Bernhard Severin Ingemann (28 May 1789 – 24 February 1862) was a Danish novelist and poet.
Biography
Ingemann was born in Torkilstrup, on the island of Falster, Denmark. The son of a vicar, he was left fatherless in his youth.
He attended Slagelse Latin school with the chemist William Christopher Zeise and the poet Christian Hviid Bredahl. While a student at the University of Copenhagen he published his first collection of poems (1811; vol. ii., 1812), which show great influence of German romanticism. Critics describe their sickly sentimentality as reflecting the unhealthy condition of the poet's body and mind at this time. These works were followed by a long allegorical poem, De sorte Riddere (The Black Knights, 1814), which closed his first period.
Then followed six plays, of which the best is considered to be Reinald Underbarnet (The Miraculous Child Reinald, 1816), and the most popular, Blanca, (1815). In 1817 he published his first prose work, De Underjordiske, et bornholmsk Eventyr (The Subterranean Ones, a Story of Bornholm), which was followed in 1820 by Eventyr og Fortællinger (Narratives and Miraculous Tales), many of them imitations of Hoffmann. During 1818–19 he traveled on the Continent.
In 1822 he was appointed instructor of the Danish Language and Literature at the Academy of Sorø. During his next period, inspired by Scott's Waverley novels, Ingemann produced his series of historical romances, by virtue of which he disputes with H. C. Andersen the title of the children's writer of Denmark. Their subjects are all taken from Danish history. The first, and perhaps the best, is Valdemar Sejr (Valdemar the Victorious, 1826), which was followed by Erik Menveds Barndom (Erik Menved's Childhood, 1828); Kong Erik og de Fredløse (King Erik and the Outlaws, 1833); and Prins Otto af Danmark og Hans Samtid (Prince Otto of Denmark and his Time, 1835).
