Jens Peter Jacobsen (Thisted, Jutland, 1847-1885) is one of the most celebrated writers in Danish literature. He was educated in the positivist school of the Brandes brothers and translated and disseminated Darwin's work. A botanist, poet, and novelist, he is best known for his work Niels Lyhne (written in 1880), the Arabesk and Gurresange—set to music in 1911 under the title Gurrelieder by Arnold Schönberg—and the novel Fru Maria Grubbe (1876). He died of tuberculosis at the age of thirty-eight. The impressionist chromaticism of his pages and the lyricism of his descriptions have earned the admiration of great German novelists of the 20th century, including Rainer Maria Rilke, Thomas Mann, and Stefan.
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