Johan Herman Wessel
Johan Herman Wessel (
October 6,
1742 -
December 29,
1785) was a major name in
Norwegian and
Danish literature. (Norway-Denmark being in union at the time.) Some of his satirical poems are still popular. The traditional restaurant
Wesselstuen in
Bergen, Norway contains many of his works as decorations.
He was born and raised in
Vestby,
Akershus,
Norway, son of a priest, and was the elder brother of mathematician
Caspar Wessel. He was a relative of the naval hero
Peder Tordenskjold.
Living most of his (
bohemian) life in
Copenhagen dependent on casual work and weakened by a bad health and drinking Wessel became the popular and admired centre of
Norske Selskab ("
The Norwegian Society") a very important club of Norwegian literates cultivating their national identity and writing in classical metres.
First of all Wessel is known for his many humorous and satiric
verse tales (ed. 1784-1785), referring to man's foolishness and injustice. Most famous is
Smeden og Bageren ("The Smith and the Baker") about the only smith of a village who is pardonned 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. The style of Wessel 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. Many of them are still quoted.
His satirical play
Kierlighed uden Strømper (i. e. "Love and No Stockings" or "Love with out stockings" ,
1774) is a biting
parody of poor imitations of the French classical drama (not as often thought on French classical drama in itself); it takes place in a daily milieu of banal conflicts but observes the formal rules of "heroic language". It is still performed.
