Holger Drachmann

Holger Drachmann (Copenhagen, 1846 - Copenhagen, 1908) was a Danish poet and playwright who also worked as a painter of marine subjects. He is regarded as a leading figure of the Modern Breakthrough, the movement that reshaped Scandinavian literature in the second half of the nineteenth century. His work is notable for combining a rebellious, modern outlook with a romantic sensibility.

Drachmann grew up in Copenhagen after his mother died when he was young, and he became largely self-reliant. He enjoyed staging heroic games with friends, in which he played Danish naval heroes. Behind in his studies, he entered university in 1865 and the following year moved to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts to train as a marine painter. Around 1870 the influence of the critic Georg Brandes drew him toward literature, which soon took up most of his time. His travel letters to Danish newspapers launched his career as a writer. His first poetry collection, Digte, appeared in 1872, and Dæmpede Melodier (1875) confirmed a real poetic gift. Sange ved Havet; Venezia (1877) became one of his most admired works. His private life, marked by marriages, love affairs and scandal, was closely tied to the women he called his muses, among them Edith, a cabaret singer who inspired much of his love poetry.

Around 1880 he broke with Brandes and the radicals and became the head of a nationalist, popular-conservative current in Denmark. He wrote successfully about fishermen and sailors, and his plays, such as Der var engang (1885), remained popular on the Danish stage. His style, at times rhetorical and expansive, has led some critics to compare him with the English poet Swinburne. Much of his work is now forgotten, yet he remains one of the most popular Danish poets of his era, and his home in Skagen, which became a museum after his death, preserves his memory.