Poets

Johan Ludvig Heiberg (December 14, 1791 – August 25, 1860), Danish poet and critic, son of the political writer Peter Andreas Heiberg (1758–1841), and of the novelist, afterwards the Baroness Gyllembourg-Ehrensvärd, was born in Copenhagen.

In 1800 his father was exiled and settled in Paris, where he was employed in the French foreign office, retiring in 1817 with a pension. His political and satirical writings continued to exercise great influence over his fellow-countrymen. Johan Ludvig Heiberg was taken by K.L. Rahbek and his wife into their house, Bakkehuset (now part of the Danish Maritime Safety Administration). He was educated at the University of Copenhagen, and his first publication, entitled The Theatre for Marionettes (1814), included two romantic dramas. This was followed by Christmas Jokes and New Years Tricks (1816), The Initiation of Psyche (1817), and The Prophecy of Tycho Brahe, a satire on the eccentricities of the Romantic writers, especially on the sentimentality of Ingemann. These works attracted attention at a time when Baggesen, Oehlenschläger and Ingemann possessed the popular ear, and were understood at once to be the opening of a great career.

In 1817 Heiberg took his degree, and in 1819 went abroad with a grant from government. He proceeded to Paris, and spent the next three years there with his father. In 1822 he published his drama Nina and was made professor of the Danish language at the University of Kiel, where he delivered a course of le..