Compiled and edited by Heidi Siestø 1998
Grundtvig, Nikolai Frederik Severin (1783 - 1872), Danish poet, churchman, historian, politician, educator and philologist. Besides from Søren Kirkegaard, Grundtvig was the most prominent figure to Danish intellectual life in the 19th century. Due to his forceful personality and gargantuan life's work, he is undoubtedly the one who during the 19th century has influenced his contemporaries and posterity the most.
He was born in an era which proceeded from autocracy to democracy, from rationalism to romanticism, from intellectual sleep to vivid life and manners. During almost three quarters of a century he produced a great amount of work as a historian and reformer of the school system, as a popular and political spokesman and as a fierce spokesman for intellectual and civil freedom. But first and foremost, he was one of the most prominent Danish poets, a popular and Christian skald who was capable of putting his ideas and visions into songs and hymns of which a large number are still commonly used and which have become an inexhaustible source for the general public and adherents. With his originality and strength, he played a dominant role within different spheres all of which was linked without restraint to his one and only endeavour; renewing Danish folklore and Christianity. This versatility was closely connected to Grundtvig's own life story. Despite of this versatility only one objective was of importance; he wanted to arouse the people from its lethargy, to arouse it from ignorance and intellectual lethargy to an energetic life. "In the footsteps of our noble ancestors", to vivid Christianity and conscious Danish patriotism, to the comprehension of his divine vocation and his historical task in the large community of humanity. Grundtvig was considered a champion who had to fight with himself as well as with his God and his surroundings. Grundtvig conquered and obtained sufficient clarity and obsequiousness to become a comforter and a director, a preacher of the gospel in stead of a chastiser. Those were dearly bought experiences but faith in and hope for versatile life and manners under the Grace of God became the leading principle in his ministry and public deed.
The Life of Grundtvig
Grundtvig was born in Udby in South Zealand and came of a Conservative
- pietistic clerical stock. At the age of nine, he was sent away from
home to prepare him for admission to the cathedral school in Aarhus [Aarhus
Kathedralskole] which he attended from 1798 to 1800. Later, his experiences
from Aarhus Kathedralskole became part of the reason why he departed from
"black educational theory and practice". Grundtvig came to Copenhagen
in 1800. He passed his A-levels and in 1803 he graduated from the study
of theology at Copenhagen University. Despite of this, Grundtvig had,
however, departed from the pietistic Christianity of his home and declared
himself a staunch rationalist.
In March 1805 Grundtvig came to a manor named Egeløkke in Langeland in
order to take up an appointment as private tutor to the six-year-old Steensen-Leth.
During his studies, Grundtvig had already produced several literary works
which, however, were never published. But his writings at Egeløkke took
a new direction which emerged from the growing interest in the Nordic
mythology and Romantic poetry and philosophy. Later it turned out that
it was this poetic cognition which helped him through his unrequited love
to the six-year-older lady of the house, Constance Steensen-Leth.
In 1808 Grundtvig went back to Copenhagen and took up an appointment as
a teacher at a Danish grammar school named Det Scouboeske Institut.
Grundtvig's promising literary career was interrupted in the spring of
1810 when his father called him to Udby in order for him to take up the
appointment as curate. At Grundtvig's trial sermon in Copenhagen, which
caused him to be reprimanded by the university, he attacked the rationalistic
sermon of that age in that he stated; "Wherefore has the Word of
the Lord disappeared from His House?"
Later, he was considerably conscious that he was called to reform the
Danish National Evangelical Lutheran Church but he was paralysed at the
question whether he was a Christian himself. This mental crisis made him
write the Danish children's song "Dejlig er den himmel blå"
[Lovely is the blue sky] which significantly anticipates the surmounting
of the crisis.
On 29 May 1811 Grundtvig was ordained and went to Udby in order to take
up his appointment as a clergyman. In his capacity as clergyman for the
congregations in Udby - Ørslev, Grundtvig only maintained this profound
pietistic - moralising way of delivering his sermon for two years. In
1813, after his father's death, Grundtvig went back to Copenhagen. In
the meantime he published a world history and had had literary feuds with
the opponents of his ideas within the cultural élite in Copenhagen. In
1815 he announced that he wanted to resign as a clergyman as a protest
against being disregarded by the authorities with the power to appoint.
Grundtvig devoted himself to his writings and in 1818 he married Lise
Blicher who was the daughter of a clergyman from Præstø and they had a
son in 1822. The King awarded him an annual grant and at the beginning
of 1821 he was appointed vicar in Præstø without having filed an application.
Despite of the lack of progress in Copenhagen and with the sense of soon
to be the only true Danish Christian preacher, it was with excitement
that Grundtvig became a clergyman at Vor Frelsers Kirke - Our Saviour's
Church in Christianshavn.
On behalf of his written theological works which were published by professor
of theology H. N. Clausen, Grundtvig and professor Clausen had such fierce
discussions which caused H. N. Clausen to bring legal actions against
Grundtvig for libel.
The year after, Grundtvig was ordered to life censorship (which, however,
was revoked on 1 December 1837). As a protest, Grundtvig resigned from
his office as a churchman in May 1826 one week before Whitsuntide when
the millennium of the first Christian sermon in Denmark was to be celebrated.
Grundtvig had been without benefice since 1826 but in 1839 he was appointed
chaplain at Vartov's hospital chapel.
In 1851 his first wife died and shortly after he married Marie Toft. Shortly
after Marie died in 1854 and Grundtvig contracted marriage for the third
and the last time with Asta Reedtz.
Grundtvig's work as a poet, writer and churchman remained unweakened during
most of his old age. He took a keen interest in the general debate about
religious and political topics. The significance of Grundtvig to his contemporaries
and his inspiration can hardly be overestimated.
Orally and in writing, it was Grundtvig who stood behind the clerical
and the political empowerment of the Danish rural population in the 1800s
resulting in a wide range of spiritual, practical and economic measures.
View of human nature
Grundtvig's view of human nature emphasised that human beings and human
life contain much more than natural science can explain and describe.
"Man is far more than man can personally describe". Because
the point of departure within all Grundtvig's doings was the varied versatility
of life. Life was not only rational and harmonic. There were contradictions.
Life and death, truth and lies, freedom and compulsion, the human and
the inhuman. To Grundtvig, human life was greater than common sense could
hold. Grundtvig left nothing by despise to those who thought that there
was an explanation to life and that it could be worked out according to
a formula before life had been experienced.
Life is lived forwards and is experienced backwards. Knowledge is formed
when experience and reflections meet. Today, in larger parts of the world,
the human being is considered a system of biological and biochemical processes.
To Grundtvig, the human being was a divine experiment which displayed
how dust and spirit can penetrate one another...
To Grundtvig, the vitality consisted of commitment, passion, emotion and
preoccupation. The fundamental, natural and innate forces of human beings.
You ought to involve yourself in life with all your life and soul before
you could comprehend anything and have anything veracious to tell about
what it means to live and what it depends on.
Grundtvig spoke about love as the fundamental element for this vitality.
To this description of the complete human being must be added that we
acknowledge that we all possess parts of the opposite sex. To Grundtvig,
the male heart is the female element in any man. "Gargantuan courage
in a female breast", is what he called the maleness in females. Love
was to be interpreted as the interest in, the joy of craving for whom/what
love applies.
When Grundtvig fought against the rationalistic philosophy of life with
his view of human nature, it was not because he rejected science. He was
not obsessed with antiscientism nor was he a hopeless romantic, he just
wanted attention to be paid to the danger of forming a practical life
and your view of other people if it was solely based on science and rationalism
because there are more sides to life to which no scientific approach exists
but solely a universal or philosophical approach, if you like.
Popular Education
With the idea of popular education Grundtvig intended to goad people
into action in order to fight the powers and forces which are a threat
to human life and human dignity. When Grundtvig talked about popular education,
it was often with a view to the folk high school. He had bodily experienced
how barren rote learning and grinding marked "the school of death"
as he named it. The more bookish learning the cleverer but Grundtvig also
envisaged that a risk might be that people became poorer at thinking and
speaking themselves. At the same time man needed to learn to ask questions
and be confident about finding the answers on behalf of his own judgements.
Grundtvig was afraid that ³the school of death² would lead to public and
human squalor - besides from the lethal contents it would also lead to
public schism. It fostered an élite of intellectuals, professionals and
experts who turned out to suffer from "a tinsel disorder", "conceit"
and "arrogance" with their barren and lofty knowledge.
Such an élite was the root of all human and public misery.
Grundtvig took sharp issue with the predominant upbringing and education.
Indeed, human beings were created as spiritual creatures but the individual's
consciousness about this matter was not a guarantee in itself. First and
foremost, the objective for upbringing and education was meant to be a
revival of humanity, to make human beings conscious about what they were
in order for them to explore the world.
The Spoken Word
Grundtvig¹s fundamental idea was that it is the word/language which
makes human beings human. The centre of the word was the heart and not
the mind. All true education evolves from the words which can touch the
heart and thereby bring up what emotions and imagination involve.
The revival was supposed to be carried out through "the Word"!
It was by means of the spoken word that people could be enlightened about
how human beings fundamentally are and by means of the Word that human
beings must and can express the most essential matters.
It was in his capacity as private tutor at Egeløkke that Grundtvig designed
his first educational ideas. Grundtvig found that the learning of a child
is controlled by the child's wish to learn. He thought that the educator
could encourage the child's wish to learn by way of playing throughout
life.
Grundtvig launched his first accusations against the use of the Latin
language. Not only because Latin was the most predominant language within
teaching but also because he found that Latin was exponent for a certain
underlying attitude. The point of departure was that Latin helped to uphold
the gap between peasants and pundits. Grundtvig was in favour of and an
advocate of the use of the mother tongue especially because he found that
this would help to abolish class barriers.
With his fight against Latin, he initiated the fight against "the
black school" which became a prominent feature in his written educational
works.
Grundtvig is quoted for having stated that "man is no copycat".
What he meant to emphasise was that he was of the opinion that human beings
do not learn by way of copying others but by way of gaining knowledge
due to desire and will.
With the expression "The spoken word" Grundtvig meant that the
old form of teaching was to be uprooted. It was fundamentally poor teaching,
based on children being able to READ books. Grundtvig wished to supplement
education with stories, thus the spoken word. This expression formed an
integral part of Grundtvig's educational ideas for the shape of teaching.
Grundtvig's final clarification of his educational ideas was founded between
1831 and 1841. First and foremost, teaching was supposed to be for the
general public, it was to have the public¹s current conditions of life
as its point of departure and to be inspired by history and poetry which
resembled the conditions of the public as closely as possible. The manner
in which teaching was carried out was of significance to the dedication
and learning of the pupils. It was to be carried out in terms of a dialogue
between the teacher and the pupils. An interaction would be generated
which would make teaching relevant to the pupils.
At first Grundtvig's school writings did not catch on but during the 1840s
until the 1850s a number of folk high schools and Free schools [private
independent schools] were founded all of which were significantly influenced
by Grundtvig's ideas and opinions.
Grundtvig of Today
In Denmark almost everybody knows who Grundtvig was. People know that
he wrote hymns, that he was a churchman and founder of the folk high school.
But people know little about the volume of his literary works. He is far
and away the most prominent writer in the history of Denmark. He wrote
for seventy years. He was a challenge to his contemporaries in his work
as a politician, historian, scientist, philosopher, chastiser of society,
poet etc. But first and foremost he was Danish.
An advocate of the right and duties to be Danish. Grundtvig never became
renown abroad as did Søren Kirkegaard and Hans Christian Andersen. But
there is probably no doubt that we have become aware of him within our
national frontiers. Nobody has marked Danish culture to such a large extent
and so intensely. Paradoxically, we hardly notice his significance. It
has become innate Danish and inescapable. He has become part of our cultural
treasure. A treasure; an investment rooted in our national, political,
religious and corporate pattern.
Everywhere, we will find obvious and concealed links to Nikolai Frederik
Severin Grundtvig. We are all familiar with fragments of his poets and
innumerable Christmas carols.
Grundtvig is the spiritual father of the folk high school. But it was
Christian Kold who put the idea into practice. In what other countries
do we recognise such a large extent of tolerance and liberalism on behalf
of the state, that subsidies are granted to schools and other cultural
activities, the declared intent of which was to fight established order.
This vision of liberty would hardly have existed if it was not for Grundtvig.
Grundtvig died on 1 September 1872. He had just delivered his last sermon
on that day. Grundtvig is buried at the burial mound at Køge Ås.
This work has been sponsered by:
The Grundtvig Foundation and Lifelong Learning Association
www.danskoplysning.dk/grundtvig/eng/grundtvig.html
