manor on
Lolland in Denmark, which inspired the poet's '''' ,
Germany. Baggesen was born at
Korsør on the
Danish island of
Zealand on February 15, 1764. His parents were very poor, and he was sent to
copy documents at the office of the clerk of
Hornsherred District before he was twelve. He was a melancholy, feeble child, and he attempted
suicide more than once. By dint of indomitable perseverance, he managed to gain an education; in 1782, he entered the
University of Copenhagen. His first work—a verse
Comical Tales broadly similar to the later
Broad Grins of
Colman the Younger—took the capital by storm and the struggling poet found himself a popular favorite at age 21. He then tried more serious
lyric poetry and his
tact, elegant manners, and versatility gained him a place in the best society. In March 1789, his success collapsed when his
opera Holger Danske was received with mockery of its many faults and a heated
nationalist controversy over Baggesen's association with
Germans. He left Denmark in a rage and spent the next years in
Germany,
France, and
Switzerland. In 1790, he married at
Bern and began to write in
German. He published his next poem '
("Alpine Song") in that language, but brought the Danish ' ("
Labyrinth") as a peace offering upon his return to
Denmark in the winter. It was received with unbounded homage. Over the next twenty years, he published volumes alternately in Danish and German and wandered across northern Europe before settling principally in
Paris. His most important German work during this period was the 1803 idyllic
hexameter epic called
Parthenais. Upon his 1806 visit to
Copenhagen, he found the young
Oehlenschläger hailed as the great poet of the day and his own popularity on the wane. He then stayed, engaging in one abusive
literary feud after another, most with the underlying issue that Baggesen was determined not to allow Oehlenschläger to be considered a greater poet than himself. He finally left for Paris in 1820, where he lost his second wife and youngest child in 1822. Suffering a period of
imprisonment for his debts, he fell at last into a hopeless melancholy madness. Having slightly recovered, he determined to see Denmark once more, but died en route at the
Freemasons' hospital in
Hamburg on October 3, 1826. He was buried at
Kiel. ==Legacy==