Steen Steensen Blicher

Steen Steensen Blicher (11 October 1782, Vium – 26 March 1848 in Spentrup) was a writer and poet born in Vium near Viborg, Denmark.

Biography

Blicher was the son of a literarily inclined Jutlandic parson whose family was distantly related to Martin Luther.

He grew up in close contact with nature and peasant life in the moor areas of central Jutland. After trying his hand as a teacher and a tenant farmer, he at last became a parson like his father and from 1825 to 1847 served in the parish of Spentrup.

As a clergyman, Blicher is said to have been less than inspired. His main interests were hunting and writing. In 1842, he was accused of alcoholism and abandoned from a Cooperation of Danish writers. Many struggles with his superiors the following years led to his dismissal shortly before his death.

He had ten children, seven sons and three daughters, with his wife Ernestine Juliane Berg, whom he married on 11 June 1810.

Prose

Blicher is known as the pioneer of the short story in Danish. From the 1820s until his death he wrote several tales that were published in local periodicals (mostly dealing with his home region), as well as historical and amateur scientific sketches. Much of this work is entertainment but as many as twenty or thirty pieces have been called literary masterpieces.

In his prose, Blicher describes human fate in his home region in Jutland. Blicher is often called a tragic and melancholic writer, but he is not without wit and humour.

Blicher is one of the first novelists to make significant use of the unreliable narrator theme in literature. Four notable examples are: