11 Facts About Henrik Pontoppidan

Henrik Pontoppidan was the youngest and in many ways the most original and influential member of the Modern Break-Through.

The son of a Jutlandic vicar and belonging to an old family of vicars and writers, Henrik Pontoppidan gave up an education as an engineer, worked as a primary school teacher and finally became a freelance journalist and full-time writer, making his debut in 1881.

Henrik Pontoppidan was perhaps the first Danish progressive writer to break with an idealised portrayal of farmers.

The couple separated in 1889, after Henrik Pontoppidan met Antoinette Caroline Elise Kofoed.

Henrik Pontoppidan married Kofoed in 1892, and they had a daughter and a son.

Henrik Pontoppidan had to provide for two families, which presented many difficulties.

Between 1933 and 1943 Henrik Pontoppidan wrote two different versions of his Memoirs, in which he tried to define his own view of his personal development.

Henrik Pontoppidan often revised previous works, simplifying them but changing their plot or sharpening their attitude.

In spite of being well known as a man of positions and attitudes Henrik Pontoppidan remains one of the most discussed modern Danish writers.

Henrik Pontoppidan was a man of many paradoxes: a clear liberal in his time, but a stern patriot, an anti-clerical puritan, a disillusioned fighting nature, collaborating with socialists but always from an independent and individualist position.

Henrik Pontoppidan has been regarded both as the absolute antagonist of Georg Brandes and as his most congenial pupil.