JOHAN LUDVIG

HEIBERG (1791-186o)  , Danish poet and critic, son of the political writer Peter Andreas Heiberg (17587 . 1841), and of the famous novelist, afterwards the Baroness Gyllembourg-Ehrensvard, was born at Copenhagen on the 14th of December 1791 . In 'Soo 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 at Bakkehuset . 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 Year's Tricks (1816), The Initiation of Psyche (1817), and The Prophecy of Hebrew and later of philosophy . In 1659 he was called to Steinfurt to fill the chair of dogmatics and ecclesiastical history, and in the same year he became doctor of theology of Heidelberg . In 166o he revisited Switzerland; and, after marrying, he travelled in the following year to Holland, where he made the acquaintance of Johannes Cocceius . He returned in 1665 to Zurich, where he was elected professor of moral philosophy .

Two years later he succeeded J . H .

Hottinger (162o–1667) in the chair of theology, which he occupied till his death on the 18th of January 1698, having declined an invitation in 1669 to succeed J . Cocceius at Leiden, as well as a call to Groningen . Heidegger was the principal author of the Formula Consensus Helvetica in 1675,which was designed to unite the Swiss Reformed churches, but had an opposite effect . W . Gass describes him as the most notable of the Swiss theologians of the time . His writings are largely controversial, though without being bitter, and are in great part levelled against the Roman Catholic Church . The chief are De historia sacra patriarcharum exercitationes selectae (1667–1671); Dissertatio de Peregrinationibus religiosis (167o); De ratione studiorum, opuscula aurea, &c . (167o); Historia papatus (1684; under the name Nicander von Hohenegg); Manuductio in viam concordiae Protestantium ecclesiasticae (1686) ; Tumulus concilii Tridentini (169o) ; Exercitationes bibbicae (1700), with a life of the author prefixed; Corpus theologiae Christianae (1700, edited by J . H . Schweizer); Ethicae Christianae elementa (1711) ; and lives of J .

H . Hottinger (1667) and J . L .

Fabricius (1698) . His autobiography appeared in 1698, under the title Historia vitae J . H . Heideggeri . See the articles in Herzog-Hauck's Realencyklopadie and the Allgemeine deutsche Biographic; and cf . W . Gass, Geschichte der protestantischen Dogmatik, ii . 353 if . 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, Ohlenschlager 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 of Nina, and was made professor of the Danish language at the university of Kiel, where he delivered a course of lectures, comparing the Scandinavian mythology as found in the Edda with the poems of Ohlenschlager . These lectures were published in German in 1827 . In 1825 Heiberg came back to Copenhagen for the purpose of introducing the vaudeville on the Danish stage . He composed a great number of these vaudevilles, of which the best known are King Solomon and George the Hatmaker (1825); April Fools (1826); A Story in Rosenborg Garden (1827); Kjoge Huskors (1831); The Danes in Paris (1833); No (1836); and Yes (1839) . He took his models from the French theatre, but showed extraordinary skill in blending the words and the music; but the subjects and the humour were essentially Danish and even topical . Meanwhile he was producing dramatic work of a more serious kind; in 1828 he brought out the national drama of Elverhoi; in 183o The Inseparables; in 1835 the fairy comedy of The Elves, a dramatic version of Tieck's Elfin; and in 1838 Fata Morgana . In 1841 Heiberg published a volume of New Poems containing " A Soul after Death," a comedy which is perhaps his master-piece, " The Newly Wedded Pair," and other pieces . He edited from 1827 to 1830 the famous weekly, the Flyvende Post (The Flying Post), and subsequently the Interimsblade (1834–1837) and the Intelligensblade (1842–1843) . In his journalism he carried on his warfare against the excessive pretensions of the Romanticists, and produced much valuable and penetrating criticism of art and literature .

In 1831 he married the actress Johann

Louise Paetges (1812–1890), herself the author of some popular vaudevilles . Heiberg's scathing satires, however, made him very unpopular; and this antagonism reached its height when, in 1845, he published his malicious little drama of The Nut Crackers . Nevertheless he became in 1847 director of the national theatre . He filled the post for seven years, working with great zeal and conscientiousness, but was forced by intrigues from without to resign it in 1854 . Heiberg died at Bonderup, near Ringsted, on the 25th of August 186o . His influence upon taste and critical opinion was greater than that of any writer of his time, and can only be compared with that of Holberg in the 18th century . Most of the poets of the Romantic movement in Denmark were very grave and serious; Heiberg added the element of humour, elegance and irony . He had the genius of good taste, and his witty and delicate productions stand almost unique in the literature of his country . The poetical works of Heiberg were collected, in 11 vols., in 1861–1862, and his prose writings (11 vols.) in the same year . The last volume of his prose works contains some fragments of autobiography . See also G . Brandes, Essays (1889) .

For the

elder Heiberg see monographs by Thaarup (1883) and by Schwanenflugel (1891) .