Andersen (1805-1875) was a famous Danish fairy tale writer in the 19th century and the founder of fairy tales in world literature. He was born in a poor shoemaker family in Odense. He studied at a charity school and worked as an apprentice in his early years. Influenced by his father and folk oral literature, he loved literature since childhood. When he was 11 years old, his father died of illness and his mother remarried. In order to pursue art, he came to Copenhagen alone at the age of 14. After eight years of hard work, he finally showed his talent in the poetic drama "Alfsol". Therefore, he was sent to Slagelsee Grammar School and Helsingo School for free by the Royal Theater of Arts. It lasted 5 years. In 1828, he entered the University of Golhagen. After graduation, he has never had a job and mainly relies on royalties to make a living. In 1838, he received a writer's bonus - the state allocated him a non-public service allowance of 200 yuan every year.
Andersen never married and died of illness on August 4, 1875 at the home of his friend, the businessman Melchor.
Andersen's literary career began in 1822. In the early days, he mainly wrote poems and plays. After entering university, his creations became increasingly mature. He has published travel notes and musical comedies, as well as poetry collections and poetry plays. In 1833, he published the novel "The Improvisational Poet", which won him international reputation and is his representative work of adult literature.
"In order to fight for the future generation", Andersen decided to write fairy tales for children and published "Stories for Children". In the following years, a collection of such fairy tales was published every Christmas. After that, he continued to publish new works until he gradually stopped writing due to cancer in 1872. In the past 40 years, he has written a total of 168 fairy tales.
Andersen's fairy tales have a unique artistic style: poetic beauty and comic humor. The former is the dominant style and is mostly reflected in eulogizing fairy tales, while the latter is mostly reflected in satirical fairy tales.
Andersen's creation can be divided into three periods: early, middle and late. Early fairy tales are mostly full of beautiful fantasy and optimistic spirit, reflecting the characteristics of a combination of realism and romanticism. His representative works include "The Tinderbox", "The Flowers of Little Ida", "Thumbelina", "The Daughter of the Sea", "The Wild Swan", "The Ugly Duckling", etc. In the middle period of fairy tales, the fantasy component is weakened and the realistic component is relatively enhanced. In lashing out the ugliness and praising the good, it expresses the persistent pursuit of a better life and also reveals the melancholy of lack of confidence. Representative works include "The Little Match Girl", "Snow Queen", "Shadow", "A Drop of Water", "Mother's Story", "The Puppet Show", etc. Fairy tales in the late period are more face to reality than those in the middle period, focusing on describing the tragic fate of the people at the bottom and exposing the coldness, darkness and injustice of social life. The tone of the work is sombre. His representative works include "Dream Under the Willows", "She's a Waste", "Bachelor's Nightcap", "Lucky Belle", etc.
The story summary of "The Daughter of the Sea" is: Neptune has a beautiful and kind-hearted daughter, the Little Mermaid. The little mermaid fell in love with the prince, and in order to pursue love and happiness, she endured great pain and took off her fish form in exchange for a human form. But the prince finally married a human woman. The witch told the little mermaid that as long as she killed the prince and let the prince's blood flow to her legs, the little mermaid could return to the sea and live a carefree life again. But she threw herself into the sea and turned into foam. The Danish people admire the Little Mermaid's spirit of sacrifice and noble sentiment. In order to commemorate her forever, they carefully crafted this bronze statue of the Little Mermaid. Some of the models of the statue are said to be ballerinas who participated in the performance at the Royal Danish Theater at that time, and some are said to be the sculptor's wife. The bronze statue is similar in size to the human body, with its lower limbs in the shape of a fish tail and its upper body in the shape of a lifelike beauty with a calm expression and a slightly shy and melancholy face.
The mermaid statue is the symbol of the Kingdom of Denmark