Showing posts with label Danish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Danish. Show all posts

Sunday, April 17, 2022

Apr. 17: Isak Dinesen, Danish author

BORN APRIL 17:

Isak Dinesen (1885-1962) was a Danish author who wrote novels, poems, and short stories, and was known for Out of Africa; Seven Gothic Tales; and "Babette's Feast." She was a woman of many names: born Karen Dinesen, "Isak" is a pen name, as was Tania Blixen, Osceola, and Pierre Andrézel. She married Baron Bror Fredrik von Blixen-Finecke, and ended up with the weighty name Baroness Karen Christenze von Blixen-Finecke. "Isak Dinesen" will do nicely. Out of Africa, which became a film starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford that won Best Picture and Best Director (Sydney Pollack) Oscars, was based on her life while living in Kenya (1914-1931); the film version of her story "Babette's Feast" won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

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Saturday, April 2, 2022

Apr. 2: Hans Christian Andersen, Danish author of fairy tales

BORN APRIL 2:

Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was a Danish author who actually wrote plays, travel literature, novels, and poems, but we remember him today for his 156 fairy tales. One list of his "top ten" includes "The Emperor's New Clothes," about a vain emperor who gets exposed before his subjects; "The Little Mermaid," who wants to gain a human soul; "The Nightingale," in which the real thing competes with a mechanical bird for an emperor's favor; "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," who loves a paper ballerina; "The Red Shoes," about a vain girl forced to dance non-stop in her fancy footwear; "The Princess and the Pea," about a young woman whose sensitivity proves her royal ancestry; "The Snow Queen," on the struggle between good and evil as played out in the love between two children, Gerda and her friend Kai; "The Ugly Duckling," about a baby bird who is more than he seems; "The Little Match Girl," about a dying child's dreams and hope; and "Thumbelina," about a tiny girl who dodges loathsome critters to marry a flower-fairy prince. Many of Andersen's stories have inspired ballets, plays, and animated and live-action films.

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Thursday, October 7, 2021

Oct. 7: Niels Bohr, Danish physicist

BORN OCTOBER 7th:

Niels Bohr (1885-1962) Danish physicist (and philosopher of science) known for Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge; Nobel Prize in Physics (1922). His primary contributions were in the areas of atomic structure and quantum theory; his theory of the atom superseded that of Ernest Rutherford, and in turn was displaced by that of Heisenberg, Schrödinger, et al.

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