did not result in a partnership of remarkable notoriety. One of his most famous stories, The Ugly Duckling, is particularly revealing of Anderson's early life and his minority sexual feelings.

Anderson went through life as the proverbial bachelor in the tradition of men who were not strictly heterosexual in his day. It is interesting to note that at an early point in Andersen's life, his private journal records his refusal to have sexual relations with women [and though men are not specified, one could presume he means with men as well--i.e. no sexual relations at all] 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 travelling 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 instalment 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 recognised 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 traveller, 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 June 1847, 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 Anderson 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 instalments, 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.

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
• 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".

Links of Interest

List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people, fairy tale writers

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Hans Christian Andersen