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ESAIAS See also: Swedish writer, was See also: born on the 13th of See also: November 1782, at Kyrkerud in Wermland
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His See also: father was a pastor, and his grandparents on both sides were peasants
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His father, whose name had been Esaias Lucasson, took the surname of Tegnerus—altered by his fifth son, the poet, to Tegner—from the See also: hamlet of Tegnaby in SmEand, where he was born
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" In 1792 Tegnerus died
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In 1799 Esaias See also: Tegner, hitherto educated in the country, entered the university of See also: Lund, where he graduated in philosophy in 1802, and continued as tutor until 18ro, when he was elected See also: Greek lecturer
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In 18o6 he married Anna Maria Gustava Myhrman, to whom he had been attached since his earliest youth
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In 1812 he was named professor, and continued to See also: work as a lectw"er in Lund until 1824, when he was made See also: bishop of See also: Vexio
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At Vexio he
TEGNER 505
remained until his See also: death, twenty-two years later
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Tegner's early poems have little merit
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He was comparatively slow in development
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His first See also: great success was a dithyrambic war-See also: song for the army of ,8o8, which stirred every Swedish See also: heart
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In 1811 his patriotic poem Svea won the great prize of the Swedish See also: Academy, and made him famous
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In the same See also: year was founded in See also: Stockholm the See also: Gothic See also: League (GOtiska forbundet), a sort of See also: club of See also: young and patriotic men of letters, of whom Tegner quickly became the chief
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The club published a See also: magazine, entitled Iduna, in which it printed a great See also: deal of excellent See also: poetry, and ventilated its views, particularly as regards the study of old Icelandic literature and See also: history
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Tegner, See also: Geijer, Afzelius, and See also: Nicander became the most famous members of the Gothic League
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Of the very numerous poems written by Tegner in the little See also: room at Lund which is now shown to visitors as the Tegner museum, the majority are See also: short, and even occasional lyrics
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His celebrated Song to the See also: Sun See also: dates from 1817
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He completed three poems of a more ambitious character, on which his fame chiefly rests
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Of these, two, the See also: romance of Axel (1822) and the delicately-chiselled See also: idyl of Nattvardsbarnen (" The First Communion," 182o), translated by Longfellow, take a secondary place in comparison with Tegner's masterpiece, of See also: world-wide fame
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In 182o he published in Iduna certain fragments. of an epic or See also: cycle of epical pieces, on which he was then working, Frithjofs saga or the See also: Story of Frithiof
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In 1822 he published five more cantos, and in 1825 the entire poem
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Before it was completed it was famous throughout See also: Europe; the aged Goethe took up his See also: pen to commend to his countrymen this " alte, kraftige, gigantischbarbarische Dichtart," and desired Amalie von Imhoff to translate it into See also: German
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This romantic paraphrase of an See also: ancient saga was composed in twenty-four cantos, all differing in verse See also: form, modelled somewhat, it is only See also: fair to say, on an earlier Danish masterpiece, the Helge of Ohlenschlager
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Frithjofs saga is the best known of all Swedish productions; it is said to have been translated twenty-two times into See also: English, twenty times into German, and once at least into every See also: European language
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It is far from satisfying the demands of more See also: recent antiquarian research, but it still is allowed to give the freshest existing impression, in imaginative form, of See also: life in early Scandinavia
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In later years Tegner began, but See also: left unfinished, two important epical poems, Gerda and Kronbruden
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The See also: period of the publication of Frithjofs saga (1825) was the critical epoch of his career
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It made him one of the most famous poets in Europe; it transferred him from his study in Lund to the bishop's palace in Vexio; it marked the first breakdown of his See also: health, which had hitherto been excellent; and it witnessed a singular moral crisis in the inner history of the poet, about which much has been written, but of which little is known
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Tegner was at this See also: time passionately in love with a certain beautiful See also: Euphrosyne Palm, the wife of a See also: town councillor in Lund, and this unfortunate passion, while it in-spired much of his finest poetry, turned the poet's See also: blood to See also: gall
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From this time forward the heartlessness of woman is one of Tegner's See also: principal themes
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It is a remarkable sign of the condition of Sweden at that time that a See also: man not in See also: holy orders, and so little in possession of the religious temperament as Tegner, should be offered and should accept a bishop's crosier
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He did not hesitate in accepting it: it was a great honour; he was poor; and he was anxious to get away from Lund
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No sooner, however, had he begun to study for his new duties than he began to regret the step he had taken
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It was nevertheless too See also: late to go back, and Tegner made a respectable bishop as long as his health lasted
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But he became moody and melancholy; as early as 1833 he complained of fiery heats in his See also: brain, and in 184o, during a visit to Stockholm, he suddenly became insane
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He was sent to an See also: asylum in See also: Schleswig, and early in 1841 he was cured, and able to return to Vexio
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It was during his convalescence in Schleswig that he composed Kronbruden . He wrote no more of importance; in 1843 he had a stroke of apoplexy, and on the 2nd of November 1846 he died in Vexio . From 1819 he had been a member of the Swedish Academy, where he was succeeded by his biographer and best imitatorSee also: Bottiger
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See Bottiger, Teckning of Tegners Lefnad ; Georg See also: Brandes, Esaias Tegner; Thommander, Tankar och ojen
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