Grundtvig

Grundtvig, Nikolai Frederik (1783-1872), was a Danish poet, and politician. He was born at Udby, and educated at Aarhuus, entering in 1800 the university of Copenhagen. He studied Icelandic, and, obtaining an appointment as private tutor, he turned his attention to Shakspeare, Schiller, and Fichte. He took orders, and wrote some controversial works, and took an active interest in politics prior to the war with Prussia. He came to England, and studied Anglo-Saxon, one result of this being the publication in 1840 of an Anglo-Saxon poem, The Phcenix, with a Danish translation. Others of his works are a treatise on the songs of the Edda, Northern Mytlwlogy (1808), Decline of the Heroic Life in the North (1809), Songs for the Danish Church (1837), and Selections of Ancient Scandinavian Verse (1838).