It is the birthday of Danish author and poet Hans Christian Andersen, born in 1805 in the town of Odense. He went to work at a young age, supporting himself first as a weavers apprentice, then a tailors. At 14, he moved to Copenhagen, hoping to become an actor, and began writing when a theater colleague called him a poet. He published his first story, The Ghost at Palnatokes Grave, in 1822. He eventually went to college, but he was a mediocre student. He considered himself a novelist and playwright, and he wrote travelogues, beginning with the conventional framework of description and documentary account but building something unique with his inclusion of musings on larger themes like the role of the author and the nature of fiction. But its for his three collections of fairy tales that he is best known. Since he never mastered writing in the formal Danish style in school, he wrote in the everyday language of the common Danish people, and he refused to talk down to children or shelter them from the dark and scary. Later translators cut out some of the scarier parts and gave the tales happy endings, and so we often think of them as lighthearted and innocent, but that was not really the case. His fairy tales inspired Charles Dickens, who became his friend, and also Oscar Wilde. His personal life was a succession of unrequited longings for women, including the singer Jenny Lind, and occasionally men. He never married, but was well aware of how beloved he was by the worlds children. Not long before his death, he was conferring with the composer of his funeral march, and told him, Most of the people who walk after me will be children, so make the beat keep time with little steps. In Andersens honor, his birthday was declared International Childrens Book Day, a day to promote childrens literature and foster a love of reading in the worlds youth. --thanks to The Writers Almanac Andersen still continues to be a force in storytelling. Walt Disneys Frozen, is a retelling of his fairy tale, The Snow Queen.
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 14:09:25 +0000
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