Johan Herman Wessel (6 October 1742 – 29 December 1785) was an 18th-century Danish-Norwegian poet, satirist and playwright. His written work was characterized by the use of parody and satiric wit.

Biography

Wessel was born and raised at

Vestby Vestby is a municipality in former Akershus now Viken county, Norway. It is part of the Follo traditional region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Vestby. General information Name The municipality (originally t ...

in Akershus,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

. He was the son of Jonas Wessel (1707–1785) and Helene Maria Schumacher (1715–1789). His father was a parish priest. He was one of thirteen children in a family. His younger brothers included mathematician

Caspar Wessel Caspar Wessel (8 June 1745, Vestby – 25 March 1818, Copenhagen) was a Danish– Norwegian mathematician and cartographer. In 1799, Wessel was the first person to describe the geometrical interpretation of complex numbers as points in the comp ...

(1745–1818) and jurist Ole Christopher Wessel (1744–1794) His sister-in-law was landowner Maren Juel (1749–1815) and naval hero

Peter Tordenskjold Peter Jansen Wessel Tordenskiold (28 October 1690 – 12 November 1720), commonly referred to as Tordenskjold (), was a Norwegian nobleman and flag officer who spent his career in the service of the Royal Dano-Norwegian Navy. He rose to the ran ...

(1690–1720) was his grand uncle. He entered attended

Oslo Cathedral School Schola Osloensis, known in Norwegian as Oslo Katedralskole (''Oslo Cathedral School'') and more commonly as "Katta",University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen ( da, Københavns Universitet, KU) is a prestigious public research university in Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in Scandinavia after Uppsala Unive ...

in 1761. At the university, he studied foreign languages. He later made a living principally as a tutor and translator. He lived most of his somewhat

bohemian Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to: *Anything of or relating to Bohemia Beer * National Bohemian, a brand brewed by Pabst * Bohemian, a brand of beer brewed by Molson Coors Culture and arts * Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, origin ...

life in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

, dependent on casual work and weakened by bad health and drinking. Wessel became the admired centre of The Norwegian Society (''Norske Selskab'') a grouping of Norwegian literary figures cultivating their national identity in Copenhagen, and writing in classical metres.

Personal life

In 1780, he married Anna Catharia Bukier (1748–1813). They were the parents of one son, Jonas Wessel who was born in 1781. The marriage suffered from his alcoholism, depression and inability as a provider. Johan Herman Wessel died at age 43 in

and was buried in the cemetery of

Trinitatis Church The Trinitatis Church (''Trinitatis Kirke'') is located in central Copenhagen, Denmark. It is part of the 17th century Trinitatis Complex, which includes the Rundetårn astronomical observatory tower and the Copenhagen University Library, in ad ...

Works

Wessel's poems and plays are frequently satirical and humorous. His literary style is deliberate elaborate and digressive and at the same time elegant and witty. Another genre is the epigram that he mastered, especially his short, witty, impudent, precise and also self-ironic commemorative poems. Wessel is known first of all for his many humorous and satiric verse tales referring to man's foolishness and injustice. Most notable is ''Smeden og Bageren'' ("The Smith and the Baker") about the only smith of a village who is pardoned for manslaughter since the village people need one, while a more superfluous baker is executed instead (there are two bakers, the village only needs one) in order to observe the rules that "life pays life". In ''Herremanden'' ("The Squire") a man coming to Hell makes unpleasant discoveries of the origin of his own son while ''Hundemordet'' ("The Dog Murder") tells about wrangle about trivial things. His satirical play '' Kierlighed uden Strømper'' ( ''Love without Stockings'', 1772—with epilogue, 1774) is a generic

parody A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its sub ...

of neoclassical tragedy; it takes place in a daily milieu of banal conflicts but observes the formal rules of "heroic language". It is still performed. Another play ''Anno 7603'' was written in 1781. It has a low literary value, and it has never been performed—it is held in such low esteem that it is often omitted from lists of his works —but it has some cult status since this is one of the first examples of

time travel in fiction Time travel is a common theme in fiction, mainly since the late 19th century, and has been depicted in a variety of media, such as literature, television, film, and advertisements. The concept of time travel by mechanical means was popularized ...

. The main characters, Leander and Julie, are moved by a fairy to a future (AD 7603) in which gender roles have been switched and only women are allowed to fight in the military. The traditional restaurant ''Wesselstuen'' in Bergen, Norway features many decorations inspired by his works.

References

Other sources

* Liv Bliksrud, ''Johan Herman Wessel og hans tid'', Wesselakademiet, 2000. (Norwegian) * Liv Bliksrud, ''Den smilende makten : Norske Selskab i København og Johan Herman Wessel'', Aschehoug, 1999. . (Norwegian)

External links